Sunday 31 December 2023

John Durdin 1926 – 2023

My father, John Durdin, died on 20 December. He was 97 and eight months old.

John Durdin, South Africa's Garden Route, November 2009.

It may seem a little strange to announce your father’s death through a blog, but it feels apt as he was such a regular presence on Honeyguide holidays over so many years and therefore known to many Honeyguiders.

There is a potted biography for Dad here, from a parish magazine in Plumstead, north Norfolk, where he lived for several decades. This blog is more about noting his Honeyguide links. Naturally it’s highly encouraging when your father enjoys the holidays that you run that he should choose to come on 27 holidays – nearly one a year before a combination of Covid restrictions and age drew a line.

With cheetah, Drakensbergs 2017 (Jean Dunn).

Dad’s first was in Honeyguide’s first year, 1991, to The Lot in France, where he returned in 1997. Other European destinations cover a big proportion of Honeyguide’s back catalogue: Mallorca, Spanish Pyrenees (twice), Eastern Greece, Slovakia, Menorca, Crete, Algarve, Lesvos, Madeira, Poland, Extremadura, French Pyrenees and the Dordogne (three times – where the wildlife and Cathy and Keith’s hospitality at Castang prompted return visits, including his final overseas trip in 2019.)

Dad had a particularly strong connection to the Danube Delta, with five visits. Holiday reports note that he was a guest of our local partners, Ibis Tours, a mark of mutual affection, also reflecting that we are both family firms.

With Geoff Crane, Table Mountain, 2015.

Some my father’s happiest days – and mine – were with Geoff Crane in southern Africa (and provided some of the best photos, too). The Western Cape in 2005 and 2015, Garden Route in 2009, Drakensbergs & Zululand in 2017 and finally Namibia in 2018, then aged 92.

Robberg beach, South Africa, 2009 (no, he wouldn't have minded).

It’s partly that Dad liked the mix of wildlife that Honeyguide offers, and the sensible pace. It was also the social side: he quickly made friends with Honeyguiders, and the mutual affection is shown in emails arriving recently.

Kate Dalziel in Cornwall says: “I count myself lucky to have been on two trips with him - the Danube Delta and the Dordogne.  He was delightful, knowledgeable but unassuming and with a real twinkle.“ Martin Kelsey in Extremadura says: “I remember him extremely well, he was a delightful and rather mischievous fellow!” From Rob Lucking, Honeyguide leader: “I have fond memories of him in Lesvos - he was excellent company and had a great sense of fun!” 

The sense of humour extended, at times, into anecdotes, often concluded with a Sidney James type of laugh, which had a knack of carrying you with him, whether or not the story was a good one. Yes, there were a couple of slightly embarrassing ‘Dad moments’ from brief speeches on last evenings, though it came from a pride in Honeyguide and especially for the conservation contributions through the Honeyguide Wildlife Charitable Trust. And there were a couple of holiday highlights that had everyone in stitches: one that comes to mind is “I’m wondering what the blokes down the pub will say when I tell them I’ve been watching penduline tits!” Perhaps you had to be there. 

Post-Covid, there are two cameo appearances to note. Two days in north Norfolk, 17 & 18 August in 2021 was in the second of the two years when Honeyguide was restricted to the UK. The two days were for regular Honeyguiders Sue & Peter Burge and Helen & Malcolm Crowder and included a visit to my father’s garden and exotic plant collection in his conservatory – a good wet-weather option in north Norfolk. Then, as recorded in News 2022, an exhibition and sales of my father’s paintings raised a little over £600 for Honeyguide's charity, plus a tidy sum for his village church.

Back row: Chris Durdin, John Durdin, Malcolm Crowder. Front: Helen Crowder. Rietvlei, SW Cape, Oct 2015.
I should add the traditional note that John had four children and six grandchildren, and that his wife, Yvonne, pre-deceased him by several years; they had divorced some years earlier.

The funeral will be help at Baconsthorpe Church in north Norfolk on 15 January. Tributes and donations to Norfolk Wildlife Trust can be made via this Just Giving Link

Chris Durdin

Monday 18 December 2023

Whitlingham Country Park, 15 December 2023

The forecast sunshine didn’t appear, though at least it was dry for the group of five on this ‘Honeyguide social’ event. By the edge of Whitlingham Great Broad, the usual mallards and Egyptian geese fed by visitors were joined by many gulls, and we picked out one common gull among the many black-headed gulls.

