What happened at Dunefields?
We had a volunteer all the way from America come and experience two days with us on the reserve. Some of his highlights were the marine survey with Zanri, how to identify trees with Tiaan, and a full day of beekeeping. We discussed conservation projects we have going on, and taught him a few tricks of the trade. He went on to go and volunteer at other reserves in South Africa, we wish him the best on his journey.
We did an inspection of our two beehives on the reserve to assess the health and productivity of the hive, and also to inspect if they are in need of new frames or a bigger box. We changed the one box and frames for one of the hives, and they are loving the new house. This allows them to become more productive and provides an opportunity to become a healthier bee colony. The lifespan of a worker bee which are all female bees, beside the queen, are between 5-7 weeks.
We had another swarm of bees move into the shed and had them successfully removed. It is always a process to get bees out of a building, but it is best to rather remove them safely than to exterminate the hive. Bees provide an important ecosystem service to most life on earth through pollination, and losing them will be devastating to humanity.
Here Tiaan is doing a vegetation survey around some of the wood stacks in the veld that we proposed to be burnt away. The survey is to ensure we know what species are growing around these stacks to prevent the cutting of rare, protected, or endangered species. These stacks require a firebreak right around before we can initiate the burn.
The Nelson Mandela University has a long-term camera trap monitoring project running in the greater Wilderness area. This project is being run in collaboration with Dunefields, and this month it was time to service the camera trap together again.
We facilitated a site visit with the Environmental Control Officers from George Municipality to discuss the way forward to implement large scale alien invasive plant removal, ecological burns, and stack burns. We aim to get Dunefields back to an even more pristine state than it currently is in, and in due time we will start eradicating the alien vegetation and bring back ecological burns whereby providing opportunity for the important indigenous vegetation to re-establish on these sites.
Zanri was invited as the guest speaker at this month’s BirdLife meeting in Plettenberg Bay. Zanri raised awareness on the importance of Cape gannets in our bay, and she shared our research findings on the gannets at Dunefields. The talk was really well received, and the evening was closed with a jam-packed question session where the birders could ask all their pressing questions in awe of this endangered seabird species.
Tiaan attended a conference in George on wild and wonderfully small insects – bees. The day started off with a few theoretical sessions, followed by a practical component. Beekeeping is a complex work of art which Tiaan so fondly is learning more about to be equipped to care for the Dunefields bees as best possible.
Who Calls Dunfields Home?
The Dunefields team has expanded. Christo and Pieter are dedicated to keep the exterior aesthetics on point, maintain all the infrastructures, roads and trails, all of which are made possible by their abilities and qualification to work with different types of machinery. They are trained in fire fighting, which we are very grateful for, and we are pleased to have them as an important part of our team.
Dunefields now has its own “bakkie sakkie” or strike unit, which is used to prevent small fires from spreading. This is a very useful piece of machinery to have as it allows the people on the ground to quickly react to a fire that may occur on the reserve, until the fire department comes onto the scene. If a fire is detected early, and our on-site response to the fire is quick, our strike unit has the potential to prevent a small fire from becoming a wild uncontrollable fire that can damage infrastructure or endanger our lives.
We had a call out of a seal yearling that beached itself at Sedgefield beach. Upon investigation, the seal was still alive but in a bad mental state, yet in a good body condition. The seal was taken to a veterinarian who assessed it before sending it to Bay World in Gqeberha. The seal unfortunately passed away with the suspected cause of death being the ingestion of a type of poison.
A new addition to Dunefields is our very own weather station. This will provide us with live weather data, forecast the weather and collect long-term weather data. Such data collection is important in making comparisons or picking up trends or changes in weather patterns especially in times of climate change.
June and July were one of the wettest and coldest winters we have experienced in the Wilderness area in many years. At Dunefields we had a total of 184 mm rain during June and July, and a minimum temperature of -2 °C creating frost on the plants – which made Dunefields look like a beautiful winter wonderland.
