An early morning storm

Every morning at 5.15am the sun rises over the bluegum bush at the back of our property, bathing the whole smallholding in golden sunlight.

This morning it was a bit late because of heavy, black cloud cover, but at 5.30am the miracle happened!

Twenty minutes later we had a quick shower and out came the sun again!

All Solly's chooks surfaced from their hiding places (they're up-and-about before 5am every morning, but the crowing starts at about 3.30am!) and here they're enjoying some mixed fowl food I put out for them.

For the love of English Ivy

The rugged trees are mingling

Their flowery sprays in love;

The ivy climbs the laurel

To clasp the boughs above.

Author: William Cullen Bryant

Hedera helix 'Hibernica', common ivy

I've always loved having Ivy in my garden, there's nothing like Hedera helix to quickly fill an empty spot or cover a fallen-down tree. I had a couple of patches of English Ivy in my previous garden (just 1.6km from where I live now) and, as this species is very invasive and if not kept in check, can take over the whole garden, I do not have any in my current garden.

Hedera helix Ivy climbing up a wall with no support except its own suckers

I had a gorgeous hedera helix climbing up my wall between my two kitchen windows and which was home to a pair of Wagtails. Opposite this was a dead tree totally covered in ivy and which was home to a pair of Robins. The close proximity of these two nests caused endless war between the Robins and the Wagtails, with the robins always coming out tops as the Wagtails are timid and shy birds. I used to hear the noise and screeching as the Robins terrorised the Wagtails from the kitchen, and rushing out to break up the raucous.

The dead tree covered in the ivy eventually toppled under the weight, leaving the Robins homeless, after which they, thankfully, moved to another part of the garden, leaving the Wagtails in peace.

A snippet of Ivy I planted in a pot

FOLKLORE AND FACTS
It is said that Ivy is the goddess who carries life through the winter. Holly was her god. Ivy was in high esteem among the ancients and its leaves formed the poet's crown. It was dedicated to the Roman god Bacchus, the God of Intoxication who is often depicted wearing a wreath of ivy and grapevines. He is also depicted holding a chalice and carrying a wand which was entwined with ivy and vine leaves. Wearing a wreath of ivy leaves around the brow is supposed to prevent intoxication.

Ivy has been regarded as the emblem of fidelity and Greek priests would present a wreath of ivy to newly married persons. Women carried ivy to aid fertility and bring good luck. They also carried it to ensure fidelity and from this came the custom of brides carrying ivy.

The custom of decorating houses and churches with ivy at Christmas is sometimes seen as the Christian Church adopting pagan associations.

A sketch of the Ivy shortly after I planted it.

Common names
Common English Ivy

Botanical name
Hedera helix

Poisonous parts
Leaves

Poisonous component
didehydrofalcarinol, falcarinol, hederasaponins

This vine is grown both as an indoor and outdoor ornamental and it has caused poisoning in cattle, dogs, sheep, and humans. Symptoms of ingestion are difficulty in breathing, convulsions, vomiting, paralysis and coma.

Some Ivy in my previous garden

Dermatitis is rare but can be severe with weeping blisters which respond slowly to treatment. The berries are bitter so it's unlikely children will consume them in large quantities.

Hedera helix originates from Europe and in it's native habitat it is an important food source for a large number of insects and birds. English ivy is very popular as ornamental plant but this ivy is extremely invasive and is considered noxious in parts of the world where it has escaped into the wild. Ivy can become so dense as to exclude other native species creating ivy "deserts", even becoming so heavy as to topple trees - something which does not occur in its native habitat.

Happy New Year!

2016 has been a year full of joys, blessings, surprises, heartaches, love, some successes and a few failures, but mostly it has been a year full of gratitude. Gratitude for the good rains we've had, gratitude for the birds in my garden and gratitude that I've managed another year of good health.

And now I welcome the New Year. May your 2017 be full of new things that have never been, a year full of colours, flowers, laughter and fresh new ideas!

::

Mid-summer chores

We've had good rains this summer and the grass has been growing like crazy. We decided to do a preliminary cut now in December as it was long enough for baling. Our smallholding was originally planted many years ago with Smuts finger grass (Digitaria eriantha), a very palatable indigenous, tufted grass, which offers good quality summer grazing from middle November. The advantages of Smuts finger are that it is drought tolerant, adaptable to a wide range of climate and soil types, good palatability, is suitable for hay and foggage, has a long life-span and is a strong self-seeder.

