Werf is an Afrikaans word with no exact English equivalent. The word “farmyard” comes closest. The werf of a farm is the area which includes things like the farmhouse, barns, garages, storage areas, guest cottage, farm manager’s house, milking shed, fruit and/or vegetable packing sheds, chicken run, pigsty, and all other outbuildings. It also includes the gardens, the lawns, the haystacks, the roads and all the open areas around the buildings. If the farm is long-established, there are usually large trees. In many parts of southern Africa, these are the only trees until you reach the neighbouring farm. The trees are planted for shade and windbreaks, and also for firewood. Usually, they are alien species, such as eucalypts from Australia, or cypress trees from the Mediterranean region. Sometimes there are a few fruit trees which supply the farm families with fruit in season: lemons, apples, peaches, apricots, … Likewise a vegetable garden. The gardens are a magnet for bees and other insects. The boundary is often clearly defined with a fence. The far side of the fence is where farming proper starts and the werf ends! On a large and busy farm, the area of the werf can be a few hectares.
There is often a windpump in the werf, or its modern analogue, a solar pump. As a result, water is available: open circular reservoirs, drinking troughs for farm animals, sometimes a swimming pool, often a seep where there is leaky pipe. The nearest surface water might be on the neighbouring farm.
The resources provided by the werf attract an array of biodiversity that does not occur in the surrounding farmland. For birds, the list of these resources is long: drinking water; shelter (from sun, wind and storms) in the trees, under the eaves of buildings, etc; nest sites in trees and on buildings; nest construction materials (grass strands for weavers, twigs for doves and sparrows, etc); the large trees provide overnight roosts for sparrows and weavers; and probably most importantly, food. The birds feed on fruit, foliage, nectar, grain (the occasional grain spill is a banquet), insects, earthworms, etc. And the enhanced density of birds results in them becoming a food resource too, attracting avivores such as sparrowhawks.
The werf on a farm is an example of a novel ecosystem. The system of werfs dotted across the landscape provide opportunities for range expansions. For example, the Common Myna is expanding across the grassland and karoo biomes of the Free State and the Northern Cape via the the werfs on farms a few kilometres apart.
If you are a participant in the bird atlas, then you are trying to get as comprehensive a bird list for a pentad as possible. The werf of at least one farm in the pentad is a valuable birding resource, because it is generally the easiest and quickest place to find a substantial number of species which are either hard or even impossible to find away from human habitation.
Farms are sometimes purchased for nature reserve expansion programmes, and the objective is to restore the area to its natural state. One of the biggest tasks is to remove all traces of the werf.
Thanks to Sybrand Venter for his drone photographs of a werf in the Karoo near Carnarvon in the Northern Cape, South Africa.