Kurt Buzard, Author at Travel To Eat

November 18, 2020 by Kurt Buzard

Historic Company’s Garden in Cape Town

The Company’s Garden. Cape Town, South Africa

The Company’s Garden is the oldest garden in South Africa, a park and heritage site located in central Cape Town. The garden was originally created in the 1650s by the region’s first European settlers and provided fertile ground to grow fresh produce to replenish ships rounding the Cape. It is watered from the Molteno Dam, which uses water from the springs on the lower slopes of Table Mountain. The Dutch East India Company established the garden in Cape Town for the purpose of providing fresh vegetables to the settlement as well as passing ships. Master gardener and free burgher Hendrik Boom prepared the first ground for sowing of seed on the 29th of April 1652. The settlers sowed different kinds of seeds and kept record thereof each day. Through trial and error they managed to compile a calendar which they used for the sowing and harvesting throughout the year. At first they grew salad herbs, peas, large beans, radish, beet, spinach, wheat, cabbage, asparagus and turnips among others. By 1653 the garden allowed the settlers to become self sustainable throughout the year.

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November 7, 2020 by Kurt Buzard

Baby Ostriches on the Ocean

Female South African Ostrich (Struthio camelus australis). Cape Point Ostrich Farm, South Africa

The South African Ostrich (Struthio camelus australis), also known as the Black-Necked Ostrich, Cape Ostrich or Southern Ostrich is a subspecies of the common ostrich endemic to Southern Africa. In the 18th century, ostrich feathers were so popular in ladies’ fashion that they disappeared from all of North Africa. If not for ostrich farming, which began in 1838, the world’s largest bird would probably be extinct. Today, ostriches are farmed and hunted for feathers, skin, meat, eggs, and fat — which, in Somalia, is believed to cure AIDS and diabetes. Ostriches were hunted to extinction in the Middle East and might have met the same fate in Africa if not for the evolution of ostrich farms. Ostriches are now farmed commercially in more than 50 countries around the world, including the United States. In Roman times, there was a demand for common ostriches to use in venatio games or cooking. They have been hunted and farmed for their feathers, which at various times have been popular for ornamentation in fashionable clothing (such as hats during the 19th century). Their skins are valued for their leather. In the 18th century they were almost hunted to extinction; farming for feathers began in the 19th century. At the start of the 20th century there were over 700,000 birds in captivity. The market for feathers collapsed after World War I, but commercial farming for feathers and later for skins and meat became widespread during the 1970s. Common ostriches are so adaptable that they can be farmed in climates ranging from South Africa to Alaska.

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October 28, 2020 by Kurt Buzard

Fynbos Flowers at the Cape of Good Hope

Fynbos at Slangkop Lighthouse, South Africa

Cape Point is in the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve within Table Mountain National Park, which forms part of the Cape Floral Region, a World Heritage Site. It includes the majestic Table Mountain chain, which stretches from Signal Hill to Cape Point, and the coastlines of the Cape Peninsula. This narrow stretch of land, dotted with beautiful valleys, bays and beaches, contains a mix of extraordinarily diverse and unique fauna and flora. The Cape Peninsula (around 470 sq km) has 2285 flowering plant species. Table Mountain National Park alone has 1470 of these. Mountain fynbos dominates the park. It’s characterised by four main groups: protea shrubs with large leaves (proteoids), fine-leaved shrubs (ericoids), wiry, reed-like plants (restioids) and bulbous herbs (geophytes). Table Mountain National Park includes the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. Although the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve (or Cape Point as it is colloquially called) occupies only 16% of the area of the Cape Peninsula as given by Adamson & Salter (1950), the flora of Cape Point comprises 41% of the flora of the whole Peninsula. This illustrates the fact that many of the habitats and plant communities of the Peninsula are represented at Cape Point. Cape Point is the windiest place in South Africa and experiences only 2% of all hours in the year with calm conditions. I also want to mention that all of the following photographs were taken in October, in the middle of spring in the Southern Hemisphere.

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October 25, 2020 by Kurt Buzard

The Beautiful Cape Peninsula in South Africa

Cape of Good Hope Sign, South Africa

I thought that I would write an introductory post on the geography and history of the Cape Peninsula, mainly because while everyone has heard of Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope, knowledge usually ends at recognition. The Cape Peninsula (Kaapse Skiereiland) is a rocky and hilly peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the southern end of the peninsula are Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. On the northern end is Table Mountain, overlooking Cape Town, South Africa. The peninsula is 32 miles (52 km) long from Mouille point in the north to Cape Point in the south. The Peninsula has been an island on and off for the past 5 million years, as sea levels fell and rose with the ice age and interglacial global warming cycles of, particularly, the Pleistocene. The last time that the Peninsula was an island was about 1.5 million years ago. Soon afterwards it was joined to the mainland by the emergence from the sea of the sandy area now known as the Cape Flats. The towns and villages of the Cape Peninsula and Cape Flats now form part of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality. One of the many reasons that travelers choose to visit Cape Town is its abundance of scenic beauty and natural attractions. The city itself is situated between the Atlantic Ocean and Table Mountain, one of the world’s Seven Wonders of Nature. Table Mountain’s iconic plateau forms the dramatic backdrop of the city and is a must-see for visitors. On the peninsula, there are beaches, penguins, seals, ostriches and lots of hiking trails with beautiful scenery. For me, the famous fynbos with it’s many plants and flowers were a major draw along with the history and all of the above.

