Aside from the cool stuff I put in these blogs, it's far from non-stop excitement out here and there is plenty of time now that I have settled in, to relax and appreciate the place. I've started to venture out on my own these days too, which allows me time to slow down and photograph things without holding anyone up. The things I find on these trips are the sorts of things I came here for, like that "mongoose like creature" that turned out to be… a mongoose. An Egyptian Mongoose to be precise if you want to check it out. Anyway though it's going to bore some of you to death, others have been hanging out to hear about the plants and animals, so this one's for the naturalists.

There's an undeniable ruthlessness in wild Africa, not just seen in the large hunters from the documentaries, the dog eat dog reality is rife in the more subtle life forms too. Collecting water from the creek for the garden recently, I noticed an aquatic snail just below the surface of the water. Reaching into the shallow pool to collect it, I had second thoughts on the decision, realising the otherwise healthy creature was speckled with pits of healing shell where it had, on many an occasion, been the meal for something else (perhaps parasitic) in the water.Seriously check out the picture, it was bizarre. It's a tough place to be an insect too, I get distracted from photographing a fern frond by a wasp hovering by with its latest catch and on returning my attention to the frond, I notice a spider waiting in ambush on the unfurling foliage. From the photos of the snails and millipedes you can see many of the creatures here avoid insect predators by outgrowing them but judging by the variety bites and rashes I've now accumulated, the bitey things aren't always afraid to take on something bigger. While I'm getting bitter about insects, the novelty of the diversity of moths and butterflies here disappeared with my realisation that the b******s are all grubs and caterpillars first aren't they! Just great for my gardens….

Termites are everywhere here too and the compost I found in the existing bin was brown, converted by termites rather than worms so I am not sure on its properties. Massive nests are common high in the trees with perfectly camouflaged networks of mud tunnels leading down the trunks to the ground and into the next tree. The termites have a truly novel way to avoid predation and walking around camp it's never long before I hear a kind of hissing, something like the noise a rattlesnake makes. It freaked me out the first time I heard it but after I stood still for a while, I realised it was coming from the muddy termite trail on a nearby beam. I looked closer and saw the individual termites simultaneously shaking their wings in rhythmic pulses, the combined vibrations loud enough to be heard several metres away. But how do they know to vibrate all at once? Well looking even closer I've noticed they weren't vibrating simultaneously at all, but rather in a perfect termite Mexican wave!

It's not just animals either, plants too are in fierce competition. The eight foot grasses do their best so snuff out competition, forming huge fields prone to serious fires if not handled appropriately in the dry season. The jungle canvassing the rivers and creek lines forms impassable walls. Ground covers, shrubs, palms and trees compete for light,strangled and even uprooted by a myriad of creepers and vines with plenty of thorns. (Like my use of myriad there Danielle?) Even the soft growth of large shelf fungi, first to emerge as the rains break the dry season, is suffering. It's now no match for the pin-pointed tips of fast growing sedges effortlessly spearing their way through the fungi's flesh in the search for a place in the chaos.

There is however,a contrast of fleeting fragility in the plant life here too. There's no shortage of flowers to photograph now but I still kick myself for not taking the camera out when I first arrived when I come across fist sized clumps of brown petals that would, no doubt, have been something spectacular in the first few months of the wet. Many of the flowers out in the morning here are shrivelled or have fallen off the plants all together by mid-afternoon and it takes a few goes to photograph them. But perhaps the most awesome feat I have got to see but neglected to photograph was a massive eruption of pure white mushrooms on a nearby creek bank, no bigger than a centimetre each but combined covering about ten metres. They appeared overnight and I kid you not, were gone without a trace the next day. So I don't care how tragic a tourist I am now the camera comes everywhere.

Wow I really released the plant nerd in this one… hope that's painted you a bit of a picture and not sent you to sleep…

Till next time, have one for me!