We took a clockwise circuit. Pausing by a near group of tufted ducks, with a great crested grebe beyond, Tricia pointed to a pale duck by the far bank. It was female goosander, and it moved into open water and showed well through the telescope, including for passers-by.

Goosander and great white egret: both poor digiscoped images, though you can see what they are.

Ann went to the water’s edge to look at an overhanging willow and found the egg-laying scars of willow emerald damselfly.

A scan of Whitlingham Little Broad revealed egrets perching on alders on the far bank: two great white egrets and at least three little egrets. One or two great white egrets have been here regularly of late, according to records on the Norwich Bird News WhatsApp group. Like little egrets, they are increasingly a routine sighting.

Common inkcap.

Along the far side of the Great Broad, it was rich in fungi on dead wood and in leaf litter. Species we identified with confidence included jelly ear, coral spot, turkeytail, yellow brain, purple jellydisc and candlesnuff. Common bonnet and common inkcap were added later; thank you to James Emerson for his advice.

Top left:candlesnuff fungus. Top right: common bonnet, growing high on a poplar.
Bottom left: yellow brain. Bottom right: purple jellydisc (centre), with silverleaf fungus (top and bottom right).
At the ‘conservation area’ there was a close gadwall and about 30 cormorants. Scanning beyond the cormorants on posts we could see a male goldeneye, though you had to be quick as it spent more time under the water than on it.

We heard from other walkers that the paths were flooded at the eastern end of the circuit, so we retraced our steps back to the car park and Barn Café.

Chris Durdin

Saturday 18 November 2023

Valencia: bird ringing sheds light on wetland warbler survival

For many Honeyguiders, one of the highlights of our March Valencia trip is to attend a bird ringing session at Pego Marshes Natural Park. Our local guide, Pau Lucio, and colleagues from Grupo de Anillamiento Pit-Roig (also on Facebook) have been managing a constant effort ringing site since 2004.

Bluethroat at Pego Marshes, with local Honeyguide leader Pau Lucio.

The site provides much information to study the reedbed passerine community, which includes some lovely wintering species: bluethroat, reed bunting, penduline tit and Cetti’s warbler, among others.

Kingfisher.

Reed bunting.
Cetti's warbler.

However, stealing the spotlight is the moustached warbler, for which Pego Marshes has the second largest Spanish breeding population. Numbers increase in winter with the arrival of many French breeding birds.

Pau and colleagues are about to publish a scientific paper comparing how climate change affects the breeding population of the moustached warbler and the reed warbler across Spain. To do that, they used thousands of bird ringing data from 51 ringing sites across Spain.

They found that the number of moustached warbler offspring is negatively affected by the rise in temperatures and late winter/early spring storms that affect incubation and chick rearing. In contrast, the reed warbler appears resilient to the negative impacts of precipitation, while an increase in temperatures seems to have a positive effect on the reproductive success, leading to a higher number of offspring.

Moustached warbler.
These results align with other papers that show that climate change affects more specialist species – ones that need a more specific habitat – with a fragmented distribution, in this case the moustached warbler, and affects less the generalist bird with a wide distribution, here reed warblers.

During the ringing session on the holiday, Pau will explain the research he is involved with. The photos of birds were all ringed during previous Honeyguide visits.

Honeyguide’s wildlife holiday in Valencia in 2024 runs from 8 to 15 March. More information on http://www.honeyguide.co.uk/wildlife-holidays/Valencia.html

Information provided by Pau Lucio. Photos by Pau, except Pau with bluethroat by Chris Durdin. More ringing photos from a previous trip here on Facebook, including penduline tit, sedge warbler and chiffchaff.

Thursday 2 November 2023

Conservation donations from Honeyguide in 2023

Honeyguide’s conservation donations in 2023 totalled £4515. This blog is mostly to give news on the most recent donations, in autumn 2023, as well as the running total.

Cove at Binidali, Menorca, October 2023 (Chris Gibson).

Our October holiday on Menorca – as for all our Menorca holidays over nearly 30 years – supported The Grup Balear d'Ornitologia i Defensa de la Naturalesa (the Balearic Ornithological Group) – GOB Menorca for short. Our donation was £610, which includes Gift Aid and an additional donation.

