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!"

I'm still extremely busy over here on a number of different projects. But for today, here are a few photos from recent outings!

First, there's a dwarf worm lizard (Zygaspis species) nomming my friend Ruan's hand! This was at a reserve I can't name. We were looking for dwarf burrowing skinks, but didn't find any. . . instead we found lots and lots of these. They burrow in soft, mulchy soil found under rocks or fallen trees. They feed on small soil denizens including ant larvae and eggs.

The next three are all from the Mahela nature reserve in the Lowveld. They keep lots of wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) in a fenced camp. These dogs are quite endangered so this pack is quite precious. There are also many vultures and marabou storks on the reserve; my friends Willem and Wilmien were looking for marabou poop. This is for a study they're doing, looking at micro plastics in bird droppings, and they also want to research the internal critters in the marabou's guts. Wilmien and Willem are both parasitologists at the University of Limpopo.

At the same time as they were seeking out fresh stork plop, I was working with Prof Derek Engelbrecht and a couple of students, Lindiwe and Turiso, on a different scientific project. We were doing habitat analysis for a small region where some rare birds, Arnott's Chat, breed. They stick to tall Mopane woodland with lots of old and dead trees, and a very open understory. So we marked off a 100m x 100m block, and measured every single tree - over 240 of them. We measured the trees' heights, circumference at chest level, canopy width, and the height of the lowest 'perchable' branches or twigs. We each had a specific task to make sure we could complete this as quickly as possible.

We also encountered a number of other reserve inhabitants while doing our work, including lots of animals like giraffes, antelopes, zebras, warthogs, monkeys, squirrels and mongooses. Here are a couple of reptiles, a young leopard tortoise, and a Wahlberg's Velvet Gecko. The gecko didn't look very well . . . he was sluggish and had a malformation in his back, so I hope he was OK. . .

Willem

02.09.24 Front Page

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