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Rainfall measured at the Magnetic Observatory in Westcliff measured only 17mm for November.
The lowest in 52 years. No wonder the coast is so vulnerable to fire.
The November average for Hermanus is 30,5mm, and last year it was almost three times that (89.9mm) and the year before, 76,8mm.
An aerial survey confirms that the single whales have left our waters, and that all they were spotted this week were 13 adults and 13 calves.
7th December
Clouds cover the sky at last, their greyness reflected by the sea - but turned to glorious silver by the rising sun. There is heavy mist in the mountains, subduing spent fires and soothing the burnt surfaces. How welcome is the cloud-cover after days of deep blue seas and skies, dry ground and and harsh light.
The clouds came from the south-west, driven by winds which caused shipping warnings of nine- metre waves. They probably are nine metres high, turning the coast white and flinging up tangy salt spray that carries refreshing scents deep into the golf course. Yet the seas are not as big as they were in recent weeks.
The birds are highly active on the cliff-top. Two Malachite Sunbirds have been hunting flying insects around our balcony, with the same speed and dexterity as the Paradise and Fiscal Flycatchers which sometimes flit about nearby. Cape Robins and Cape Bubuls enjoy the gaps in the bush caused by the cutting back of fynbos outside our gate. A Cape Barthroated Apalis is making a nest nearby . . . it is so different from its upcountry cousins it ought to be a separate species - far more distinctive than the authorised distinction between Natal and Cape Sugarbirds. The Apalis in the Cape Province - sleek grey, black and white - bears little resemblance to the yellow and green version in the Northern Province. Even we colourblind watchers are knocked out by the difference. I thought I saw, at very close quarters, a Whitebrowed Robin the other day. . . but as Newman doesn't allow it to be in my garden, I can't count it as a local resident.. . I'll go and check the Bird Atlas for possible strays. . .
James Clarke came out for a day last week. We spotted a Karoo Prinia as a 'lifer' for him. We strolled the Cliff-top briefly, and went up to Fernkloof hut to examine the fynbos specimens labelled there. Walked towards the waterfall in growth starkly different to that on the cliff-top. The mountain-side is covered in this first week of December with dancing yellow ï??everlastingï?€ flowers - strooiblomme as they are aptly called in Afrikaans, with the small yellow sewejaar bloom dominating the fynbos, with tall bouquets of white and purple Everlasters standing tall among them. We watched two Stone Chats performing above our heads; fluttering up perpendicularly then dropping onto waving stems of restos grass.
On our way back from the mountain we saw a whale doing repeated jumps for James. But it was far out to sea, and disappeared when we got down to the rocks. We had a champagne lunch at the harbour, staring out across Walker Bay. James declined crayfish - I think because they wanted R90 a tail, when people were picking them out of the bay for nothing nearby.
In the afternoon we drove round the Bot lagoon to Bettys Bay, with veld fires all around us. There were strangely few birds in the Harold Porter Reserve, though we did find some Black Duck and African Black Swifts on the water in Disa Kloof. We went down to Stoney Point to see the African (Jackass) Penguins - but were much more excited about being able to positively identify Bank Cormorants nesting among them... a 'lifer' for me. Whitebreasted and Cape Cormorants look as if they are crowding out the penguins, as they have done apparently at Dyer's Island. Even so, the numbers of penguins (not yet nesting) seemed far bigger than last time we visited. James and I estimated between 700 and a 1 000.
Driving back to Hermanus, we encountered fires right down to the road - flames higher than the car and the road hidden in smoke. We negoiated our way through with lights on.
Since then, other fires have raged through the mountains above our part of Walker Bay. For two days ash rained down on us, smudging roofs, verandahs, windows and gardens. Fortunately the fires failed to reach the Fernkloof Reserve or our Cliff-top. It is rumoured (unconfirmed) that two white youths have been arrested for arson, but most of the fires must have accidental, starting up in dry heat and wind (so early in the summer!) and mightly encouraged by fire-fighters who rush to create fire-breaks around all the isolated homesteads and farm properties . . . and watch their own fires rage upwards into the mountains. My plans to hike across the tops of the entire range are now postponed.
I heard the other day that while veld-fires are necessary for the cycles of fynbos to flourish, they need to average about 16 years apart. That period allows the entire cycle - from bulbs and ericas to Proteas - to grow up and reproduce themselves. But when fires occur, say, every two to five years, they could wipe out whole species of fynbos which have never had time to propagate. Instead, the aliens cast forth their seed in the fires; and colonise the carelessly damaged places.
However, the cliff top remains a garden of delights. The shrubs with their massed bouqets of yellow-heads which came out to dominate the scene last month, are taking second place to other blooms. The blossom have lost their colour - but almost doubled in size and turned into myriad white puffballs.
