THE LION WHISPERER

EVEN A BIG, FIERCE LION NEEDS A FRIEND

My little ursine friend's mutters from the cupboard are becoming a problem - I guess we're both missing the bush - so I'm letting him out to share another wildlife tale (this one took place at Ka'Ingo Private Game Reserve in South Africa). Over to Erich:

"Hoo-wee, I had to stop my knees from knocking in this picture (well, I don't really have knees...), but then, they did say he was asleep! This lion needed his radio collar's battery changed, so a really good marksman shot him with an anaesthetic dart, and as he lay down, a ranger rushed up to change the battery while a vet and vet nurse attended to his scrapes - he'd been scrapping with another lion because they both fancied the same lioness. 

But take a look at his poor nose! Makes my skin creep to think how sore it must be - the whole front of his nose is hanging off, and there's raw red flesh under it. He had been transported in a cage six months earlier, and in his desperation to break free, he'd cut the end of his nose against the bars. The vet had stitched it up and they'd kept him sedated for a couple of days until it looked okay, then they released him. But it itched like mad, so he rubbed it, and the rubbing tore the stitches out. But this time the vet said he was going to leave it because the poor old chap was managing to hunt and lead a normal life. I dunno. Looks pretty awful to me. (By the way, he had baaaad breath...)

I thought he looked lonely and scared, so I held his hand for a while. I don't think many bears and lions have held hands? I wonder if he tells his kids that once, while he was waking up, he saw a small fluffy animal that he didn't recognise, and that wasn't food...

JANE and ERICH

STILL OUT THERE

So here we are again. Erich's been locked in a cupboard for months, griping like mad, so I'm letting him out for a bit. He dug around in some old photos and picked this one because it makes him look like 'the main man' It was taken in Kruger National Park on a really hot day. Over to him.
"Hey, any of you spot what's wrong with this pic? Trick question - you'd need to know spiders really well to get this one. That scary dude on my head? A tarantula. A real, live tarantula, from the Amazon jungle. So, duh, they don't exist in the KNP. (Bet you thought it was a baboon spider! Close enough, same family - Theraphosidae - plus about 898 other similar species. How d'you think they got that number right? Did they catch thousands of big, hairy spiders all over the world, put them all in a line and say "Yeah, this one's this one's cousin, nah, that's something else, wait - here's another one!" ? Jeez. Glad I wasn't in that room!)

Neat thing about them is that they can regrow lost limbs - awesome! Like a gecko does with its tail.
Anyway, this chap on my head was someone's pet. He kept it in a perspex box, and had to catch live crickets for it every day, then one day he announced 'it had disappeared'. Reckon he got tired of catching crickets, and left the lid off its box, 'cos it sure as heck couldn't lift the lid on its own. And if it couldn't adapt to Kruger, it would soon have starved to death.
My message? Don't keep exotic pets. It encourages the trade in them, and there might not be many left in the wild. Actually, don't keep anything that has to live in a box away from where it belongs. Yikes, I've rambled on. Jane's telling me to shu..."

Jane & Erich

FURTHER ADVENTURES

 

So who's Erich? And why? Jeez, I don't know. He's this little bear that someone gave me years ago, and he just loves getting out and exploring. If I leave him at home, I hear these weird, low, subsonic mutterings and bearswears, so it's just easier to pop him in my rucksack and let him out every now and then if I see something interesting. He's full of chirps today and keeps butting in, so I'll let him speak for himself:

"Okay, enough with the intros. Wow, this is cool! What the heck is it? It's apparently called lichen - a fungus partnered with a plant-thingy called a photobiont, so it's not just a plant, and not quite a mushroom, it's a sort of combination of the two. The fungus holds onto the rock, and the photobiont makes food for both of them. Wow. You can eat some kinds of lichen, and reindeer really like it, but some kinds are poisonous, so don't go nibbling any rocks with this stuff on. And some of them can be boiled up to make purple dye - cool! And some are a kind of primitive antibiotic. Oh boy, I think I'm gonna read up more about this. 

Yikes, here I go, back in the blimmin' rucksack....."

SOME OF MY ILLUSTRATIONS AND PAINTINGS

Most of these paintings and drawings were commissioned; 
a couple were gifts for friends

I draw with biro, pencil, chalk, and pencil crayons, and paint in 
watercolours, acrylics, oils, mixed media - pretty much anything! 

I work mainly from photographs, because the little darlings 
won't sit still, and sometimes they're on the other side of the 
world and I don't have the pleasure of meeting them

AND HERE ARE SOME ILLUSTRATIONS, CHIEFLY FOR SCHOOLBOOKS

Schoolbook- for a chapter on sport

Same book, same chapter!

Grade 2 schoolbook with text space in sea

                                               Miscellaneous schoolbook illies

Troubled teen

 Life in the oceans...

Schoolbook - An otter opening a clam 

This was done for a South African  Christmas card

Blue-footed Boobies for a nature study book