Smutsfinger grass

The limitations are that it has poor water logging tolerance and does not tolerate bad grazing management.

Seeing as we don't do any "farming" activities as such, it has been left to its own devices. Now it is worrying that my fields seem to be getting overtaken by two specific weeds. One with (beautiful) little yellow flowers (above), which I'm still trying to identify and the other is the (beautiful) Pom-pom weed (Campuloclinium macrocephalum) from the Asteraceae family (below). Also classified as a perennial herb with fluffy pink flower-heads, the stems are green to purplish, up to 1.3m high, dying back annually to a root crown. Leaves are light green, scattered along the length of the stem but clustered at the base to form a rosette, up to 80mm long and 20mm wide, margins are serrated. The flowers are light purple to pink compact flower-heads that are situated terminally and it flowers December-March.

The Pom-pom weed produces fluffy seeds that are wind dispersed and people contribute to spreading the seeds through carrying them in the mud on their vehicle's wheels or by picking and discarding the mature flower-heads and thereby spreading the seeds. It can also regenerate from underground root stalk. I think my weeds appeared when we first had our fields cut by an outside contractor a few years back, probably carrying the weed in on the tractor tyres, because before that the grass showed no sign of weeds.

Pom-pom weed was probably introduced in South Africa as an ornamental plant. The earliest record in the Pretoria National Herbarium is of a specimen collected in Johannesburg in 1962. Currently it is most prominent in Gauteng. The earliest record of its establishment in the wild is from Fountains Valley, Pretoria in the early 1960s and Westville near Durban in 1972. In the 1980's its distribution expanded in the Pretoria area, and it was also recorded from Hilton in KwaZulu-Natal and Wolkberg in Limpopo Province. In the 1990's it spread further to Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape, Rooiberg in Limpopo and Nelspruit in Mpumalanga. From 2000 to 2003 it exploded in Gauteng and in the Free Sate the first record was in Kroonstad. During the same period there was much spread in the Nelspruit, White River and Barberton areas. By 2006 it had spread to the Piet Retief area in south-eastern Mpumalanga and Swaziland.

The environmental and economic impact is that it threatens the survival of grasslands and wetlands throughout South Africa as it can tolerate a wide range of habitats. It transforms the landscape from green to pink in summer.

Eradication of this plant is through Herbicides registered for use on pompom weed and the two physical methods including uprooting and burning of the plant. Seeing as I don't use or tolerate the use of any pesticides on my smallholding and uprooting each and every weed is not gonna happen, I might just have to be satisfied with a pink smallholding in the future!

The tall yellow weed seems to be spreading very fast

My chooks just love it when we cut the grass and they will follow the tractor, snatching up all the insects disturbed by the cutting. When the tractor moves to the bottom of the smallholding, away from the road, all the Egrets and Herons also arrive to join in the snacking.

Storm clouds heralding no good

An ominous sign – storm clouds building up over my garden this past week, but from the west, which never heralds any good. Our rain here in Tarlton (Gauteng, South Africa) comes more or less from the south to south-west (from the Randfontein side) and anything else, especially from the west, normally spells trouble, like hail and heavy lightning.

While I was holding thumbs for rain but not the fury of nature, it didn't help much. Within seconds of the first lightning strike and roll of thunder, the heavens opened up and heavy rain poured down. And within minutes it took a turn for the worst and the hail came. LOTS of it, furiously, pounding the garden mercilessly, leaving destruction in its wake.

I watched helplessly as the storm got worse and worse, pounding the trees, the plants and wreaking havoc. Luckily my chooks were already in their coop as I had suspected some foul play earlier in the morning and had left them inside.

Mr. Brown, a stray rooster, was in the aviary (at the back of the pic), hiding in the shelter provided and the sound of the hail on the tin roof must have been deafening, it certainly was in my house, we couldn't even hear one another talking.

The hailstorm lasted for about 20 minutes, more heavy rain followed and then, suddenly all went quiet. Within seconds the sun was shining, producing the most gorgeous rainbow I have seen for a long time. Isn't nature just wonderful?!

Farm talk - The Crowned Plovers have hatched!

Crowned plovers - Vanellus coronatus

After the big to-do of the Crowned Plover stopping my husband's 5-ton truck from destroying her nest, I kept on checking on their nest, from a distance, and Saturday morning at 8.30am I was rewarded by seeing two of the three eggs hatch, hopefully the third will follow soon. Luckily it was warm and sunny and the parents were keeping a close eye on the proceedings.