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October 10, 2020 by Kurt Buzard

African Penguin Colony at Boulders Bay

African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus). Boulders Beach, South Africa

The Boulders Beach African Penguin Colony was established in 1982 by a breeding pair of penguins who settled near Capetown, South Africa after fleeing when a larger colony was devastated. Today there are currently 28 African penguin colonies, only four of these occurring on the African mainland. These colonies run along the coast, from Algoa Bay in South Africa to Namibia’s Penguin Islands. Despite the huge distances between these colonies, it is not uncommon for young penguins to visit, and occasionally resettle, at a different colony from which they hatched. African penguins are clearly resilient animals. They have evolved the behavioral mechanisms to move their entire population to deal with changes in the abundance of food. Despite their wide range and versatile juveniles, African penguin numbers are declining fast – so fast that it is believed they will be extinct within 10 years. Today there are fewer than 21 000 pairs of African penguins left in the wild – 100 years ago there were single colonies that had over a million, like Yzerfontein’s Dassen Island. Dassen Island is, unfortunately, not a unique case. The total breeding population across both South Africa and Namibia fell to a historic low of about 20,850 pairs in 2019. Quite simply, our common seafoods – sardines, anchovies and pilchards – are the products directly linked to the decline in penguin numbers. You may have been unaware, but sardines/pilchards have recently been added to the WWF SASSI Orange List – a seafood you should avoid. These ratings do not only mean that the fish itself is at risk, but also that the practices used to catch it are harmful to other species. I would go a step further in saying seafood of any kind should only be consumed if it is sustainably farmed. Bottom trawling destroys far more ocean habitat than any other fishing practice. In this common fishing method, large weighted nets are dragged across the ocean floor, clear-cutting a swath of habitat in their wake. Some of these scars will take centuries to heal, if ever.

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October 6, 2020 by Kurt Buzard

Cape Fur Seals on Duiker Island

Cape Fur Seals on Duiker Island near Capetown, South Africa

When I visited Africa three years ago, I spent some time in Cape Town and had an opportunity to visit the Cape of Good Hope. About 12 miles south of Cape Town is the little settlement of Hout Bay, famous for a colony of seals on a rocky outpost just outside the harbor. Tiny Duiker Island—also known as “Seal Island” for its large population of Cape fur seals—sits just off the South African coast at Hout Bay, near Cape Town. It measures just 253 feet by 312 feet (77 meters by 95 meters) and is a seabird sanctuary in addition to sheltering thousands of Cape Fur seals. The island is renowned for its marine wildlife, including the Cape fur seals and marine bird species such as the common cormorants and kelp gulls. They have tourist boats going out to the island frequently from Mariner’s Wharf and the whole experience takes about an hour. It is one of the more interesting sights on the way to Cape Hope.
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September 30, 2020 by Kurt Buzard

Dragonflies and Damselflies at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve

The Giant Griffinfly Meganeuropsis Takes to the Wing on a Permian Morning. Lucas Lima and Earth Archives

Dragonflies and their relatives are an ancient group. Meganisoptera is an extinct order of very large to gigantic insects, occasionally called Griffinflies. The largest known Griffinfly and/or insect of all time was a predator resembling a dragonfly but was only distantly related to them. Its name is Meganeuropsis, and it ruled the skies before pterosaurs, birds and bats had even evolved. The oldest fossils are of the Protodonata from the 325 Mya Upper Carboniferous of Europe, a group that included the largest insect that ever lived, Meganeuropsis permiana from the Early Permian (300–250 Mya). Meganeuropsis permiana was described in 1939 from Elmo, Kansas. It was one of the largest known insects that ever lived, with a reconstructed wing length of 330 millimetres (13 in), an estimated wingspan of up to 28 inches (710 mm), and a body length from head to tail of almost 430 millimetres (17 in). Nevada designated the Vivid Dancer Damselfly (Argia vivida) as the official state insect in 2009. Sadly, I have no photos of the state insect but Nevada has many eco-zones and the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve has quite a number of equally beautiful species.

