One tends to think of porcupine roaming in the wild but they are quite common here in the neighbourhood, though they not always welcome. For the keen gardener who prizes the display of flowering bulbs they can become pests. Being herbivores they are partial to a diet of juicy geophytes and digging up corms / bulbs is a nightly escapade.
Wildlife
Piggyback: Riding Atop
As baby baboons develop they progess from clinging below their mothers’ bellies to riding atop their backs. This juvenile baboon is probably old enough to be walking alongside its mother; instead it displays a rather confident riding ‘style’.
Bontebok young
September through to November is the birthing season for Bontebok (Damaliscus pygargus dorcas); this antelope species is endemic to the fynbos region and is found here in the south western Cape. It’s elegant colours blend well with the surrounding vegetation. Within a couple of hours of birth the young are fit to go.
Chacma baboons: Gentle mothers
It was cool in the early morning, 9*C when a passing rain shower caught this baboon troop out in the open. The mothers sheltered together paying attention to their babies gently cuddling them to keep them warm. The rain passed and they were soon back into the veld digging for corms and other succulent roots.
March: Wildlife in the garden
This month I’ve joined Jude’s photography challenge. The subject is wildlife in the garden, which is ‘right up my street’. The urban/wildlife interface here between mountain and sea is pretty active with a range of wildlife visitors – from the smallest of critters such as baby field mice to baboon, otter and porcupine … dassies, mongoose, genet.
