Farm Biodiversity
Gloucester Vale is a beautiful farm with springs, streams, and rivers that we maintain responsibly. Two dams act as water catchment areas for use on the farm but also as wetlands to provide important homes for small mammals, birds, and insects as well as crayfish, tilapia and black bass.
Woodland and Wildlife
We maintain our indigenous woodland along the streams which are home to a couple of colonies of the rare De Brazza monkeys, various types of antelopes, cats, mongooses, porcupines, antbears, jackals, and otters. Indigenous acacias, Nandi flame, erythrina abyssinica and albizia trees are plentiful and the forest floor is host to many different ferns, fungi and mushrooms including the buwoba bumekele—a very local mushroom only found seasonally on termite nests.
Birdlife
The birdlife on the farm is exceptional, with many rare species sighted during the course of the year. The gorgeous malachite kingfisher is one of a number of different kingfishers who are regular visitors. We have permanent hammerkop nests in the trees around the dams, a variety of herons, and the farm is a mating site for the endangered crowned cranes who also breed here annually. Ross' turacos including the local white-headed variant are plentiful. A couple of Verreaux's eagle owls are resident, along with a number of raptors such as the long-crested eagle, African harrier hawk, and a number of goshawks. Over 210 different birds have been sighted in a morning’s birding.
