Conservation Updates

Having successfully raised two sturdy (and loud-mouthed) chicks last summer, the Hadedas are back in the Coral tree preparing a new nest site. Further down in the same tree a pair of olive woodpeckers is rat-tat-tatting away, excavating a hole in...

When last we were at Kariega a couple of hippos had taken up residence in the dam close to Reception and as a result we were unable to walk the Wildebeest Trail; the hippopotamus despite its bulk being capable of moving pretty quickly out of water...

The restaurant at the Main Lodge is surrounded on three sides by the twisted branches of trees punctuated by the great green candelabras of the tall euphorbias and in winter by the scarlet-flowered aloes. These thickets are the remnants of a...

As young boys my friend Graham and I spent a good deal of time pretending to be hunter-gatherers, living off the land. This involved, amongst other things, making bows and arrows for our “hunting” expeditions, and of course, tipping the arrows...

The Cape Robin was for many years always the first to greet the dawn in our garden. Then quite recently a pair of Hadedas took up residence in a nearby coral tree, and we are now very often woken by their strident calls first thing in the morning....

It was late in the season and the setting sun cast a golden glow on the long dry stems of the grass growing beside the road. There was a rustle of bird activity as they settled down for the night, for here far north of Kariega Park there is little...

Despite their proximity - they have set up home within ten metres of our living-room windows - and their at times anti-social behaviour - they are given to littering, and in the early hours of the morning to calling to one another at the tops of...

We snaked silently through the bush following in the footsteps of our game-ranger. He paused and while un-slinging the rifle from his shoulder, lifted his left hand as a signal for us to stop. What had he seen? After a few moments he turned slowly...

It was finding a large sheet of cork that led to my collecting insects. I brought it home from where I had found it amongst the rubbish behind the shops. It was obviously something out of the ordinary, and a treasure to a small boy, but I wasn't...