FEBRUARY 2023 GARDEN BIRDS

Another month has flown by in a flurry of activity, leaving little time for photographing avian visitors to our garden – never mind being able to enjoy watching them without the nagging thought that I ought to be doing something else. The real problem – and partly why this post is late – lies with the long bouts sans power that we endure every day. This means one rushes around doing what needs electricity to be done when there is power and catching up with all sorts of other things when there is not. Thank goodness for the birds though: they are always there – seen or heard – to provide some respite from this mad rush.

There have not been as many weavers around as we usually see at this time of the year and of these, Southern Masked Weavers have been dominant. Red-eyed Doves too have been heard –usually early in the morning and during the late afternoon – more than seen. Redwinged Starlings are gathering in ever larger groups now and make various flypasts during the day – one hears them before seeing them whizz by. There will always be an abundance of Laughing Doves attracted by the seeds I put out daily and I am very pleased to note the return of Fork-tailed Drongos. Other welcome returnees this month include the Barthroated Apalis – its cheerful chirps can be heard throughout the day, Fierynecked Nightjars – lovely to hear them at night, and a few fleeting visits from a pair of Yellow-fronted Canaries.

It is always pleasing to actually spot an African Green Pigeon. This one was perched on the branch of the Tipuana tree early one morning:

The presence of Rednecked Spurfowls make me feel as though I have woken up in a game reserve! This small family makes regular forays onto our front lawn and from there to the seed that has fallen under the feeders next to the swimming pool. I have seen them in the back garden too and so have taken to scattering crushed mealies there every now and then. This one is looking up at me in surprise:

Bronze Manikins never fail to amuse the way they huddle close together on the feeders – there always seems to room for one more – and yet, they too, sometimes peck each other or biff one out of the way in order to get to the food:

Most gratifying this month has been the fairly regular sightings of a young Cape Robin-chat. It was very shy at first, but has become bolder in its search for food. Here it is perched on the edge of the bird bath:

A significant problem we have to deal with during these long periods sans power is that perishables, such as cheese, do not last as long as they ought to – even in the fridge. Here Spotty, the Common Fiscal, looks as though he is biting off more than he can chew:

Even though I featured a Blackheaded Oriole last month too, I cannot resist including this view of one perched on the trunk of a Cussonia (cabbage tree) next to the swimming pool:

My bird list for this month:
African Green Pigeon
Barthroated Apalis
Black-collared Barbet
Black-eyed (Dark-capped) Bulbul
Black-headed Oriole
Bokmakierie
Bronze Manikin
Cape Crow
Cape Robin-Chat
Cape Weaver
Cape White-eye
Cattle Egret
Common Fiscal
Fiery-necked Nightjar
Fork-tailed Drongo
Greater Double-collared Sunbird
Green Woodhoopoe
Grey-headed Sparrow
Hadeda Ibis
Knysna Turaco
Laughing Dove
Lesser-striped Swallow
Olive Thrush
Paradise Flycatcher
Pied Crow
Red-eyed Dove
Rednecked Spurfowl
Red-winged Starling
Sacred Ibis
Southern Masked Weaver
Speckled Mousebird
Speckled Pigeon
Village Weaver
White-rumped Swift
Yellow-fronted Canary

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WHAT CAMERA ARE YOU USING?

I have always wanted a camera. From a very young age I have conjured up the photographs I would have liked to take by framing them with my fingers. My eldest brother had a Brownie Box Camera and developed the black and white photographs (we didn’t think of them being monochrome then) himself. What magic it was to see the pictures emerging and then being hung up to dry!

My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic. It was compact enough to fit into my rucksack when we hiked in the Natal Drakensberg and it was robust enough to survive a number of falls. During the 1970s we mostly used slide film – what an expensive business. One could reduce the cost by mounting one’s own slides if one could cut straight and had sufficient patience.

I recall wonderful evenings at university when members of the Mountain Club would gather in a lecture theatre to share their slides of the various outings we had been on. It was great fun seeing these on a large screen. Some years later, we would hold family slideshows, which were also fun for everyone.

I was sans a camera for years until I received a Konica SLR as a gift. By then slides were no longer an option and so, with a growing young family, taking colour prints made sense. I have filled albums with the antics of our children. This was also an expensive undertaking, however, as one paid for the duds too (oh, so many of them!).

Along came the wonder of digital photography. The magic of this made my fingers itch to record so many aspects of nature. My children had grown up and were leading their own lives away from home when I became the proud owner of a Sony DSLR. Still stuck in the mode of having to pay for developing and so on, my first forays into digital photography were very conservative: I would take perhaps twenty photographs on an outing – now I take hundreds!

