Zululand megatick April-May 08

Hi All

At last here I am sitting in front of the iMac getting up to date with the blog.

In South Africa at the end of April we were lucky enough to get a concatenation of public holidays that only needed two days' annual leave to get a nine day break. So yours truly and three companions (Jenny Norman, Brian Plowes and his new girlfriend Lizelle) persuaded our bosses we were not indispensable and went on what the birders call a 'megatick'.

Zululand is a priority for the SABCA atlassing project (http://sabca.adu.org.za/) as we are trying to raise evidence to thwart a government plan to spray the whole of Maputaland with delta-methrin, a pesticide deadly to all invertebrates. The rationale is to get rid of tsetse flies because according to the ANC, cattle diseases caused by this are 'the biggest cause of black poverty in the region'. The fact that a tsetse fly trapping program at Tembe Elephant Park hasn't caught one in years is apparently ignored. The area is home to several rare endemics, so we were on a mission to confirm their presence.

First stop was Entumeni Forest near Eshowe. Some shots have already been posted on the forum. We found butterflies to be quite plentiful despite the dullish weather. Banana bait attracted lots of the common coastal Charaxes, and also some very nice Blonde Gliders Cymothoe coranus:

Male:



Female:



The next day saw us off to fabled Ngoye Forest, one of our largest remaining coastal lowland forests. We were after the Mottled Green Nymph Euryphura achlys (stayed elusive) and the Bicolored Skipper Abantis bicolor (sighted through Jenny's Swarowski bins, but photos - no chance - and I missed a shot with Brian's long net).

We did however get some nice shots there. This male Tailed Black-eye was flitting about in the undergrowth near the hilltop:



And these lovely Natal Opals Chrysoritis natalensis were on the hilltop, near their foodplant - a species of Diospyros, not the usual Chrysanthemoides.



The white flowers we keep hearing are swarming with Bicolor again weren't but there were some nice butterflies on them:



Red form Dusky-veined Acraea Hyalites igola



And the white form; both these are usually very difficult to approach.

But it was the hilltop that yielded the goods. This male Black-and-orange Playboy Deudorix dariaves was hilltopping and perching most fetchingly on a shiny-leafed tree:



And the real thrill was my first ever wild sighting of Cupreous Hairtail Anthene princeps:



My only other sighting was years ago at nearby Mandawe when I netted one off a tall tree, not knowing what it was, and had to fake a studio shot later. Unfortunately he would NOT open his wings to show the glorious pinky copper upperside...

There were some nice fresh Albatross Whites Appias sabina phoebe around; these are the same butterflies as the 'old farts' I posted some time ago:



On the Monday we set off through driving rain to Tembe, nearly four hours away. We got there to find a clear day rapidly going south. Nick de Goede, the ranger-in-charge, thanked us for the rain that thundered down overnight. First for months, he said. It dawned warm but overcast, and we went out after butterflies. Tembe is where we started to find Buffs; I posted some, here is another example of Common Buff Baliochila aslanga:



Brian and Lizelle were feeling tired and spent a day in camp, where Brian found a perfect Paradise Skipper Abantis paradisea on the only Deinbollia flowers for miles. Lucky devil, I have never got a good shot of that on film or silicon. The one in my Field Guide was shot by Rob Pare. However, we were lucky enough to find a male Black-and-orange Playboy, this time flying low and posing like Mick Jagger:



We had been hoping to find the elusive Flame-bordered Emperor Charaxes protoclea azota there, but all we found were lots of the normal common Charaxes and these lovely Giant Emperors.



These have the same foodplant - Afzelia quanzensis - and I think we only missed the Flame-bordered by a couple of weeks. But we only had a short while there and did a detour outside the reserve to nearby Makanes Drift on the Pongola River. We went to check on the colony of Sesbania Blue Leptotes pulcher. To our dismay the place has been slashed-and-burned; there was only a small area still covered with Sesbania. I managed to find them, getting Jenny a lifer in the process. Unfortunately the only shot I got chopped off his antennae:



The next day saw us off to Manguzi, near the coast, for a day. We had some semi-decent weather here and the Gold-banded Foresters were out. I posted one on the forum. Brian saw a Flame-bordered Emperor there too.

Finally we went to Ndumo, right up on the Mozambique border. This is a stunningly lovely place with large pans of fresh water surrounded by Fever Trees. Here I got out the wide angle and got all landscapy - a few shots of Nyamithi Pan:








And here is the Usutu River, border between SA and Moz (you can see Moz on the far bank), in spate:



We did manage to find some Sesbania near this river but the weather was too wet to look for the butterfly. Ndumo was a lovely place and I'm sure we would find a lot of butterflies there. We spent a lot of (unsuccessful) time looking for the Oncocalyx mistletoe we had found at Phinda; we know it's there but couldn't find any!

It was in Ndumo we found the Pennington's Buff on the scale insects. Another nice photo was this male Bushveld Purple Tip Colotis ione:



We also managed to find this glorious Brown Pansy Junonia natalica trying to catch a ray on a dull cloudy morning:



Nearby was this newly hatched Vine-leaf Vagrant Eronia cleodora keeping a low profile - just goes to show dull days can be a bonus because this butterfly seldom sits still showing its underside:



But in general we didn't find much. We did however make lots of good contacts and a real friend in our field ranger Rafael, who is trying to learn all the butterflies seen at Ndumo

We will be doing a separate report for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, but this is a general story for everyone.

All the best

Steve