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September 26, 2020 by Kurt Buzard

Awesome Bees and Wasps at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve

Male Tarantula Hawk (Pepsis thisbe) on Desert Milkweed (Asclepias subulata). Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve, Las Vegas

When I first moved to Las Vegas there were virtually no mosquitoes and no flies. However as the population has increased and the local climate has changed with more landscaping and water we have seen a corresponding increase in bugs. That is not to say that there were no insects in the desert, as with flowers and plants you just have to look more carefully. There are an amazing variety of specialized insects living in the desert surrounding Las Vegas under conditions that would be considered hostile for any other insects. Again just like flowers and plants, the insects can come and go quickly over specific times like spring or after precipitation and are often found in specific areas suited to their needs. The Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve is a great place to see lots of unusual insects due to the presence of water and hospitable plants. Bees, wasps, dragonflies and butterflies are diverse and are part of the special ecology of the preserve, both prey and predator for birds and other inhabitants. Fortunately, there are very few mosquitoes, probably due to the dragonflies and the dry heat. Due to carefully selected and strategic native plants, there are a variety of native flowers all summer long which support a diverse and vibrant ecosystem. In this post I thought I would focus on some really interesting bees and wasps which I saw at the preserve.

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September 22, 2020 by Kurt Buzard

Beautiful Butterfly Families

Cupid Presenting a Rose to a Butterfly (1802) by Antoine Denis Chaudet. Louvre

Butterflies have been held in reverence and high esteem for millennia, enshrined by the ancient Greeks in the mythical love affair between Cupid/Eros and Psyche the butterfly goddess. According to Greek mythology, Psyche was a beautiful maiden who fell in love with Eros/Cupid. Cupid’s mother, Aphrodite, was jealous of Psyche’s beauty and tried to keep the lovers apart. Eventually, however, Aphrodite realized that Cupid and Psyche were destined to be together and so Zeus made Psyche immortal. Psyche is also the Greek word for “soul” and “butterfly.” Although the original Greek story has been lost to history, the mythology of Cupid and Psyche was preserved in the book Metamorphoses written in the 2nd century CE by Platonicus. The Greek story of Eros and Psyche is known from at least the 4th century BCE and was a popular subject in Greek and Roman art. The word for butterfly in formal Greek is psyche, thought to be the soul of the dead. Ancient Greeks also named the butterfly scolex (“worm”), while the chrysalis – which is the next stage of metamorphosis from a caterpillar – was called nekydallon, meaning “the shell of the dead”. The metamorphosis of the butterfly inspired many to use butterflies as a symbol of the soul’s exit from the body. Thus, the myth of Psyche concomitantly signifies soul and butterfly. It has come to mean the story of the soul coupled with divine Eros, but which must nevertheless endure tribulations before achieving immortality. Psyche, a mortal woman, was released from death by Zeus, the father of the gods, who took pity on her and granted her immortality. Psyche’s mythological imagery in ancient art is represented with butterfly wings, amply depicted in pottery as well. Freed from death, the body of the soul could fly freely, soaring, departing from the shackles of the chrysalis. I thought this lovely Greek story would be the perfect introduction to a review of beautiful butterflies.

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August 23, 2020 by Kurt Buzard

Plant and Animal Petroglyphs in Little Petroglyph Canyon

Bighorn Sheep Petroglyph (left) and Pine Tree Petroglyph (right). Little Petroglyph Canyon, China Lake, California

Little Petroglyph Canyon contains many petroglyphs of animals which is appropriate I suppose since it was likely a hunting camp in the fall. The canyon was an ideal site since the infrequent rain storms flood the canyon leaving water in concave bedrock pools covered by the loose sand and gravel of the canyon floor. Deer, antelope, and desert or mountain bighorn sheep were hunted with spears, bow and arrows. Rabbit was the most common game. Other small animals such as marmots, ground squirrels, and porcupines were also caught using noose snares and nets. Birds such as grouse, ducks, and other waterfowl were hunted by the Northern Paiute, who also collected duck eggs for eating. The Owens Valley Paiute did not do as much bird hunting. This is a remarkable collection of Native American art, encapsulating centuries of knowledge into simple drawings. Northern Paiute people call those writings on the rock etsatubono, which means, literally, “Coyote writings.” But this suggests not so much that the people believe that Coyote wrote them, as it is reference to their age. In Paiute traditions and legends, the animal people were put into this world before human beings. So the reference to Coyote writings is intended to suggest that those writings and images are ancient, and were made by the first creation. Like all great art, they are approachable in terms of content but each image is intertwined with myths, stories and culture extending back for millennia. There is no simple answer to what they mean, only endless variations on the names and stories.

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Historic Company’s Garden in Cape Town

Baby Ostriches on the Ocean

Fynbos Flowers at the Cape of Good Hope

The Beautiful Cape Peninsula in South Africa

African Penguin Colony at Boulders Bay

Cape Fur Seals on Duiker Island

Dragonflies and Damselflies at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve

Awesome Bees and Wasps at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve

Beautiful Butterfly Families

Plant and Animal Petroglyphs in Little Petroglyph Canyon

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