12 Jan: The bulbuls begin major renovations on their nest. 16 Jan: The first of three eggs is laid.  

(Photo by Shelley Mitchley)

Wildlife Report

For the month of February, Two Thousand and Fourteen Temperature Rainfall Recorded Average minimum: 21,5˚C (70,7˚F) For the period: 126,0 mm Average maximum: 30,5˚C (86,9˚F) For the year to date: 358,0 mm Minimum recorded: 19,0˚C (66,2˚F) Maximum recorded: 34,1˚C (93,3˚F) A friend of mine reading last month's wildlife report remarked on, "...your delight at the bulbul's egg-laying genius!" and yet my delight has multiplied even more because of the following rapid milestones in their lives:

Singita Pamushana Lodge Malilangwe Zimbabwe

 

10 Feb: Three fat and demanding chicks bulge over the nest's edge.  

11 Feb: The chicks have left the nest! (Second and third photographs by Emily Capon.)  

 

The kingdom of fungi I can't help it, so here goes: A mushroom walks into a bar and orders a drink. The barman says, "Sorry, we don't serve mushrooms." The mushroom replies, "Hey! What do you mean - I'm a fun guy!" But seriously, what is the difference between mushrooms and fungI? The simple answer is that mushrooms are the reproductive organs of certain types of fungi. Fungi, just like plants and animals, own a kingdom of classification all on their own. They are organisms such as moulds, mushrooms and yeasts that are totally different from plants and animals. In fact, they are a little closer on the scale to animals than plants because they don't depend on photosynthesis to make their own food, and have to get their nourishment from other sources. Zimbabwe is fungi-rich and there are many species still to be discovered, studied and named. At the moment, with all the heat and rain, there is an abundance of mushrooms pushing their way through the fertile soil, as you can see from these photos. What fungi do so well is to break down the cellulose and lignin of dead wood, plant debris and animal dung and turn them into simple sugars. They then take up these simple sugars, and so do other trees, plants and animals in the vicinity. Some fungi have a symbiotic relationship with termites. The termites gather grass and other woody material and create 'termite gardens' within their termite mounds. The fungus breaks down the cellulose and lignin in the garden material and the resultant simple sugars are digested by the termites. Mycorrhizal fungi have an equally fascinating symbiotic relationship with trees and plants. The fungi create a network of tubular structures underground called hyphae. These join up and develop into a kind of mat called a mycelium. This drapes over the roots of host trees or plants. The host supplies the fungus with sugars, made through its own photosynthesis, while the fungus helps it to take up nitrogen, phosphates and other nutrients the host needs, via the mycelium.

 

Some trees on this reserve, such as the mountain acacia (Brachystegia glaucescens), cannot thrive without the symbiotic relationship they share with a specific fungus. And indeed we wouldn't be thriving so well as a species if it weren't for the fungus penicillium, which kills bacteria and is used medicinally to fight infections. There's also some research being done on the potential of certain fungi to fight cancer. To end I'd like to share a wisdom that an old mushroom hunter told me on a recent edible mushroom foraging trip, when I asked about the dangers of mistakenly eating a poisonous mushroom: "There are old mushroom hunters and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters."

 

Getting one's dung together I've had guests request to stay and watch dung beetles for longer, rather than move on to a Big Five sighting, and I gladly agree as they are such interesting insects, and often some rather funny comparisons result from observing their behaviour! Dung beetles detect fresh dung in seconds as the scent is fanned along on air currents, and with their excellent navigation skills fly to a fresh pile of dung within seconds. The type of dung beetles in these photos are telecoprids which means ball rollers. They make three types of dung balls: food balls for eating, nuptial balls for mating and brood balls for incubating larvae. At this sighting we watched the brood ball process. While seeing off would-be thieves the male quickly got his dung together and patted it into a big ball. The female hopped on and they were ready to roll. He did a deft handstand, pushed the ball with his back legs and set off down the road at tremendous pace, while she clung on. The road ahead was long, but he knew exactly where he wanted to take her - an area of soft sand where they could dig a hole and bury the ball. The female lays one single egg on the ball and pats it deep in the dung, making the ball more pear-shaped. Once it is buried the outer layer hardens yet the inside remains moist. Once the larva hatches it feeds on the larder of moist dung, then pupates inside the dung incubator and eventually hatches as an adult dung beetle.