A nice element while we are on Menorca is direct contact with GOB Menorca. I saw this at first hand in October 2023, and it was the same for the group with Chris Gibson in October 2023. Carlos Coll, President of GOB Menorca, came to our base Matxani Gran along with Charlotte from GOB’s Farm Stewardship programme.

Carlos wrote to me to say:

“We had a wonderful evening with a really interesting group of Honeyguiders. Charlotte spoke about the team she forms part of and explained our Farm Stewardship programme which is growing every year.

At present this programme has become a bit of a flag-ship and has created interest in many areas in and out of Spain. This time last year we were invited to visit a NGO in Libano who are developing a land stewardship programme and we came home filled with enthusiasm and very impressed with how they are making such a difference both agriculturally and socially. Sharing good practice is so important. 

Thank you so much for Honeyguide’s very generous gift to GOB. Donations enable us to continue with our all important work in creating opportunities and balancing progress with sustainability. We are enormously grateful.

I do hope you will be able to visit Menorca again and allow us to show you how GOB is making a difference.

Also in October, we sent also £100 to Norfolk Wildlife Trust after our North Norfolk break with Rob Lucking.

Wells Harbour, north Norfolk, October 2023.

Usually, donations are sent after holidays have run, just in case something happens – learnt from the experience of air traffic control issues in France. However, for Algarve and Alentejo in Portugal this November, we made an exception. In Portugal we lean on the advice of Domingos LeitĂŁo for the choice of project to support: Domingos is both Executive Director of SPEA (BirdLife Portugal) and our guide this year.

In 2023 we will be a sponsor of the 11th Congress of Ornithology of SPEA, 22-26 November, in Ponta Delgada University (Azores). This is a major science and conservation event that SPEA used to organise every third year. The last time, the 10th, was in 2018, and because of the pandemic, the 11th was postponed to this year. More on:  https://spea.pt/congresso-de-ornitologia-2023/. In view of the dates, it made sense to commit early to this, and the sponsorship – with others – shows on the website of the congress. With the benefit some unrestricted funds in hand as well as knowing what November’s group will contribute, the trustees of the Honeyguide Charitable Trust agreed to send €1000 (£886) to SPEA.

Honeyguide donation to SPEA for 11th Congress of Ornithology.

Other donations in 2023:

February: £175 to Norfolk Wildlife Trust, linked to Honeyguide local walks.

March: £630 to GREPOM (BirdLife Morocco) linked to our Morocco holiday and £290 to SEO (BirdLife Spain) linked to our Extremadura holiday.

April: £430 to the Hellenic Ornithological Group (BirdLife Greece) linked to our Crete holiday.

May: £290 to BirdLife Salamanca for harrier protection, linked to our South of Salamance holiday.

June: £820 to Zerynthia, an NGO working to conserve butterflies in Spain, linked to our Picos de Europa holiday.

July: £190 to the RSPB on Mull, from our Mull group.

August: £94 to Norfolk Wildlife Trust, from a Honeyguide local walk at Hickling nature reserve.

Part of the ethos of Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays has always been to contribute to the protection of the wildlife that we enjoy, put into effect by donations to conservation projects and organisations linked to our activities. These donations are usually via the Honeyguide Wildlife Charitable Trust, through which we can claim Gift Aid and increase our charitable activity.

Adding this year’s donations of £4515 to the previous total gives a running total of £149,797 donated to nature conservation since Honeyguide started in 1991.

Chris Durdin

Monday 2 October 2023

La Brenne, September 2023

This is an account of a personal visit to La Brenne, in mid-France. The tourist information about the ‘parc naturel rĂ©gional’ says it is the 'land of a thousand lakes' and ‘1001 surprises’. Most accounts say there are closer to 2,000 lakes, fish ponds created from the Middle Ages and since. These and the quiet country lanes and tracks are very attractive for wildlife, walking and cycling.

La Brenne, land of 1000 lakes.

Our trip was by train, car hired locally, and bike. Here is the outline itinerary:

20 September: train Norwich to London, Eurostar St Pancras to Lille, overnight Lille.

21 September: trains TGV to Paris Gare du Nord, transfer to Paris Austerlitz, Austerlitz to Chateauroux; hire car to a gîte in Mézières-en-Brenne.

