Once upon a time leopards were everywhere. Even now they are not confined to the lowveld, but live in most rough or mountainous areas. The Drakensberg is no exception, although the general shortage of food means that leopards are few and far between. Being elusive and mainly nocturnal too means that they are rarely seen.
Of the many insects living at the Cavern the African Hummingbird Moth must be the most intriguing. Not all moths are nocturnal, and this species flies by day. It can easily be mistaken for a tiny hummingbird (except that hummingbirds are found only in America). It hovers, with wings faintly whirring and almost invisible, in
The Cavern has already been doing this for many years. We use low energy globes where possible and our geysers, freezers, pool pumps and other large electrical appliances are turned off at peak periods using load shedding devices. Now Eskom has asked us to save another 20%. The hot water temperature has been switched down
Most bird migration is a long-distance business. The idea is to breed in long summer days at middle latitudes, and to move to the equator or other hemisphere for the winter. But in KZN we see a very special short-distance migration where birds breed at high altitudes, moving downhill for the winter. This is altitudinal
Not everyone believes in global warming, after all, what happened to those glorious warm summers of our childhood? But it is here and real, with lots of evidence for the discerning. Bird observations offer a means of following global warming. Because many species have – locally – fairly specific altitudinal ranges, a new appearance of
Fires have been a regular feature of the African veld ever since grasses evolved 20 million years ago. Originally lightning would have been the cause, but more recently man has seen the benefits of fire and is the main agent. Grass itself improves when correctly burnt. As winter – the dry season – approaches, grasses
The history of life is sometimes seen as a series of advances, with the obsolete being discarded along the way. As it happens, nearly all of these “failures” hang on somewhere, documenting the past in a living museum. The Drakensberg is home to many of these refugees. Liverworts represent plants’ first emergence from the water.
At the turn-off to Sungabala there stood a sad and roofless sandstone barn. Built with blocks hewn from the surrounding hills, this lovely old building had stood empty for many a year. At last it has emerged from its chrysalis and burst upon the valley as our beautiful new primary school – The Royal Drakensberg
Just outside the front door is a Strelitzia regina, with banana-like leaves and complex orange-and-blue flowers. Often quoted as a perfectly adapted partnership between plant and bird, it actually demonstrates that skullduggery in business is not just human. The sunbird recognises an opportunity from afar, its visual pigments being specially tuned to orange and red.
Within the seemingly organised and wonderful world of birds, there lurk cheats and baddies; birds that knock the system and get away, not with murder, but without lifting a finger (nor even a wing) to help with the bringing up of their offspring. These are the brood parasites, the birds that do not make their