 

Caught napping It's not often you see large herbivores like giraffe and buffalo lying down, but both of these seemed relaxed enough with our presence not to stand up and move away. Part of the advantage of being a ruminant (an animal that chews cud), is that they can lie down, cool off, relax and still be eating by regurgitating a bolus (food ball) and chewing that cud. Spare a thought for this poor buffalo cow that was trying to sleep. An oxpecker landed on her head and just like an annoying alarm clock or enthusiastic rooster it screeched away, strident and relentless. She was not amused. Off on their own The grass is so long and the bush so thick at the moment that your best chance of seeing something is if it is slap bang in the middle of the road. I rounded a corner and was delighted to find exactly that - two young lionesses lying in the middle of the road. It was early evening and they were on their own. We've followed the story of these two lions over the past couple of years, and we think that their mother currently has a new litter of

 

cubs that she's looking after. This means that these two now have to defend and hunt for themselves before their mother re-joins them and introduces her new cubs to the pride. As they lay in the road we could see they looked skinny, but as they rose and walked towards us, straight past our vehicle, we could see there was a glint and determination in their eyes that meant only one thing. They were going to hunt and they meant business. Herds of impala, wildebeest and hartebeest were grazing in the open areas and seemed oblivious to the lions'

presence. They waited for night to fall and moved into position. It was dark now and we didn't want to shine our spotlight on them or the potential prey and interfere in any way, so we left the scene. The next morning we returned to the area and this time found two fat lions snoozing in the grass, with some smudges of blood about their mouths. Success had been theirs! Taking a closer look It's not often that we get a chance to take a close look at some of the smaller animals we usually only get to glimpse, but this month we've had the opportunity to learn more about banded mongooses (Mungos mungo) and tree squirrels (Paraxerus cepapi).

 

What immediately gives a banded mongoose's identity away is the band of stripes along its back. They have long claws on their front feet which are used for digging up insects, especially beetles and their larvae, and they eat an array of fruit, meat and other morsels. The live in packs with the females breeding at the same time, and births are very tightly synchronised. All the pack members take care of the young, the mothers suckle each other's offspring indiscriminately, and each young pup has an adult caretaker that catches prey for it. Collective noun options for mongooses include 'business' and 'rush' - both referring to the frenetic pace at which they go about their daily search for food, relying mainly on their acute sense of smell. What I've found most interesting about observing banded mongooses are the continual, high-pitched twitter and chatter they use. They make several different sounds, such as chirps to keep in contact with their family, sharp chittering for sounding the alarm, delighted squeaks upon finding food and even soft purring sounds of contentment. A tree squirrel's tail usually steals the limelight as it flicks and bristles and shows such expression, but when you take a very close look at these little squirrels (they only measure about 34 cm in total) you'll see they have fine black conspicuous whiskers that are up to 5 cm long. A squirrel's whiskers play a major role in it keeping its balance. If a squirrel's whiskers were cut it wouldn't be able to keep its balance, and thus survive on its own. Their whiskers are also vital for being able to sense objects that are around them in the darkness of night or in tree cavities and nests.