22 September: car to la réserve naturelle nationale de Chérine (several hides). Circular walk from Mézières-en-Brenne following route collected from tourist information centre.

23 September: hired bikes for route 5, a 43kilometre circuit. Traditional French music and country dancing at Hegarty’s in Villiers.

24 September: Coffee in Le Blanc, woodland edge walk near St Aigny.

Cressonière: stone structure once used to grow watercress. Water mill behind, at St Aigny.

25 September: drive through ForĂŞt de Lancombe, circular walk around Ă©tang Duris, visit to riverside town of Saint-Gaultier.

Good moaning. We were just pissing by ... in Saint-Gaultier.

26 September: electric bikes, following parts of three of the marked circuits in the regional nature park.

27 September: two triangular walks from Le Blizon, north of Rosnay, refreshments (as yesterday) at Maison du Parc.

28 September: returned car to Chateauroux, train to Paris Austerlitz, short walk to Austerlitz metro to go to Gare du Nord, Eurostar to St Pancras, Liverpool Street to Norwich.

On one of the circuits from Le Blizon.

We loved the area. It’s very rural, very quiet, and wonderfully flat – flatter than going out from home in the Norfolk Broads – for exploration by bicycle. MĂ©zières-en-Brenne is the obvious base, a quiet town with enough shops – a small supermarket called Proxi, boulangerie, a butcher with ready-made meals for sale – and black redstart singing on rooftops. There is an excellent tourist information office and the Moulin nearby where bikes can be hired. We also ate out in two very nice and sensibly priced restaurants: Hegarty’s in Villiers and the all-in-one cafĂ©/shop/restaurant in Saint-Michel-en-Brenne called Le Saint Cyran.

Fried carp, from the local fishponds (Ă©tangs), a local speciality, very nice. And good to see LPO (BirdLife France) on the place mat.

Quiet roads and well-marked routes for cycling. 

Would this make a Honeyguide holiday, one without the need for flights? For wildlife appeal, certainly. For practical reasons, it would be challenging. Transferring across Paris by train can be tricky. Where we hired a car in Chateauroux, a comfortable three-quarters of an hour away from MĂ©zières-en-Brenne, they didn’t have minibuses, so it would mean going somewhere further e.g. Tours. Accommodation would need to be found: the hotel in MĂ©zières-en-Brenne was shut for refurbishment. So there’s no easy fix –I like easy – and the 2024 programme is pretty full already. It’s not ruled out for the future.

Bikes again.
With so many wetlands, what wetland birds were there? Every lake seemed to have at least one great white egret and grey heron. Little egrets were plentiful, as were cattle egrets around cattle. We found a nice daytime roost of about 20 night herons, and twice saw spoonbills. It was too late in the year for purple herons, and too early for wintering wildfowl to join local mallards, gadwalls, coots and great crested & little grebes, nor had the now regular autumn and winter cranes arrived.

Cattle with cattle egrets.

Night heron daytime roost.

On birds of prey, buzzards were ten-a-penny, plus marsh harrier, sparrowhawk, hobby and kestrel. There were a few migrants: two pied flycatchers, two wheatears, yellow wagtail, blackcap, scores of chiffchaffs.

We found some interesting autumnal flowers, as the photos show.

Autumn lady's tresses. In the gite's back garden!

Goldilocks aster Galatella linosyris.

Meadow saffron, a roadside patch.

Water primrose Ludwigia grandiflora, known as an invasive alien, from central America, though pretty.

Mammals: roe deer, red deer heard regularly (being rutting season), coypu, red squirrel, wild boar rootings.

Reptiles/amphibians: wall lizard, green lizard, grass snake, European pond terrapin, pool frog.

Wall lizard, pool frog.
Butterflies: grizzled skipper sp, small white, scores of clouded yellows, brimstone, red admiral, great banded grayling, small heath, speckled wood, wall brown, small copper, common blue.

Dragonflies/damselflies: thousands of common darters, migrant hawker, willow emerald, winter damselfly.

Winter damselfly.

Other notable invertebrates: three hummingbird hawkmoths on the ‘hot-lips’ Salvia in the gĂ®te’s garden, aggregations of ivy mining bees, hornets, fire bugs, praying mantis, red swamp crayfish.

Praying mantis, red swamp crayfish, European hornet.

Thanks to Ian Barthorpe from RSPB Minsmere for lending us his Crossbill Guide to the Loire and La Brenne.

Chris Durdin

Sunday 10 September 2023

Snettisham event, 31 August 2023

Today's outing took a slightly different format in that it was an evening outing especially timed to see the high tide wader roost at the RSPB's Snettisham nature reserve on the Norfolk side of The Wash. Because it was a big group Rob was joined by Steve Cale, an experienced guide and accomplished artist. 

Half of the group met mid-afternoon for a walk from the RSPB car park to Snettisham Coastal Park. The first surprise of the day was a juvenile little tern we saw feeding in a freshwater pool alongside the entrance road to the car park. Large flocks of hirundines were feeding over the trees, a mix of swallows and house martins and at least eight buzzards circled on the thermals.

We started out along the inner sea bank at Snettisham Coastal Park and saw a young whitethroat in a hedge with a group of house sparrows. Daphne spotted a speciality of the area - a turtle dove sitting on the overhead wires. In the distance we could see the first flocks of waders swirling in the distance and 13 spoonbills flew over.

Massed waders at Snettisham.

We headed slowly back to the car park to meet up with the rest of the group. The car park had filled considerably since we arrived, and RSPB staff were on hand to manage the situation.

We had special permission to drive onto the reserve, saving a long walk, and we all piled into four cars to drive from the car park through the chalet park and onto the sea bank overlooking the Wash.

The group overlooks The Wash.

The waders were already starting to gather. A big flock of oystercatchers gathered on the mudflats, constantly moving as the tide touched their feet. Flocks of bar-tailed godwits and golden plovers flew inland to roost on farmland. We could hear several common sandpipers calling and both common and Sandwich terns flew overhead. Best though were the great swirling flocks of knots, constantly changing direction and shape. 

On the distant horizon we picked out Boston 'Stump' - the local name given to St Botolph's church in Boston, reputedly the tallest parish church in England and the Outer Trial Bank, an artificial island built as part of a feasibility study in the 1970s to see whether it would be possible to build a barrage across part of The Wash to store fresh water.

The forecast rain started a bit early, so we moved into one of the hides overlooking the old gravel pits that form part of the reserve. We could see the tightly packed roosting flock of knots on the shingle banks with black-tailed godwits in front in the water. There were at least 20 spoonbills on the far bank and five spotted redshanks in among the commoner redshanks.

By now the rain had eased and we headed back to look over The Wash. Among the huge flock of gulls we found a good number of Mediterranean gulls with the adults' white wing tips and heavier bills being best features to distinguish them. As the tide started to drop, we were treated to the 'reverse' spectacle of knot leaving the high tide roost. This time the flypast was fast and low as they flew over our heads from the pits back out onto The Wash.

Botanising by torch light (Tim Hunt).

We wandered back to the cars but before departing had a quick look (by torchlight!) for a Snettisham speciality plant, red hemp-nettle, at its only Norfolk site. It is a species that requires disturbed ground and unfortunately the area that had been very good for it in previous years was no longer suitable.

Rob Lucking

Friday 25 August 2023

Hickling guided walk, 24 August 2023

A curiosity of today’s visit to NWT’s Hickling Broad and Marshes nature reserve was that two of the most interesting sightings were in the long grass in the open picnic area by the visitor centre. The first of these was the day-flying moth latticed heath. Rachel in the visitor centre checked it out and it’s not the first for the reserve, but far from an everyday species. (More information on Norfolk Moths.) For the second good find, scroll down to lunchtime!

Latticed heath moth.
On this warm and sunny day, dragonflies were out on good numbers, with common and ruddy darters particularly common and confiding. A black-tailed skimmer landed on pallets in the first field, and migrant hawkers were numerous. Later a female emperor dragonfly hunted around us, and we saw a couple of brown hawkers. Mosquitos were also numerous, as two of us in shorts found, especially between the visitor centre and the first hide, though Ann’s insect repellent helped. A brown shield bug on a bramble stem was a dock bug.

A chiffchaff called and briefly showed, and an early find was a green cigar gall. We get used to seeing these in winter once the reeds they are on have turned brown; perhaps it’s just a question of getting your eye in. There was a great white egret and a little egret from the first hide (Cadbury Hide), and a distant great spotted woodpecker high on a dead tree. Bramble leaves on this part of the reserve were noticeably affected by a rust fungus.

