We
totally ran out of time last week, getting MENU out on schedule, so this part of our
visit to Bartholomeus Klip comes to you this week. The Elandsberg Private
Nature Reserve has some interesting animals, great birds and plants and has
three very special animal projects. They breed virus free Buffalo in an
enclosure, they are part of the Quagga restoration programme and they have a
Tortoise rescue and breeding programme, with fenced reserves for these
wonderful animals that are so badly affected by our fires
Next to the dam
Stone pines on the edge of the reserve
Misty morning game drive
The buffalo in the reserve
A large bull and one of his cows
You don’t get close to one of Africa’s
most aggressive animals
Nice to see all different ages in the
enclosure, the breeding programme works
Early morning sun breaking through the clouds
A flock of quelea rises out of the
scrub
Farm buildings outside the reserve,
with sheep grazing
A rare and very welcome sight, a
secretary bird. These, sadly, are now very rare
A sudden movement and this steenbok ewe rose up
out of the grass next to the Land Rover
Springbok grazing together, We saw
some “pronking” but the camera could not catch them as they were too far away
The rutted road through the reserve
has seen many journeys and is not suitable for vehicles designed for urban roads
Is this the same bird or another one?
We thought we were driving through
reeds until the driver pointed out that they were leucodendrons
A grove of Eucalyptus trees. These
were planted for shade by early farmers
Especially along wagon trails to give
the wagons some shade
These are the small flowers of the
leucodendrons
Up close you can see the almost protea-like flowers
We saw several bontebok
some with really pied markings
Grazing on the fynbos
Is this bird following us?
Some steenbok on the far hilltop
They leap the fence or crawl
underneath, so that they can graze the crop fields
Huge vistas and the park runs right up
to the mountain
Back to the home farm, where twin baby
lambs
were being born
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment