There are sights I see regularly on one of my walking routes; early morning dew on  the grass, the fallen, disintegrating tree now encrusted with fungi, the mother and juvenile bushbuck who will give a start and run through the grassland beside the road. But there are days when something different catches  my eye.

On the road ahead, the dogs have come to a pause and appear to be negotiating an obstacle. This turns out to be a large colony of fire ants on the march. Previous readers of the blog may recall that these ants are not to be trifled with! We see ants often but not in numbers like this. They are incredibly quick, both to move and to bite. If I was foolish enough to pause amongst them or to stand on them unknowingly, there is about a second from the time I have spotted them, to the moment that I feel their fierce, fiery little bite on my head! Indeed I was once spotted running (in itself an extraodinarily unusual sight), stripping clothes from myself and from my child as we raced for the bathroom after stumbling into a pile of fire ants at a children’s birthday party! But even though I was going full tilt, I believe it was kindness that prevented anyone from filming this event, as speed was not a factor…

Just as it is not a factor in regard to the Giant African Snail that I come upon.  It is a small specimen compared to some, only about 10cm long. And moving at its usual pace I am able to sit beside it and take a lot of photos. With absolutely no need of sports mode. Just like photos of me. But here I would hope the similarity ends. Although at close quarters it is really quite striking, the colouring of a greenish shell and the intriguing horns at the top of the  head all  adding to its slightly other- world appearance.

There are always small birds flitting in the tall grasses but what is different today is that I am able to get more than a glimpse of one. Mostly they are too quick for me to identify and often the only evidence that they are there is a sudden movement and the bending of the grass as they take off. As they fly, they create a gently undulating pattern, dropping and rising to the next seed head. On the winding pathway that runs between fallow field and grass land, I am glad to capture on camera one such bird. I am told it is a Croaking Cisticola. It is larger than some of the other seed eaters, with a round, plump body and quite long legs. It sits most obligingly for  a time and I can see its soft brown and grey toned feathers and its small, round bright eye.

When the bird leaves, so do I. The sun is quite well up when I get home from my walk and the dogs mill around me waiting for their breakfast with some excitement. They always love their walk and seem to get something new and interesting out of it every time. As do I; because to me, the habitual and familiar can be just as enjoyable as the new and unusual.

“Morning” by composer Edvard Grieg was written in 1874, as incidental music for Peer Gynt, a play by Hennik Ibsen.

In the morning when I get up I hear a sound from the paddock which borders onto our front garden fence. It is a sudden low rumble, but not of thunder. It is the sound of an altercation among the bulls that have recently been moved there. I hear them moving about but can’t see them.  An occasional snort suggests things may be hotting up but then silence falls again.  Bulls are always jostling for superiority but I’m sure even they sometimes feel it’s not worth the effort. Especially in the heat.

A piping wail heralds the arrival of a juvenile Trumpeter Hornbill calling noisily to its parents who are not far behind. The sound of the hornbills joins that of the White-Browed Robin Chat, who has been up for simply ages. I am grateful for them as the bird life in the garden has definitely gone quiet since the arrival of the very warm weather.  The birds are not as evident as usual and I suspect they are tucked away in the shadier places they can find.

Also tucked away, but wakeful and on our verandah, are the bats. As the heat has increased, so has our Epauletted Fruit Bat population. A few months ago we started with 8 of them and now we are up to 19.  At night we can hear them give the odd squeak and I have watched them cleaning themselves and also jostling for a position under the cool eaves of the thatch.

There is one (and I wonder if is the same silly-billy) who flies into our lounge every night and then straight out again. Once he found his way to the kitchen and flew around there for a few moments but luckily we managed to get him to go outside again. The thing is, we have been keeping our sliding door on to the verandah open a lot longer in the hopes of capturing some cool night air, but not bats.  Now when I hear the squeak it is my queue to get up and close up.  We’ve had bats and birds stuck inside before and it is really quite a mission to get them out again!

The Giant Eagle Owl has been calling once again. Getting up early, I had the joy of seeing it one morning as I tramped through the bushveld behind our house. Once I started to take photos, I realised to my joy, that there were two. Up close these birds are truly magnificent, both beautiful and large. They watched me watching them but I did not want to get too close in case they flew away. Still at least I captured them on camera this time. My photos were somewhat disappointing but I am blaming the early morning light as well as my excitement (and subsequent wobble.) Maybe next time the photos will be better. Especially if I can get a bit closer. And if I take the tripod…

Meanwhile in the garden one of my dogs is barking rather insistently at something on the ground. We approach tentatively and even up close for a moment I am not quite sure what I am looking at. I can see why the dog was concerned; it is a large fat caterpillar and his markings are quite snakelike. But actually on closer inspection, there is something quite sweet about him too – to my mind it is as if he is wearing a knitted garment with two large metal buttons on the back. I hope he makes it to the beautiful moth that he will become. Perhaps I will see him in his new metamorphosis one day in the future.

And that is the thing about Nature that I truly enjoy. Even though right now, the weather is unsatisfactory, nature in the garden and in the veld around me, continues. Nature will just get up and keep moving on. Of course she is just as affected by the dry as we are. And for survival, her many subjects will have to make allowances. As for me, I expect I will have more bushbuck and kudu coming into my garden in the next few months. But whatever the reason, they are always welcome and I feel more than blessed to be able to witness their comings and goings.

One of my daughter’s favourite bands, Shinedown is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida, and was formed by singer Brent Smith in 2001. I think his voice is unique and rather beautiful. I love the lyrics of their songs and the rock beats which they are famous for. This is Get Up – an inspirational and moving song.

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