Cigar gall; abundant rust fungus on bramble.

On Hickling Broad there was a flock of coots, a few great crested grebes, mute swans, herons, distant gulls and a common tern. By where the boat tours leave, a common lizard soaked up some warmth on wooden fence plank.

The next stretch was under oaks, prompting a look for galls, now coming into their peak season. On the oaks were spangle galls, cherry galls and knopper galls on acorns or fallen on the ground, all three types of gall induced by gall wasps. Farther on we found thistle galls on creeping thistle, caused by a mite, and a robin’s pin cushion on a dog rose, caused by a gall wasp.

Oak galls collage. Left, knopper galls. Top right, spangle galls. Bottom right, cherry galls (the cherry colour comes later).
Also on one of these oaks was a footman moth. The ‘melon seed’ shape makes it dingy footman.

Dingy footman. Also the brown lumps above the moth are probably another oak gall, 'collared bud' galls  from yet another gall wasp, Andricus curvator.

The star birds of Hickling – like harriers, bitterns and cranes – were generally conspicuous by their absence from view, though we did hear bearded tits. At Bittern Hide, the best birds were inside: three swallows in a nest.

At Brendan’s Marsh a wader flew up the channel and landed by the flock of Canada geese: a common sandpiper. Then we saw a closer wader in a pool in the mare’s tail, this one a green sandpiper. There were great white and little egrets, though no sign of the spoonbills recently announced to have bred here. Much of the open ground was bright yellow, a covering of buttonweed or Cotula. It was lunchtime, so we took the woodland route back to the visitor centre, finding a willow emerald damselfly on route.

Time for picnic lunches. The waste bins were taped and labelled as out of use, the reason being a steady stream of hornets through a gap in the cupboard that houses the bins. (The nest was therefore out of sight, though here is photo of it on Mike Dawson’s Facebook.)

Wasp spider, a first for Hickling (Helen Crowder).

It was where we’d seen the latticed heath that Helen made the best discovery. Two weeks ago, at Thompson Common, it was Ann who’d found the wasp spider. Today it was Helen’s turn to discover one. The female wasp spider was in a typical position, in long grass likely to have plenty of cricket & grasshopper prey. They can be quite static, though this wasp spider’s web was incomplete, so she was often on the move, adding strands. Eventually Rachel was free from her meet-and-greet duties and came to enjoy the discovery. Later she advised that it was a first record for the reserve … and a good reason to keep the grass here uncut.

More spiders in the Hickling picnic area (Helen Crowder). Probable ID is candy-striped spider Enoplognatha ovata. 

Many of the group extended our stay into the afternoon, albeit dropping from seven to four as we walked past Brendan’s Marsh and onto Stubb Mill. Brendan’s Marsh had more wildfowl species than you might expect in high summer: mallards and gadwalls, of course, also teals, shovelers and two wigeons. A little ringed plover flew in to land near another green sandpiper and there was a large flock of lapwings. We remarked on how great white egrets are impressive when they fly: three here this afternoon, plus little egrets, both now routine sightings at Hickling.

By the path, two blue-tailed damselflies floated around, and one settled for long enough to allow photos. A reed warbler sang briefly – more of sub-song, really. At the far end of Brendan’s Marsh we scanned an open area and found a Chinese water deer looking at us.

Blue-tailed damselfly (Helen Crowder).

No surprise that on a warm summer’s day there were plenty of butterflies around. Red admirals were in good numbers: these included six on a patch of hemp agrimony during the morning. Other included speckled woods, gatekeepers, green-veined and small whites, and a peacock soaking up warmth in a hollow in a broken tree trunk.

Peacock butterfly.
Stubb Mill was the walk’s farthest point, somewhere to enjoy the benches and the view. We returned along the route we’d come, with a welcome breeze now, adding a fine view of a female sparrowhawk, marsh harrier, a single bar-tailed godwit in flight and a flock of ten calling curlews.

Mating small whites at the Stubb Mill viewpoint, with Heigham Holmes in the background.

A lovely plant of chicory outside NWT Hickling's visitor centre.

Back at the visitor centre, Rachel was still showing the wasp spider to visitors.

Chris Durdin

John Durdin 1926 – 2023

My father, John Durdin, died on 20 December. He was 97 and eight months old. John Durdin, South Africa's Garden Route, November 2009. ...