 

Dam full The savannah woodland looks like the Amazon jungle, the grass is taller than I am and the rain keeps coming... The Malilangwe Dam is full to the brim and we're all hoping the water spills over the edge of the wall and a symbolic baptism of our land takes place. The dam wall has a height of 25.75 metres and the last time it spilt was in the year 2000 after the floods induced by Cyclone Eline. The Malilangwe Dam's construction began in the early 1960s under the direction of Ray Sparrow, the pioneer of this property, who in 1948 walked up the dry riverbed of the Nyamasikana and decided the craggy gorge was the ideal site to build a dam wall. The Nyamasikana River is a tributary of the Chiredzi River which in turn flows into the Runde River. The dam is what's known as a gravity section masonry dam. It has a surface area of 211 hectares and a catchment area of about 200 km2. The wall was initially built to a height of 10 m in 1963 and has been raised over the years to its current height. Old Man Sparrow, aged 92, still lives in his home overlooking the dam wall. I wonder what his thoughts are at this time when he sees his dam so full, so full of life and so full of future life-sustaining fresh water.

(Photo by Mark Saunders)

 

Protecting, teaching and feeding youngsters This mother elephant, her young daughter and her new son were such a treat to watch. The little boy was determined to suckle but his mom wouldn't let him until she decided it was time. She demonstrated how to pick grass with her trunk, shake off the soil and place it in her mouth, but his trunk was far too unwieldy for such dexterity. Then she had a good long scratch and rub against the coarse bark of a tree and cautiously he held out his trunk and touched the bark, surprised and curious at its rough texture. Soon thereafter he was rewarded with milk and it was a rare privilege to be allowed to watch such an intimate scene. Impala mothers herd their youngsters in a tightly-knit group, called a nursery herd and take turns guarding them. When it's time for a drink the mothers answer their lamb's plaintive calls and the little ones leave the nursery herd to suckle.

 

Tree ID A big help when trying to identify a tree is to look at its pods or fruit. The round fruit in the first image is of the spiny monkey-orange (Strychnos spinosa). It measures about 12 cm in diameter, has a hard, woody shell, is bluish-green then yellow when ripe and it is edible. The dried shells of the fruit are used as sounding boxes for traditional musical instruments. In the second image is a four-winged pod that indicates that the tree belongs to the Combretum genus. These pods are very large - between 5 and 10 cm and the tree is known as a large-fruited bushwillow (Combretum zeyheri). The pods turn from green to pale brown when ripe and baboons enjoy the seeds. All a twitter: Flashes of brilliance

In amongst the million shades of green you'll easily spot these three flashes of brilliance. They are all kingfishers and only some of the several species we find here at Singita Pamushana. The first image is of a jewel-coloured grey-headed kingfisher (Halcyon leucocephala). The second is our noisy visitor the woodland kingfisher (Halcyon senegalensis) and the third is the giant kingfisher (Megaceryle maxima). The last two images are of a woodland kingfisher who dined on tenderised frog legs and more, for breakfast.

 

 

The Season of My Valentine

I met you on the stairway of the mountain in the rocks

Dressed in your flora splendour of leafy crown and grassland socks

I didn’t know your name, but I know I knew you well

A familiar, fashioned feeling, only time and tide would tell

A bedazzled smile of splendour and aromas of fresh air

I like the way you looked at me from the clouds beneath your hair

Your hand was warm and gentle when you held it in my own

And at last I knew the touch of a love that was well-worth grown

The hills had held our secrets and the frogs had heard our thoughts -

Of crossing crosses in the sun and running circles round the noughts

And the only roses grown, to mark the fondness of your dote -

Were the ones upon the garden of leopard’s glistening, growing coat

I never thought I’d find you, nor quell the anxious, lonely womb

Ripened in the dead of night by sickle stars of waxing moon

But now the plains are fertile and our farewell sets your course

For the summer of love will wake again with thunder’s crashing voice

By Shelley Mitchley

 

"Staff and management - thank you for making 'a trip of a lifetime' true to its word. Your passion for your jobs and for the beautiful surroundings is infectious! We are so grateful that our first safari was with Singita

Pamushana. God bless Malilangwe and Zimbabwe!"

The Rose family, Long Island, New York

Written and photographed by Jenny Hishin, unless otherwise indicated Singita Pamushana

Malilangwe Wildlife Reserve Zimbabwe

Twenty-eighth of February 2014