Addo Elephant National Park

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SOUTH AFRICAN CHRISTMASES PAST

Not exactly Christmas Day, but events around this time of the year from 2015 to 2021. Christmas 2020 was Covid-19 time and we couldn’t get out and about, so there is no pictorial record.

Let us begin with Santa’s Workshop in 2015, when my eldest son made a wooden truck for his nephew:

During December 2016,  we encountered a herd of goats crossing the road. They held up traffic for a little while.

We reaped a wonderful harvest of plums from an ancient tree in our garden in 2017 – the best we had been able to enjoy and perfect for this very hot time of the year. Sadly, it was the last harvest for the tree died during the next few months.

We have endured so many drought years that I lose count. In 2018, however, I decided to use a potted spekboom plant to decorate in place of a more traditional Christmas tree. My youngest grandchild did not approve!

Then, in 2019, we decided to spend Christmas Day in the Addo Elephant National Park. These elephants are at the Rooidam waterhole.

Skip over the pandemic in 2020 – we had fun in a subdued way – and see this family of Hadeda Ibises that hung around our swimming pool in 2021.

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CAPE PORCUPINE

Note: I hope you will not mind me using photographs that have appeared in my blogs before.

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We sometimes come across porcupine quills lying in the road or along paths when we are driving or walking in the countryside. They are fun things to pick up and to stick into things. Some people even cut them into short lengths to make attractive necklaces out of them. Having said that, I cannot find a single quill in our home! We used to have so many of them lurking in boxes or drawers – they have probably gone the way of grandchildren or been disposed of over the years. I don’t bother to pick them up anymore, merely enjoying seeing them in situ.

Don’t bother to pick them up? Of course I did when our children were small and when our (then) young grandchildren were with us. There is something really special about holding a light black-and-white quill that tapers to a very sharp point in your hand – especially as they are dropped by an animal one seldom sees.

The Cape Porcupine (Hystrix africaeaustralis) is the largest rodent in southern Africa and one of the largest in the world. That honour goes to the South American Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris). Apart from wishing to obtain food, rodents gnaw on all sorts of things to control the growth of their teeth. Some of the trees in the rest camp area of the Mountain Zebra National Park have, for example, had to be protected from being gnawed – and possibly ring-barked – by roaming porcupines.

These porcupines have a single pair of sharp, continually growing incisor teeth that they use to gnaw through and rip up tough plant material. They also have long claws that they used to dig up roots and tubers. Other food forming part of their diet includes fruit, bark, and occasionally carrion. They sometimes chew on bones in areas with deficient phosphorus levels – a condition called osteophagia.

I can recall seeing a Cape porcupine only once and that was while we were camping in the Addo Elephant National Park many years ago. Regular campers in the park told us that a porcupine sometimes made its way through the camping area at night, entering close to where we had set up camp. They suggested we scatter some cut apples nearby.

Whether or not that was a good thing, I don’t know, but we did. Nothing happened. Darkness fell and, because the weather was particularly hot, one of my sons decided to set up his camp bed in the open outside. Much later that night he was woken by something vigorously shaking his camp bed: it was the promised porcupine!

Cape porcupines are widely distributed over South Africa. Males and females look the same, their bodies covered with flattened bristly hairs, spines which are up to 50 cm long and stout quills that grow up to 30 cm long and erect for self-defence. That is why their quills can be found all over, even if the animals themselves are not seen that often – while they may be active during the day, they are mostly nocturnal.

There is an interesting myth about porcupines that, for some reason, gets passed down from one generation to the next: that porcupines shoot out their quills when defending themselves from being attacked by other animals.

They don’t. The quills actually come off fairly easily when touched, and their sharp tips and overlapping scales or barbs make them difficult to remove. So, the quills merely get stuck into whatever comes too close to the porcupine. That said, it is a mystery to me how this Cape buffalo ended up with a quill stuck into it. Perhaps it picked it up after rolling on the ground.

Cape porcupines are occasionally preyed on by leopards, lions or hyenas for meat. As you can imagine, the success rate is very low as they are not easy to attack. When disturbed by predators, the porcupines tend to stand motionless and only turn aggressive when they are cornered. When this happens they lash around and charge sideways or backwards to lodge the razor-sharp quills into the predator should it persist. I presume this leopard, seen in the Kruger National Park, may have had such a close encounter with a Cape porcupine.

https://www.sanbi.org/animal-of-the-week/cape-porcupine/

 

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MUNCH TIME

What a feast for the eyes it is to see animals in the wild! This selection of photographs from the Addo Elephant National Park show animals (and one bird) eating:

Zebra eating the new grass and herbs growing after a spring rain. A few of these yellow flowers must have been part of the mix too. Salad perhaps?

A closer view of what this zebra was munching.

This kudu doe is still sporting her furry winter coat.

An Egyptian Goose grazing on the fringes of a water hole.

A close look at what this elephant is eating.

An elephant placing food in its mouth.

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ADDO IN SPRING 2023

Fields of tiny yellow flowers greet one after the first spring rains in the Addo Elephant National Park.

Splendid clumps of these pretty flowers also abound.

They brighten the roadsides and can be seen in the distance.

These Small-leaved Sutera (Sutera microphylla) appear to prefer growing in areas where the soil has been disturbed.

Look at this lovely juxtaposition of mauve and yellow.

Yellow remains the dominant colour, however.