From my Hide: An interesting guest list

I WAS lying awake at first light the other day, listening to the hadedas quietly going about their business, and I thought about us and our wildlife.

The hadedas were just the first, of course. They were soon followed by that ever-cheerful early morning fellow, the bulbul, whose job it apparently is to call the rest of the dawn chorus into line.

But our birds are not just early morning entertainment, they are there for us all day.

The bird parties in the trees around The Hide, and remember that our house is in the canopy, are a constant source of delight.

Our olive sunbird still comes to bathe in the red tin plate we keep in The Hide just for her and every now and then she’ll allow other birds to use it too.

And we have fly-pasts as well, like the crowned eagle that has become quite a regular visitor to our valley and the fish eagles whom we hear calling from Mpenjati next door.

Sundowner time is marked by the raucous Natal francolin in our bottom garden, fighting over a nesting site for the night.

Not just birds, either. The other day we were sitting in my study, which opens onto The Hide, when a spotted bush snake popped in.

It sniffed around a bit and when my wife dared to move it found a pencil-sized hole against the wall in the wooden floor and disappeared down it.

The next day I was sitting at my desk when it re-emerged, headed for the step and stretched out in the sun to catch up on some warmth and daylight. He lay there quite happily until I had to get up and then I ushered him onto The Hide rather than back under the floor.

Then very recently we had a blue duiker ram grazing in the back under the kitchen windows and before that a bushbuck doe had ambled down the road.

We also get a rare, but hugely gratifying visit from Mr Spotty (the genet) in The Hide. And then of course there are always the monkeys, but we all have them.

One way and another we are spoilt by the almost constant presence of wildlife and it all goes to make The Hide part of the special experience living on the lower South Coast can be.

Finally, about as far away from The Hide as it is possible to get, the Galapagos Islands in the western Pacific. There is good news from the island of Espanola,* where one of the Galapagos giant tortoise species considered extinct in the 1960s has re-emerged.

The tortoise in question, which can weigh up to 250kg and live 200 years, was driven into near extinction by the introduction of goats to their island in 1905 and the subsequent destruction of the natural habitat.

No reason has been given for the introduction of the goats, but a subsequent programme led to their eventual elimination and the re-emergence of the tortoise, which is now present in sufficient numbers to ensure its survival. A good news story indeed.

Cheers!

* The Week: the Best of the British and Foreign Media.