Tag Archives: live

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Flushing Fan-Tailed Grassbirds in the Proteas and Penny Gums

There’s something special about bird watching.

PHOTO BY PIXABAYFebruary 15, 2025

I’m back in the bird challenge for 2025. I bombed out in the early 30s – in August, maybe – of 2024’s 52-week challenge. That felt like good going for being at home for all except two of those weeks.

I learned a lot about birds right under my nose here, including rarities. Two of these amazing finds were the wintering spotted ground thrush and orange ground thrush, which both just happened to appear in my little slice of forest.

If I hadn’t walked down into the dark gorge below the house in winter, I wouldn’t have found them at all. Now that I know they’re there, that’s two more birds I can potentially list this year when the time comes.

Mostly, it’s just exciting to know that I’m preserving some habitat they can shelter in for the next few decades (let’s hope!).

A Little Trail Running Turned Out To Be a Big Birding Win

While exploring, I also found a wonderful fan-tailed grassbird. It was in the middle of some penny gums when I took a little detour on my usual route.

It’s quite hard to describe that moment. The penny gums are beautiful and smell so good. The king proteas nearby were in full flower on one lonely tree.

In front of this, in the penny gums, the bright yellow Cape longclaws were trying to hide in the longish tufts of grass.

I was sneaking up on them to see how close I could get to those skittish birds that are all along the road in Oribi Gorge. As I came around the bend, I flushed the fan-tailed grassbird instead.

It took me a little while to click.

The gorgeous little bird was in its full spring plumage. Bright and clean, it perched on top of a young penny gum tree and looked quite indignant about my disturbance.

Behind it, there was the view of the brown farm slopes dropping down to the Mzimkhulu.

At that point, everything else was just sprouting tiny, almost transparent leaves. I knew they would grow and darken into full green foliage in a few weeks, but right then, the freshness – new life – was palpable. The ocean further beyond that shone in the sun.

Was I in some lost world? As I heard the nearby quarry machines whirring up, the grassbird flew off. I guess not. But it was still so beautiful.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Live Each Day To Its Fullest

SCH Local News | “You have the right to stay in bed even if you don’t exercise it.”

Another bright and beautiful morning in Oribi Gorge. PHOTO BY HEATHER LIND

April 14, 2024 

‘Storms to persist’ the headlines said for Human Rights Day 2024. I looked outside and confirmed that the weatherman was indeed correct about the bleak outlook for today.

The first day of the school holidays was just a normal workday for me as a freelancer. There had been a lot of questions about my rights floating around my brain that week.

The Right To Just Be Left Alone?

A potential prospector has been scuttling around our beloved part of Oribi Gorge. The notice cited lithium, and a few other things, that a big yellow demarcated area on the map is assuming might be under the ground. As if we needed yet another hard thing in our lives after losing a beloved brother recently. Grief must wait apparently for community objections to said prospectors and lots of research about the area that we don’t have time to fit into already full schedules.

Three noisy boys running around and asking for food isn’t a great environment to be reading complicated 158-page documents about mining and laws and stuff is it?

“Pay attention to the details, brain.”

If I missed something about a loophole or water use license, would we lose our home in a few years’ time? What about the animals and birds and plants? What about the endangered oribi I admired in our little field of baby macadamia trees last month? Will those trees bear fruit in five years as they should, or will the dust from an open-cast lithium mine have ended their prospects?

It’s dramatic, I know. But that’s how it feels. Storms persist. They leave for a while, but there’s always another one. That’s life.

The Right To Continue to Live Freely? Maybe

What a privilege seven years in Oribi Gorge has been. I pray there will be 70 more, with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren too.

We are born and we die, but in between is so much life to live and so much wonder to experience. Right then, on the rainy day during which our country was celebrating human rights, it felt hard to get on board with hope and freedom. Still, the Samangos were calling in the forest just 50 metres away to remind me that I didn’t get to feel sorry for myself in bed that day or any other day that would come after it.

Miners may come. Precious species may go extinct. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. But today is the day to get up and be human about it and to hope.

It’s our right and our joy to live each day to its fullest.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Make Smarter Choices

“This year, we can choose how we want to live, work and play.”

PHOTO BY PIXABAY

January 31, 2023

It seems like we all need a reminder this new year about the choices we have in life. For a while now, many of us have felt trapped by the after effects of pandemic regulations and all those cancelled events.

We still see those six-feet apart queue stickers on the floor at the shops. We still automatically glare at people who dare to sneeze in public. But we don’t have to be stuck with the way things are.

Why don’t we strive to make smarter choices? This year, we can choose how we want to live, work and play.

Choose To Live Differently Post-Pandemic

School is back in session and everything is open again. We can go back to church and parties. We can go back to the office fulltime if we’ve missed it or carve out new routines if we’re tired of the old ones.

We no longer have to live under the pressure of a masked world. No more pointing fingers at nostrils that can’t seem to stay hidden behind stretched fabric or reused disposable masks.

We might also want to rethink choices like where we buy or rent a home. For example, we can be smart by not buying a home near a little stream in Pietermaritzburg that has a relentless resident buff-spotted flufftail. If we can avoid this stupid decision, we can save ourselves decades of having to listen to that siren-like sound that goes all night, every night, forever. It’s even worse when it competes with frogs, dogs and car alarms.

These rare birds might be a drawcard for nature lovers. But occasionally visiting the stream is a far smarter decision than letting a little bird chip away at your sanity night after sleepless night.

Choose To Live Smarter Going Forward

We should also make smarter choices about our time this year. For instance, planting a granadilla vine that grows up every column on the porch might seem like a great natural decorating strategy. However, it turns out these vines are super messy and difficult to control.

You could spend hours hacking away, untangling, and eventually having to cut it all down without a single granadilla produced. A smarter choice would be to save time by letting it grow in a place it can go crazy without needing pruning or blocking out the sunshine (now I know!).

Whether it’s a vine or a social calendar, smart choices could save us a lot as we reorganize our priorities around busier schedules this year. Our smallest choices still count towards building our lives. The flufftail apparently enjoys droning booo-booo-booo into the darkness. We can enjoy ourselves, too.

In any case, we can choose to be better. Any step forward is progress, no matter the length of the stride.

Published here.