 

Trying to take these pics of them was an ordeal in itself, as I once again was dive-bombed mercilessly and one of them even almost got tangled up in my hair! 

They are so well camouflaged, I almost missed them 

Breeding occurs in the spring months from July to October. The nest is in a shallow depression in the soil with a lining of vegetation and other debris. There are normally 3 eggs, sometimes 2 or 4. Incubation requires 28 to 32 days and is done by both sexes. Immediately after hatching, the young leave the nest while both parents look after them. Egg-laying is timed to precede the rainy season and most incubating is done by the female. The male assists only on hot days, when he either incubates or shades the nest. 

The one on the right is still wet, with some egg shell sticking to its feathers 

Pretending no-one can see it!

 Eyes tightly shut...

Bare-part colours of males brighten in the breeding season. Different types of display flights lure the female to the defended territory. A female accepting the male and territory will follow the male during his display flight. Mates may be retained for life. 

 Still wet from hatching out the egg

Although generally outnumbered by Blacksmith Lapwings, they are the most widespread and locally the most numerous lapwing species in their area of distribution. Their numbers have increased in the latter part of the 20th-century after benefiting from a range of human activities. They live up to 20 years. 

After the photographic session, I left them in peace and 3 o'clock that afternoon I returned to find that the two hatchlings had moved about 3 meters away from the nest, hiding close to a clump of grass.

Their colours are absolutely gorgeous and perfectly suited to their surrounds. They both kept their eyes tightly shut, barely breathing as they tried to blend into the surrounds.

Those typical long legs are already apparent!

The third egg seems to have been abandoned. I returned early evening but couldn't find the babies anywhere. The parents were about 100meters further down the plot and I presumed the babies were there with them. I am totally thrilled to have witnessed this happening and now just hope and pray the next door neighbour's dogs keep away from my property!

::

Farm talk - The wrath of a Crowned Plover

... or, the love of a mother....
.

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.

Yesterday my husband had to pull the truck out of the workshop to deliver a tractor to a customer and as he got a couple of meters from the workshop gate, he was confronted by a very angry Crowned Plover, standing in front of the approaching truck, wings spread and loudly proclaiming her intent on not moving.

Perplexed, my husband got out of the truck to look what was going on, upon which both parents flew at him in attack mode, swooping and screaming loudly, trying to get him to move. Suspecting that there might be some babies, he called me to see if I could see what all the pa-lava was about.

As soon as I arrived, I was dive-bombed in the same manner and as I carefully walked around slowly, looking out for any babies, the one parent would flap around in the grass, feigning injury and, as I approached, move on a bit, trying to lure me away from the spot. This is a strategy they use, pretending to be injured and easy prey, so getting a predator to follow them away from the nest. So I knew there definitely was something around there.

 

Both parents kept up this behaviour, alternating between dive-bombing us, flapping in the grass and screaming at the top of their voices.

 and this is what all the raucous was about!

Eventually, taking my cue from where they were at their most frantic, I found the nest - three beautiful speckled eggs so well camouflaged that it took me ten minutes to find it! The eggs were within meters of the truck's front wheels, my husband has stopped just in time! If it wasn't for this brave little bird stopping a 5-ton truck, the nest might have been destroyed.

After taking some photographs and enduring a lot more abuse from them, my husband reversed the truck and did a wide berth around the nest. Now that we know where they are, we avoid that area and hopefully will be able to see the birth of these little wonders.

The Crowned Plover (Vanellus coronatus) occurs across much of sub-Saharan Africa; in southern Africa it is common in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, northern and south-western South Africa and southern Mozambique. It generally prefers dry, open grassland, sparse woodland, open areas in Karoo scrub and man-made habitats, such as open fields, short pastures, airports, golf courses and roadsides.

They build their nests totally in the open and only after the grass has been cut on our smallholding. No trees, long grass or any other sort of cover for hundreds of meters around them. It always amazes me that they face the elements this way, with no cover whatsoever, but understandably it gives them a wide range of sight to see any predators approaching.

They mainly eats termites (which make up approximately 80-90% of its diet), using the typical foraging technique of plovers, running, stopping then searching for prey on the ground. It often forages in groups, sometimes alongside Black-winged lapwings, moving in a regularly spaced line.




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