Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

This past Saturday, I was on an outing with the local bird watching club. We went to Iron Crown, which is the highest mountain in Limpopo Province (which is where I live, in South Africa, in case you don't know). The peak reaches a height of 2120 m/6 950', and is situated near the town of Haenertsburg, about 60 km east of Polokwane. This mountain, though high, is not at all steep: the slopes are gentle and rounded, and there are only a few low rock outcrops near the peak, rather than sheer cliffs. A vehicle road goes all the way up to the top, although the final bit is rather rough for anything but a four-wheel-drive. We went up to about a kilometre from the peak in our cars, and climbed the rest of the way. It was not a particularly gruelling climb, and even the more elderly club members who were coming along, made it.

The reason we went there, was because this mountain region has birds that are special to it. The natural vegetation up there is mainly grassland. As I've said before in this series, grassland is not at all merely grass; there is a host of other plants growing with the grass. There are herbs, shrubs and small trees as well, of a great variety. Up on Iron Crown, there grow a lot of Protea trees and bushes in the grassland. These bear lovely flowers. A Protea 'flower' as we would call it, is actually a compound flowerhead with lots of individual, small flowers in the centre, surrounded by showy bracts. These protea flowerheads contain copious nectar, for which in Afrikaans we named them 'suikerbosse' or 'sugar bushes'. And this nectar attracts birds!

Specifically, the birds attracted to the sugar bushes are the sunbirds, and Gurney's Sugarbird, Promerops gurneyi. There are only two species of sugarbirds in South Africa, and the world! They constitute a unique family, the Promeropidae, which is confined to South Africa. (There are some probable obscure relatives of it which live in mountain forests further north in Africa.) Gurney's sugarbird is a brownish bird with a long tail and a reddish-brown breast. And we saw them! There were more sugarbirds up on the peak than I've ever seen in one place before. They were not only frequenting the proteas, but also the flowers of aloes. Together with the sugarbirds we also saw two species of nectar-drinking sunbirds: Malachite, and Greater Double-collared.

In the short mountain grassland we also saw other specials: Long-billed Pipits, which may be drab little birds, but still quite cute; Drakensberg Prinias, tiny long-tailed birds which prefer shrubby places; Wailing Cisticolas, tiny birds related to the prinias, with lovely, far-carrying ringing calls; Redwinged Francolins, small partridges which were a first for me – they first revealed themselves with their distinctive calls, and then we spotted a couple on a slope facing the peak where we were standing. We saw some jackal buzzards, large birds-of-prey with dark feathers relieved by a bright reddish-brown chest and white patches in the wings, soaring overhead and perched on trees to spy out the land for prey. We also saw a group of White-necked Ravens flying. These birds have huge bills (only the White-Naped Raven of Ethiopia has a bigger bill, in the family) and occur mostly in mountainous regions.

While the environment was mainly grassland, there were some patches of indigenous forest also. There we saw and/or heard forest specials like Cape Batis, Olive Bush Shrike and Sombre Bulbul. We were extremely lucky to also glimpse a huge Crowned Eagle, one of Africa's most powerful birds of prey, flying past.

Though we only saw 36 bird species in total, most of them were ones not at all easy to see in Polokwane's environment – unless you go to the right place!

Everlasting Love

Apart from birds, I of course as always was looking out for interesting plants. The grasslands are extremely rich in species. It makes me very sad that so much of it has been ruined by humans. Up on Iron Crown, looking out over the countryside, so much of it is now plantations of pine trees and eucalypts, which used to be open grassland. A lot of this is the fault of the British. They could not appreciate a region of open grass, but wanted trees, so they brought lots of pines from Europe and eucalypts from Australia and planted them everywhere they could. Once planted with these exotic trees, the ecology changes completely. It turns out to be almost impossible to return a patch of land once planted with pine trees, for instance, back to the original grassland. Even if you cut the trees, the soil is now different and instead of grass and the typical indigenous herbs and shrubs that grow with the grass, you now get a growth of rampant weeds. So much wild grassland has been lost that a species of reptile that lived there is now extinct, and a bird, the blue swallow, largely confined to the region is also now disappearing. There are also many grassland-specific plants that are now endangered; so much grassland is gone, having never been explored, that we might even have lost species without ever having known about them!

But there were still some pristine grassland left up there. The view I share with you here, from the top of Iron Crown, shows gentle slopes mainly covered in grass. This is the highest vantage point to be had in all of Limpopo without using a helicopter or aeroplane!

The grassland plants which most caught my eye this time, were the Everlastings, Helichrysum-species. These are members of the daisy family. They are remarkable for first of all the longevity of their flowers, from which they get their name. These remain fresh-looking for weeks or months after being cut. But not all species are showy. Most are small to tiny plants. The second reason why they're remarkable is that they often grow in cold mountainous regions, some growing higher than almost any other flowering plants. Though Iron Crown is not all that high, it is still a mountain that gets lots of wind, cold and frost. But the everlastings flourish in such climes, and I saw several species, all growing together, all flowering. Here I share with you a few of the nicest ones. Look closely for a critter perching on one of them!

The flowerhead of an everlasting is quite reminiscent of that of a Protea, even though they're not at all closely related. Both are compound flowerheads, with lots of central flowers. But Protea flowerheads are surrounded by bracts, while everlasting flowerheads are surrounded by a second kind of flower called a ray floret, while the central flowers are called disk florets. Everlastings are always low herbs or shrubs, never trees. They're not pollinated by birds, but by insects. Most species have yellowish flowers, a few with white or tinges of pink.

Though not one of those we found on Iron Crown, I want to share this everlasting with you as well, to compare with the others. I found it in the veld close to where I live, and this was the first one I found in flower. This one is Helichrysum caespititium. It is absolutely tiny – this entire plant is only about 7 cm/3" wide! Without flowers, it looks like a small patch of moss. This is one of the smallest species; the largest are large shrubs with leaves several inches in length.

Back to Iron Crown! Apart from the everlastings, other flowers included the beautiful yellow ones of the Curry Bush, Hypericum revolutum. This plant is a relative of the St. John's Wort of Europe. Its leaves, when crushed, exude a somewhat curry-like fragrance. The yellow flowers which clothe the bushes make them recognizable a long way off.

Another little plant we found in flower was this little species of either Monopsis or Lobelia. A tiny straggling herb, it was covered in these exquisite little blue blooms.

Lastly, not a flowering plant, but a fern. I always enjoy finding ferns, because they're actually rather rare in South Africa which is mostly a very dry country. Ferns are more dependent on water than flowering plants. Iron Crown gets a lot of rain, but ferns are not found (except for the ubiquitous bracken) in the open grassland, but in the shelter of rocks and bushes. This is a species of Cheilanthes with finely divided leaves, rather stiff and leathery, making it one of the toughest species, able to weather harsh weather!

There you have it. A few interesting wildlife glimpses on a short tour of Limpopo's highest mountain. I will return again in future to see what more I can find!

Colours of Wildlife Archive

Willem

28.05.18 Front Page

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