On Paradise Trail we have a few benches for whale watching, or just to soak up the sun and the breathtaking view. From these benches one feels as if you are sitting in the clouds overlooking vast ocean waters meeting up with the skyline, and best of all, sometimes one gets accompanied by a bushbuck while enjoying a seat on this piece of paradise.
Dunefiels is home to not only thicket and fynbos vegetation but also forest. Under the canopy of the milkwood forest is where we have recently deployed a camera trap so that we photograph animals in all the vegetation types on Dunefields. Stay tuned for some exciting results in the forest.
These Yellow-billed ducks have selected our wetland as the perfect chick-rearing location. These ducks can be seen in large flocks in the non-breeding season, but when it is time to breed, they pair up and select their own little territory where they raise a little chick (pictured on the right).
This is the famous golden oldy, Half-Horn, the oldest bushbuck ram on the reserve. Eleven months ago we gave him that name seeing that he lost the top half of his one horn in a fight with another ram. Since our first sighting of this individual he has also lost an eye, possibly also during a fight with another ram for territory and mating rights with the bushbuck ewes. The fact that he is still going strong with all these injuries, and his old age, and has not yet been predated on by a caracal or leopard is amazing. And, for those who are wondering if caracal would predate on prey as big prey as bushbuck… nothing seems too big for the Dunefields caracal, the proof was captured on one of our camera traps which will soon go up on our website where you can share in the excitement of all our extraordinary wildlife sightings.
We are glad to see some bushbuck eves again as this means that Dunefields can once again be a breeding ground for these amazing animals. Eves are solitary and when it accepts a suitable bushbuck ram they will be together until the lamb is a few months old. Then the male will leave and become solitary, leaving parental care to be performed by the female only. By having dropped our fences we don’t only prevent fence-related mortalities, we allow for the movement of animals across the landscape which is important to prevent inbreeding.
Here the dune mole-rat is just doing what moles do best, dinging tunnels and building a network of entrances and exits to explore the underground terrain for food and to find mates. It is seldom that one sees them above ground as they live below ground, digging and eating the roots and bulbs of the plants. Here we were lucky enough to see him in action in daylight. Mole rats are important engineers in the underground world where they aerate the soil and make it less compact, benefitting the roots of the indigenous plant species.
Here we have the large leaves of the Chandelier lily (Brunsvigia orientalis). This plant is a bulbous plant, and only has leaves present without the flower, or the flower without the leaves. The leaves start to die before the flowerhead protrudes from below ground. The size of this plant is larger than 1×1 meter, truly a great sight to see.
Heath butterflybush (Polygala ericifolia) These flowers together with the other colours of flowers on Dunefields contribute to the scattered-paint effect when looking from a distance across the landscape, a beautiful sight.
We have recently been seeing flocks of weavers utilizing the thickets while they are presumably looking for sites to nest in. These birds are masters in their craft of weaving nests using only their beaks.
One of our Dunefields rescues, a young African penguin that has been undergoing rehabilitation at the Seabird and Penguin Rehabilitation Centre has been released back into the wild this month. It is soul enriching for the Tiaan and Zanri to assist in the rescue and rehabilitation of this Endangered species, and then also heartwarming to see them being released back into nature where they stand another chance to contribute to their population.
The whales are back, and it brings renewed appreciation for these animals. Both the Southern right and Humpback whales have arrived in our waters travelling all the way from Antarctica to give birth in warmer temperature on our east coast.
A few days after we attended a talk on dung beetles at the Fairy Knowe Hotel, we spotted a dung beetle in caracal scat. Although dung beetles prefer the scat of herbivores, they have also been known to utilize that of carnivores. We really get to document the most exciting phenomenons at Dunefields.
Everyone at Dunefields is super chuffed with the newest caracal addition. Not only was it spotted on camera but also in person alongside its mother. Dunefields plays an important part in providing all animals with both a breeding ground, and enough food resources to successfully raise their young.
A beautiful rainbow that starts and ends at Dunefields. This photograph is so symbolic of our vision and mission, to create a space where wildlife can be cherished, celebrated and a space where the animals can feel like they are at the end of the rainbow – at Dunefields Private Nature Reserve, their kind of pot of gold.