31st December 2007

The end of 2007 already! How quickly this year has gone, and yet, when looking back, how much has happened…moving back to Kenya from Scotland, getting married, settling into Kulafumbi…

Christmas was fun, and surprisingly social for us, with some friends staying for several days, others dropping in for just one night, others for lunch, and others for sundowners. We may live in the middle of nowhere, but sometimes you wouldn’t believe it! Our friend Rob arrived in his microlight, and landed on the beach in front of the house…the aircraft provided hours of fun on the mornings when the weather was good enough to fly, which was actually only a couple, because it’s been mainly overcast and drizzly in the mornings, clearing later in the day to become hot and humid. We mixed elements of a traditional Christmas (big turkey) with elements of the unconventional, like our Commiphora Christmas tree. It was full moon on Christmas eve which was lovely…

December 24th provided an amazing sight: we saw a hippo under the reeds opposite the house, which looked like it had some dried grass on its back. Upon closer inspection, we realised this was no dried grass but a tiny baby crocodile! And then we saw another one, and then a third, trying to climb up onto the hippo’s back…it was the most extraordinary sight. The baby crocodiles obviously thought the hippo resembled a boulder to rest on, and clambered aboard. When the hippo moved, the little crocodiles fell off, but within a few seconds, were scrabbling back up again. Because of the distance, it was difficult to get a clear photo, but hopefully you can make out the crocodiles in the pictures.

On Boxing Day, we walked down the riverbank to take a look at the hippos who are always there at Hippo Bend. I’m not sure if it was because we had Rob’s dogs, Raymond and Natter, with us, but the hippos were quite restless today. There were two youngsters play-fighting, while their mothers bit the water (which is a sign of nervousness) and started displaying their large teeth. We were quite a distance from the hippos, so it may not have been us at all triggering this behaviour – but there was certainly something going on making the hippos uptight. One hippo, further downstream, looked rather funny as it surveyed us on our way home…

The creepers, which I photographed in all their greenness a few weeks ago, are all flowering down on the riverbank now. There seems to be a predominance of yellow flowers – all slightly different shapes and shades. I also notice that the smaller Delonix trees are flowering more prolifically than the larger ones, which is interesting.

We had visits from the genet cat and from Slim, the black-tipped mongoose, both delighted with all the Christmas scraps of turkey and ham… A swift came and slept on our mosquito net again – this happens when the birds are disturbed by something at night, and then head for the lights in the house…they always seem to end up clinging to our mosquito net (instead of a cliff edge, where they’d normally hang to sleep). On the subject of birds, the Egyptian Goose parents are around, but there is no sign of the goslings – they were here one day, and then gone the next – they have obviously flown the coup…

All in all, it’s been a fairly quiet time on the river, with just the usual residents passing by: the baboons and the vervet monkeys, the impala and the waterbuck, and the ever-present profusion of dik-diks…

The end of the year inevitably inspires a moment or two of contemplation and retrospection…This year, I leave you with these two images of Kulafumbi, which in the period of a few short weeks transformed itself from semi-desert to jungle, testament to the cycles and endless rebirth of Nature.

Now, as the old year ends and the new year ushers in, the bushland is turning yellow again; although the rain is still around in pockets, before long, the dry times will set in, and we will await the arrival of the long rains, due to start falling in four or five months’ time…until then, the vegetation will hunker down, the wildlife will return to the river, and we will continue to observe and marvel at the changes brought daily to our doorstep by Nature’s ever-changing mysteries…

The last evening of the year receded with a rainbow and thunder, and the most extraordinary yellow light, bathing the river in gold…

Happy New Year to you all, and best wishes for a peaceful and fulfilling 2008…

See more photos of our first Christmas at Kulafumbi...
View more pictures illustrating how Kulafumbi has changed through the seasons...
Browse more crocodile images...
See more photos of creeper flowers, and other wild blossoms of Kulafumbi...
See more Hippo and other Big Game shots...