Wednesday, 15 December
About a month ago (diary entry November 10) I made an ignornantly vainglorious attempt to describe a dozen species of grasses which rose up beside the cliff paths and waved elegant green heads in the sea-breeze. They've died back, to make way for the hot-summer fynbos blooms - but I think I have been able to identify just a couple of those enchanting, dancing grasses, and with some practive I may be able to pinpoint the majority of those which happen to be exclusive to the southern Cape shore.
1. White puffball is still in seed and is unmistakable. It is Hare's Tail, Lagurus Ovatus, and according to the books it comes originally from the Mediterranean and has spread to similar climates in Australasia and America as well as the south-west Cape.
2. Puff tubes (i) is surely Small Canary Grass - Phalaris Canariensis and
(ii) P. minor and/or Polypogon strictus, the latter being indiginous only to the Cape coast.
4. Grass Bells. I can trace only one type, perhaps I was looking at young ones and fully grown plants. Anyway it is undoubtedly Briza maxima - '??large Quaking Grass', though I think the Latin name is far more appropriate than the common name.
6. Hairy ears (i) Appears to be, in fact, two species. Ehrharta longiflora or ï??Oatseed Grassï?€ whose inflorescence is a panicle of hanging spiklets that look like delicate green rockets. And Avena Fatua ('Common Wild Oats') which is coarser, with bigger, papery-white spikelets.
(ii) I have now 'classified' and identified as two more 'contracted panicle' species (ahem. . . I'm going mad trying to teach myself the basics of biology) which are Bromus Diandrus -'Ripgut Brome' 'wilder'oats, with profuse white spikelets and awns up to 60mm long. And B. rigidus, a subdued, more contracted variety.
8. Rocket pods, well, I shall have to do more research to iodentify this one - which I cannot quite visualise at this point. Also the other grasses I tried to describe in November and the two Pentaschistis species which are indigenous to the Western Cape.
During the coming year I want to know at least a dozen of the grasses peculiar to our region, and perhaps a dozen more of the common grasses of southern Africa. . . How the hell did General Smuts manage to remember a few hundred grass varieties, perhaps thousands? I suspect he started well before he was 70 years old. And he probably studied botany at university - certainly had a better grip on Latin than most.
I suspect Kate, Ty and Lucy will know more about plants before they finish school than I shall ever be able to learn in the rest of my life. Anyway, I am keeping a list of grasses which I have identified - and hope to remember! So far I have identified 11 species, and can remember the Latin names of about half a dozen of them.
These last few days have been exceedingly hot - more than 40degC in Paarl yesterday, they say - and would have been like that here in the last 48 hours were we not right beside the sea. But even our marvellous natural air conditioning almost switched off for a while. Once out of sight of the sea on the golf course after midday on Monday, and the sweat ran like rivulets. One of our group was carted off to hospital with hyperthermia.
Yesterday was perfect on the cliff path. Not a drop of wind, so still that Liz Winkler urged me to drive round Gearings Point to look at the rocks protruding from a glassy sea, ï??in shapes as calml as a Chinese painting.ï?€
I have been able to walk to the very edge of Kraal Rock and peer into a sea that looks like the summer Mediterranean - blue and tranquil. There is no surf, and there appear to be no swells - except that the water rises and falls on the shell-encrusted edge, sucking at the sea-weed two metres below, then suddenly surging up to one's shoes. I was able to clamber down the rocks to the mouth of a dark cave - which the sea serenely entered, then exploded and burst out again.- an eerie phenomenon which I'm sure will excite Kate and Ty . . . if we can ever get down there safely again. The calmness also allowed me to explore ï??The Barricadesï?€, just below the house, for the sea lay limp between the rocks where I could examine anenomes and other small life. There are sheltered places for picnics and drinks down there. . . provided no seas are running.
Shortly before sunset last night (sun disappeared behind the Marine Hotel just before 8pm, and the sunset lasted till nearly 8.30) I sat on our balcony looking at the bay which was as placid as Lake Maggio on a perfect day in Switzerland. The sea was as flat as a mirror . . . except for half a hundred ï??poolsï?€ of ruffled water; some round or oval, others formed like bullets or torpedoes pointing at the base of Walker Bay. The dark shapes moved infinitely slowly in the direction of the lagoon mouth - as slow and clam as giant jellyfish it seemed - but with the binoculars you could see how restless the water was in each cluster. Each was filled with tens of thousands of little fish. I saw the silver of their bodies, and when a tern (an Arctic Tern probably, for they are present, I am told) dived and rose with one in its beak, I could see the fish were no larger than sardines. Harders, maybe? The gulls and cormorants were too lanquid, or too full, to hunt them. But the huge shoals must have been attacked from below by seals and other hunters, for there were constant flurries of broken water as sections of the shoal swerved and darted in panic.
The shoals, each clearly marked, each clearly separated, stretched all lacross the bay. Were they heading for the lagoon - which was in any case blocked? Was there defence against attack only in their numbers; their millions? In any event, the rings, the cones the torpedo-shaped ruffles they left on the sea were gone before darkness fell.
Today, there is a breeze on the ocean again. Some white horses in the blue. Some waves breaking on the barricades.
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