One afternoon I was sitting on a bench at the Berg-en-Dal rest camp in the Kruger National Park when a bearded man stalked past me without making eye contact. I was still cradling my camera in my lap on his return along the path. This time he paused to ask me to identify a particular bird call. “It’s a Black-headed Oriole” I replied with a smile for I had been watching it flit from tree to tree. He took this as a cue to tell me about his camera, a Pentax with the same range as my Sony. He told me he had taken some lovely photographs of birds.

“They must be good,” he informed me because his brother-in-law “who is a ‘real birder’ often admires them.” He gave me a rundown of the specs of his camera and told me proudly that it ‘only cost’ what he regarded as a reasonable sum. “It is probably more versatile than the long lenses I see poking out of windows everywhere”, he assured me.

On that note, I must relate my experience with long lenses. If you want to see a collection of enormous lenses in the wild, visit the bird hide at Lake Panic near Skukuza – also in the Kruger National Park. On one of the earliest times I entered there I almost felt like hiding away the camera I was so proud of: it was minute in comparison with the canon balanced on the ledge by the camouflage-kitted photographer sitting next to me.

I sat quietly for some time, observing the birds and the terrapins, while listening to the whirrs and clicks all around me. My camera was way outclassed! Nonetheless, it was inevitable that I would also want to photograph the Grey Herons feeding their chicks. Then the terrapins sunning themselves on a rock drew my attention. A Giant Kingfisher perched on a branch well above my head … I extended my telephoto lens and clicked self-consciously. At some stage I murmured something self-deprecating to my canon-wielding neighbour. He turned to me with a twinkle in his eye.

“I am focused on the herons and that is all I can photograph at the moment. I cannot move this lens in a flash to catch the kingfisher as you have just done.” He explained that he had moved ‘up the ranks’ of cameras and lenses until he had reached a point of specialisation. “I have thousands of photographs,” he smiled. “Now that I can afford a lens like this I want ‘special’ photographs – something out of the ordinary; something ‘different’.”

In due course I became dissatisfied with the quality of the bird photographs I was taking. My Sony retired when I did and I now have a Canon 200D with a Tamron lens. It is still a ‘smallish’ camera that has a little better ‘reach’ and provides me with enormous pleasure – as does the camera on my cell phone!

JANUARY 2023 GARDEN BIRDS

January was a month of heat, power outages, appointments, having to deal with issues such as installing a new water tank and pump as a buffer for when the municipal water supply runs out … and my laptop went on the blink and required a new keyboard. I have very few bird photographs to choose from this month, even though the list below shows that we have again enjoyed many visitors.

The year began on a happy note with several sightings of a pair of Paradise Flycatchers flitting around the feeding area as well as in other parts of the garden. The female seemed to have taken a dislike to an Olive Thrush for a day or two and chased it away from the bird bath whenever it saw it there. Sacred Ibises fly over the garden in a V-formation in the late afternoons, catching the last rays of the sun as they head for their favourite perches in the CBD after the day spent in the countryside. Black-eyed (Dark-capped) Bulbuls are cheerful visitors that perch on the aloes or on the branches above my head chirping loudly – especially when they find food they particularly enjoy. They have tucked into the fruit I have put out as well as eating tiny bits of meat.

Laughing Doves visit the garden throughout the year. I was fascinated to see one nesting in the grapevine on a neighbour’s veranda the other day – apparently this is a regular nesting spot; close to where they regularly sit. This one is keeping an eye on what is happening in the garden before it flutters down to enjoy the maize seeds on the ground.

The Cape Weavers come and go and are more evident on some days than on others. The nectar feeder is a big draw-card during this very hot weather.

I hear Black-collared Barbets calling around the neighbourhood every day and am always pleased when they stop by to eat something from the feeding tray. They have become much more wary about doing so since the neighbouring cats moved in.

Village Weavers are regular visitors too, although they might stay away for a day or two. This is the first summer in years that no weavers have even tried to build nests in the any of the many trees we have growing in our garden.

From being heard more often than seen, a pair of Black-headed Orioles have become daily visitors to the feeding area to eat, drink from the bird bath or to perch in nearby branches whilst calling to each other. Theirs is among the first sounds to be heard in the early mornings.

Then there is an Olive Thrush. I have always regarded these as iconic birds of our garden: they were everywhere, until the cats next door arrived. Now they pay fleeting visits and when they do, they remain on the alert and fly off as soon as a movement or sound spooks them.

