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| It was hot at 42C, 108F, and “Little” needed to cool off yesterday. The water in the cement pond was most likely hot as well but cooler than the air temperature. It was only after it had cooled down that he lumbered out of the pool and then, only then, was he looking for a good meal. We complied with pellets, ice-cold diced carrots, and diced apples. He took one last dunk before he left for the evening. |
“Sighting of the Day in the Bush”
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| Closeup of “Little” cooling off in the cement pond. During the worst part of yesterday’s unrelenting heat, he stopped by, not for food but to sleep in the cement pond for over three hours!!! |
As mentioned in an earlier post, with it now nearly impossible for us to do our daily drives in Marloth Park with the roads blocked with holidaymaker’s vehicles, considerably less wildlife in the garden and our unwillingness to deal with the crowds and long waits to get inside Kruger National Park, we’ll be reiterating a number of our past posts from five years ago.
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| Treefrog nest made overnight over the pool by a female frog. |
Five years ago is a long time. We lived in Marloth Park from December 2, 2013, to February 28, 2014, for a total of 88 days. Many of our more recent readers may have not read the past posts nor have they seen the photos included therein.
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| I’d taken this photo while sitting at the outdoor table of the Hornbill property where Gerhard and Rita have been living recently. The white foamy ball can be seen on the left of this tree, opposite the bush baby house on the right. from this vantage point, we kept a watchful eye as the life cycle of the tree frog eventually unrolled before our eyes. |
By the time we left here on February 15, 2019, we’ll have spent a total of 15 months of our entire 76 months of our world travels right here in Marloth Park. (The exception is the total two weeks we spent in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana). As a result, we’ll have spent almost 20% of our entire travel time in South Africa.
For the sake of our many worldwide readers who may follow us off and on or consistently, few will recall what we shared five years ago. Thus, we hope that which we include over these next three weeks (not every day) will be fresh and new information.
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| Many male treefrogs mounted the nest to fertilize it. What a sight to behold! |
We apologize for any redundancy if you’ve followed us from the beginning and possess a keen sense of recall, But also keep in mind, we’ll be sharing considerable new information as well, and you may want to check each day to see “what’s new.”
As for the balance of today’s post, which information and photos we gathered from the posts of December 20, 2013, and December 29, 2013, we excitedly share these photos, the video, and the statement below directly from those posts. Please click the above-dated links if you like to read those posts in their entirety.
It was the sudden overnight appearance, of a foam treefrog nest, hanging over the swimming pool in the Hornbill house, where we lived on December 20, 2013 (the same house where friends Rita and Gerhard have been living), that precipitated the story, the photos and the included video. Nine days later the tiny tadpoles began to drop from the nest into the pool below.
From that post:
“Fascinated by this anomaly, (to us anyway), we both immediately began searching online for more information such as:
1. How many eggs are in that white foamy ball? 500-1200
2. How will they hatch? They’ll drop from the foam ball within a week falling into the pool as Tadpoles.
3. Did the female make this foamy nest overnight since we hadn’t seen this on Wednesday? Yes, it takes seven hours to make the foamy nest at night.
4. Will the Tadpoles swim in the pool before the metamorphosis begins and they become treefrogs? Yes!
5. How long does this process take? It could be as quickly as 24 hours.
6. Will we have the opportunity to watch and photograph this process? Hopefully! We’ll certainly try.”
As it turned out, we had an opportunity to see the treefrog nest process unfold before our eyes, shared in the two dated posts above. What a fantastic experience!
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| An hour later, they started climbing off the foam nest which appeared to have been well fertilized! |
Photo from one year ago today, December 20, 2017:
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| One year ago today, we participated in a tour of the ship’s bridge. There were dozens of pieces of equipment for the staff to monitor 24-hours a day. For more details, please click here. |