When
Chris and his wife Elana arrived we followed them through the outskirts of
Heidelberg and then up the dirt road for approximately 12 kilometres, climbing
all the time. It's a good road and you don't need a 4x4 . We came to the top of
the hill and the countryside opened up before us. The hills slope down steeply
towards the Duiwenhoks Dam and then climb again beyond it towards the far
Langeberg mountains. You can see no houses, no people, only nature.
The garden is full of birds who come
to feed on the ripe mulberries and later there will be figs and other
delicacies for them. The Mouse birds play on the lawn, rolling around in fights
for the females
The early morning mist
And the early light on the dam is like
a mirror
Lynne woke very early on our first morning, peeped through the curtain and
found two of these klipspringers grazing on the grass in front of our window. She
quickly roused John who fetched his camera. They did not seem to be bothered by us watching, but did move on quickly
After those ripe mulberries?
Chris arrived at about 11 and took us
on a small veld walk to see the local plants and birds
The wild flowers are in bloom in October
There is this interesting 'kraal', possibly a shelter or ceremonial site on the farm; there are two interconnecting circles and
the stones are covered in lichen which must mean that they have been here many
years.
Lynne took close-up photographs of the many tiny flowers in the veld
You can sit amongst the proteas
and
watch the sugar birds feeding
A Pagoda Mimetes attracts lots of birds
We sat down on the ground and watched
for a while amongst the Pagodas and the pincushion proteas
Singing sugarbird
Far away on the top of the hill you
can see cattle grazing under the trees
It is the end of the season for these Waboom trees, which the birds love
The river below the dam
Lynne spotted this baby
kingfisher on a branch overhanging the river. It didn't
seem frightened at all, just interested in us. It looked like it has just
fledged. We identified it as the Malachite Kingfisher
It rained heavily that night and this
is the misty sunset, warning of the wet day to come
It is a beautiful sunset
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor
& Bacchus 2015
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