h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Last time I went to the Polokwane Bird Sanctuary and posted photos here, Peanut asked me to take some photos again to show what the environment looked like in winter – so this is what I did today! As you can see in these photos the world is quite duller and browner … it is now the height of winter, just before the spring rains. But there’s still a lot of greenery, especially close to the water. The natural vegetation of the reserve is riverine woodland and reedbeds surrounded by dry savannah.

One thing that upset me a bit was that the entire first pond – the first one the water flows into from the sewage treatment plant ‘next door’ – was completely empty! The water was diverted from it by pipelines and a small channel and it had been scraped out. That is the pond where most or all of the waterfowl can usually be seen. Today, although the other ponds did have plenty of water, I did not see a single duck, cormorant, darter, moorhen or coot. But there were some other riverside birds as you’ll see when I put up my list.

Here is the large Eucalypt near the entrance today (the purple is lense flare – I was photographing into the sun):

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Eucalypt_zps872203c3.jpg

And how it looked in April the previous time (angle not exactly the same):

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/EucalyptLilacThornTrees1b_zps78ec8d65.jpg

The riverine woodland as it looked today:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/WinterWoodland_zps8f322c9d.jpg

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Woodland_zpsc61d4dd6.jpg

And how it looked in April:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/WoodlandInterior1b_zps8a68435a.jpg

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/RiverBushwillow1b_zps23a2074c.jpg

The river as it looked today – Downstream:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/River1_zps72922d68.jpg

Upstream:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/River2_zps65624c1a.jpg

And how it looked last April – Downstream:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/River2b_zpsf404e2a6.jpg

Upstream:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/River1b_zps11f21aa1.jpg

All right and here are a few more photos! First near the entrance, a tall tree covered in a dry climber. Come spring the tree and climber both will probably erupt in new fresh leaves:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/DryClimber_zps8089ee8a.jpg

The pond scraped dry:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/DryPond_zps4c0c496f.jpg

The pipe and channel diverting water from the first pond – and some bovines:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/WaterBypass_zpse6f6c93c.jpg

More bovines! Would YOU drink water straight from the sewage treatment plant? (It doesn’t smell very nice at this point!)

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Moos2_zpsdae0977b.jpg

More moos! There were a couple of cute calves among them.

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Moos1_zps6233443e.jpg

The other ponds had water but strangely no water birds – apart from ones in the reeds and on the margins:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Pond1_zps4bfcd023.jpg

The dry savannah around the ponds:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Savannah_zps9e1608b3.jpg

A tall savannah tree:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Tree1_zpsfcea8cb2.jpg

Outside the reserve I discovered a large colony of a tiny carrion
flower species! This is Huernia stapelioides, one of the commonest carrion flowers in these parts. These ones were in large clumps usually in the shelter of thorny trees and bushes but this clump was growing on a slope in the open. The larger green plants are Bowstring Hemp, Sansevieria aethiopica. Compared to the Giant Carrion Flower about which I’d written these are much smaller, the stems rarely exceeding 1”/2.5 cm and the flowers at most being 2”/5 cm in diameter:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/CarrionFlowers_zps24a022fa.jpg

Animals had uprooted many of these small succulents. I ‘rescued’ these stems – this is the right time of year to plant them. There’s also a small bowstring hemp plant. I’ll show you how they look in a few months – they ought to recover well. Both species are quite hardy. Over here they can grow in flower beds or be kept in pots – can be quite interesting small specimens:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Uprooted_zps8acc61ae.jpg


While I mainly went to take photos of the environment, of course I also again saw lots of birds and other living things. In my next posting I’ll put a list of the birds I saw as well as some more comments.

Wow. SOunds like a good trip!

Hi Willem

I have been at those pictures side by side, I love to see the changes, thank you so much for taking the pictures and making the links so easy to follow

It has been an amazing virtual tour of the sanctuary, one that I will take again. It been great to be able to share that experience and I really appreciate you going back and taking the pictures so I (we) can compare.

I'm sorry to the dry pond and the stinky sewerage

The calves were very cute. The Bird List is impressive and a couple of exciting sightings there and some rescued plants and a spider rescue!

I'm so glad that you such an enjoyable day

Absolutely wonderful. I don't have time to go through them all now, but you are so lucky to have somewhere like that to go to.

Did you go by yourself? I always find wildlife such a tonic.

Websailor