My bird list for this month:
African Darter
African Green Pigeon
African Harrier Hawk
African Hoopoe
Black-collared Barbet
Black-eyed (Dark-capped) Bulbul
Black-headed Oriole
Bokmakierie
Bronze Manikin
Cape Crow
Cape Robin-Chat
Cape Turtle Dove
Cape Weaver
Cape White-eye
Cattle Egret
Common Fiscal
Diederik Cuckoo
Fork-tailed Drongo
Greater Double-collared Sunbird
Green Woodhoopoe
Grey-headed Sparrow
Hadeda Ibis
Klaas’s Cuckoo
Knysna Turaco
Laughing Dove
Lesser-striped Swallow
Olive Thrush
Paradise Flycatcher
Pied Crow
Red-eyed Dove
Rednecked Spurfowl
Red-winged Starling
Sacred Ibis
Southern Boubou
Southern Masked Weaver
Speckled Mousebird
Speckled Pigeon
Spectacled Weaver
Village Weaver
White-rumped Swift

NOVEMBER 2022 GARDEN BIRDS

November is a month that seems to have sped by. I have been on the road more than usual and we have had inconvenient time slots for power outages – all of which have contributed to the late posting of my monthly overview of the birds visiting our garden. The third of November heralded the blooming of the first Pompon tree flowers and now our garden is brightened with the trees covered in beautiful pink blossoms.

November is also the start of having pesky mosquitoes around and is the time from which I can expect ants, spiders and beetles to land on me from the shady branches I sit under whilst watching birds! The first bird to draw my attention was a Black-eyed (Dark-capped) Bulbul displaying the avian version of panting in the heat – called gular fluttering.

We have experienced temperatures of up to 36°C, so there has been need for all of us to pant a little! Red-eyed Doves are more sensible and generally remain within the shade of the trees and have seldom been seen in the open during the hottest parts of the day. The heat has meant that Cape White-eyes have been visiting the nectar feeder regularly – they have also been enjoying the apples and pears. The Bronze Manikins continue to delight as they fill the feeders with their little bodies.

While the Laughing Doves generally gather in the nearby trees for at least twenty minutes before coming down to feed, there are always a few of them that prefer to filch seed from the feeder rather than joining the masses on the ground. I found the antics of this one particularly amusing.

Southern Masked Weavers have been kept busy feeding their chicks. I enjoy watching them stuff their beaks with fruit to feed their chicks perched nearby. At one point this month the Cape Weavers appeared to be the dominant weaver in the garden. They have now been usurped by Village Weavers.

The Common Fiscals have also been taking food away for their chicks. Meneer still seems to prefer the titbits I offer in my hand rather than helping himself from the dish. While on the subject of feeding, it has been interesting to note that the Black-headed Orioles have shown a definite preference for meat over fruit, which makes me think they too might be feeding chicks hidden somewhere in the dense foliage.

To round off, the Hadeda Ibis chick has made the successful progress from being nest-bound to walking around the garden in the company of one or both parents.

My bird list for this month:
African Green Pigeon
African Hoopoe
Black-collared Barbet
Black Cuckoo-Shrike
Black-eyed (Dark-capped) Bulbul
Black-headed Oriole
Bokmakierie
Bronze Manikin
Burchell’s Coucal
Cape Robin-Chat
Cape Turtle Dove
Cape Weaver
Cape White-eye
Cattle Egret
Common Fiscal
Common Starling
Diederik Cuckoo
Fork-tailed Drongo
Greater Double-collared Sunbird
Green Woodhoopoe
Grey-headed Sparrow
Hadeda Ibis
Klaas’s Cuckoo
Laughing Dove
Lesser-striped Swallow
Olive Thrush
Pin-tailed Whydah
Pied Crow
Red-eyed Dove
Red-throated Wryneck
Red-winged Starling
Southern Boubou
Southern Masked Weaver
Speckled Mousebird
Speckled Pigeon
Village Weaver
White-rumped Swift
Yellow-fronted Canary

BIRDS EATING FLOWERS

I have often noticed the tubular flowers of the Cape honeysuckle lying on the ground as if something had deliberately cut them off – well, that ‘something’ has generally proved to be one or other of the weavers that frequent our garden! Keen to get to the store of nectar at the base – and having beaks far too short to reach inside – the weavers simply nip off the base of the flowers for their prize snack.

During July and into early August, I have observed the stalks of the Aloe ferox growing outside our lounge have increasingly been stripped too. This time I caught a pair of Streakyheaded Seedeaters in the act. Apart from probing the base of the flowers to get to the nectar, they also eat the buds, anthers and stamens – this picture was taken through the window:

Other birds enjoying the rich source of nectar from aloes – only they have the long curved beaks to poke into the flowers – are the Green Woodhoopoes that chuckle and cackle their way through our garden every now and then:

The tall Erythrina caffra tree in the back garden hosts a wide variety of birds throughout its fairly long flowering season. Cape Weavers appear to be very partial to nectar and are considered to be among the more important pollinators of aloes. This one is snacking on one of the Erythrina caffra flowers:

A Blackheaded Oriole takes a turn to feast on the flowers too: