Most people in the southern hemisphere welcome spring on the 1st of September, otherwise known to all of us as Spring Day. However, according to nature’s calendar, the beginning of spring is in actual fact a little later, on the 22nd of September. Regardless, this time of the year in the bush is exciting and beautiful for many reasons.

The beautiful colours of the beginning of spring.

The colder winter months have started to pass, especially signified by the lack of need for large amounts of warm clothing in the mornings and gathering closely around fires in the evening. Even though I, for one, absolutely love winter and all that comes with it, there does come a time in the year when you are ready to leave your jackets behind and welcome the ‘life’ that spring is accompanied by. As it starts to warm up, animal movement becomes slightly more predictable. With it being much warmer during the middle of the day we are sure to see animals moving during the earlier and later parts of the day.

An impressive Kudu bull seen out in the open is an unusual sight as they are often found in the thicker vegetation. With the setting sun in the background and the golden light that reflects off the subject’s coats this time of year provides amazing photography.

The length of the “golden hour”, despite what the name implies, varies throughout the year and as the days become longer so does this period of time. This means you have more opportunities to capitalise when the sun casts the most beautiful glow on whatever subject you are looking at. Whether you are photographing a leopard or lion or have a Gin and Tonic in hand watching the sun drop below the horizon there is something particularly magical about this time of day in the bush.

A celebratory Gin and tonic at sunset.

Whether you’re a birder or not, Africa or in fact the world just wouldn’t be the same without our feathered friends. Their colours, calls and displays remind us of how lucky we are to be surrounded by nature. Their ranging colours add to the already beautiful landscaped and with the arrival of spring it is joined by the arrival of many migratory birds having travelled from far and wide, some even across continents. At this time of year, we have already started to see a lot of the migratory birds returning, to make the most of abundant food sources brought on by the rains. A lot of them will breed during this time as well. All of this means we have even more colour, sound and predator spotters out there in an already vibrant reserve contributing to making each and every game drive as special and as different as the next.

A quartet of beautiful Violet-backed Starlings. The distinction between male and female can easily be made here with the males possessing the glossy purple plumage. They are a migratory species that arrive here to breed, making use of small cavities in dead trees like the one they’re on.

A Woodland Kingfisher. A migrant that provides our landscape with extreme beauty.

One can find many forms of beauty in the harsher winter landscape, such as beautiful crisp mornings and evenings accompanied by stunning sunrises and sunsets but there’s something special about what spring has to offer. Thanks to three trees in particular we begin to see the flowers of the bush begin to erupt. The knob-thorn tree, sausage tree and weeping boer bean tree are the first that start to show off the landscape.

A giraffe bull feeds on the flowers of a Knob-thorn Tree, during the last few weeks of august and first few of September in the lowveld, Knob-thorns stick out amongst the landscape as their flowers blossom earlier than most other tree species in the surrounds.

The flowers of the knob-thorn are yellow and are only seen during this time of the year. With knob-thorns found throughout the reserve, sitting somewhere elevated and gazing out at the vistas before you is made even more beautiful with the endless yellow splashed throughout. Coupled with the knob-thorn is the beautiful weeping boer bean with its bright red array of flowers. The “weeping” part of the name comes from the nectar that drips from these red flowers during this time that attracts so many birds and insects which inspired the local Shangaan people t0 call it Mvhovhovho which is said to onomatopoeically represent the sound of all the wingbeats and activity around the flowers.

A flowering weeping boer bean. A hub of activity for birds and insects.

The flowers of the sausage tree are impressive too with their long, open sprays of large, wrinkled, maroon or dark red trumpet-shaped flowers that are velvety on the inside and that virtually overflow with nectar. On a little side note, the flowers of the sausage tree are pollinated by bats, the epauletted fruit bat to be more specific.

The beginning of all the seasons comes with different forms of excitement. This particular one, for me, is the most dramatic of all. Life appears from all over. Sounds, colours and new forms of life begin to cover the landscape and demonstrate how beautiful nature can be. And once the first rains of the season fall we will see the bushveld explode with new life.