SOME INTERESTING BIRDS

Regular readers have become familiar with the variety of birds visiting our garden, so today I am happy to show off some of the birds that do not. The first is a large bird that I am afraid many South Africans take for granted: the ostrich.

There are still several ostrich farms in this country and so it is pleasing to see ostriches in their natural habitat. They are truly magnificent birds, making it great fun to see them ‘again’ through the eyes of visitors for whom they are new and wonderful creatures. Such a perspective makes me marvel at them all over again. There is no getting away from the fact that these birds are enormous – sometimes reaching a height of 2.6 m and a weight of 135 kg. Although they are unable to fly, I can attest to the fact that they are very fast runners.

Many overseas readers may already be familiar with helmeted guineafowl.

These birds are generally gregarious and are particularly well-suited to consuming massive quantities of ticks, which might otherwise spread Lyme disease. Although they are able to fly, these birds are mostly terrestrial and prefer to run rather than fly when alarmed. Surprisingly, they can walk up to 10km in a day!

Now, larks are birds I find very difficult to identify and so I am not going to put my head on the block when I tentatively identify this one as a sabota lark. A couple of my readers are experts in these niche birds and will, hopefully jump in with a definite identification.

Herons are commonly seen near water. The Black-headed Heron is a widespread inhabitant of sub-Saharan Africa.

Although it is found in open habitats, preferring grasslands and floodplains, it is not dependent on aquatic environments, which is why we see them near roads and in agricultural lands.

An attractive bird which I do not see very often is the white-faced whistling duck.

As they eat underwater tubers and seeds of aquatic plants, as well as molluscs, small aquatic animals and  aquatic insects, they commonly obtain their food by diving. They communicate using distinctive high-pitched, multisyllabic whistles.

One of the most interesting birds I have seen recently is the blue korhaan.

This colourful bird is virtually endemic to South Africa, although has also been observed in LeSotho.  It generally prefers flat or undulating ground in grassland and does most of its foraging by walking and pecking on the ground.

These birds were all photographed in the Mountain Zebra National Park.

BIRD PORTRAITS

I have more or less decided to give my monthly garden birds posts a rest – for the time being anyway. I don’t really think anyone will really miss them. However, in lieu of the dearth of birds appearing on this blog, I thought to showcase a few portraits – all of these photographs were taken in the Addo Elephant National Park. The first is that of a Cape Robin-chat. We still have a pair of these delightfully confiding birds resident in our garden, but, they are very wary of the neighbouring cats that prowl through our garden several times a day. This means that I tend to hear them more often now than seeing them. Their calls are among the first I hear just before dawn:

From a distance – or if you make assumptions without really looking – it is easy to mistake a Fiscal Flycatcher for the ubiquitous Common Fiscals. The former do not have a hooked beak:

The Greater Double-collared Sunbirds are regular visitors to our garden and I will see a lot of them once the aloes start blooming during the winter:

Visitors to this part of the world tend to be in awe of the Ostrich – a bird we tend to take for granted here:

Another bird I hear more often than see in our garden is the Sombre Greenbul (although I still tend to think of it as a Sombre Bulbul!):

Lastly, here is a Southern Boubou photographed at the picnic site in the Addo Elephant National Park. A pair of these pretty birds are regular visitors to our garden too:

LATENT POWER

I have never enjoyed visiting zoos. This is probably because I have had the good fortune to grow up in a country where I can see a plethora of animals living in the wild in their own habitats – granted these are mostly in areas set aside throughout the country for their protection. It is the confined spaces in the old-fashioned zoos, where animals were kept in barred cages with little or no privacy, cement floors, and no natural shade or water that I disliked even as a young child. My favourite memory of visiting the zoo in Johannesburg when I was about four, is of my father lifting me up and placing raw peanuts in the open palm of my hand so that an ostrich could eat them. Even seventy-one years later, I can recall the gentle tickling sensation on my hand and the thrill running up and down my spine.

One of the saddest memories I have of a zoo is taking my then sixteen-month-old son to the zoo in Edinburgh on a cold, dark and very damp day: a giraffe huddled miserably in the cold enclosure (I feel sure there has been an overhaul during the intervening years) with a wire basket of limp-looking leaves hanging at head height. I thought of the many giraffes I have seen wandering through the bushveld, or bent low to drink from a waterhole – and left.

Ted Hughes describes a visit to an average zoo in far clearer detail than I can … and especially captures the latent power of the jaguar that simply will not allow his spirit to be crushed and bent or be curtailed by the bars of his cage. I recall reading this poem during my first year of boarding school, when I was in Standard Six: all the windows in our school hostel were barred and our lives were regulated by bells throughout the day. How I yearned then for the freedom to walk in the veld as I had in primary school or on our farm; to read whenever I wanted to and to go to bed when I was tired; I missed being ‘myself’ and soon found my escape through reading novels and writing stories during our prep time: as long as I looked busy, no teachers or prefects bothered me. The Jaguar has always reminded me of the need not to give up or give in.

The Jaguar – Ted Hughes

The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.

The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut

Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.

Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion

Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil

Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or

Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.

It might be painted on a nursery wall.

But who runs like the rest past these arrives

At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized,

As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged

Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes

 

On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom—

The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,

By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear—

He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him

 

More than to the visionary his cell:

His stride is wildernesses of freedom:

The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.

Over the cage floor the horizons come.

NOT IN MY GARDEN BIRDS

Regular readers have become familiar with many of the birds which regularly visit my garden. It is time to show you some of the birds we saw during our recent visit to the Mountain Zebra National Park. The first is the very common White-browed Sparrow-weaver, which can not only be seen all over the park, but builds nests with in the restcamp area – allowing a close view on their rather scruffy domestic arrangements.

It was great fun seeing this Mocking Cliff-chat from fairly close quarters:

Cape Buntings are also seen in the restcamp area and have become used to having people around – a bonus for me as they proved to be easy to photograph:

We do have a pair of resident Southern Boubous in our garden, but I thought you might enjoy seeing one in a wilder setting:

At first glance, you may assume this is a Common Fiscal – such as you have often seen in my garden – but a closer look reveals that this bird does not have a hooked bill. It is a Fiscal Flycatcher:

I will leave you with a bird that we tend to take for granted in this part of the world. We might point out the first one or two we see, but will probably ignore any others seen along the way. Yet, when visitors exclaim over its size and beauty, we appreciate it all over again … an Ostrich:

SOME RANDOM BIRDS

I tend to publish photographs of birds seen in my garden during a particular month, always meaning to return to some of the others I have photographed over time. The first four in this post are from ‘my patch’ and we will travel to the Addo Elephant National Park for the final two. Regular readers will be familiar with the Common Fiscals that vie with each other for food at the feeding station. I have mentioned that Spotty has brought youngsters closer to the food source yet have seldom featured what a young Common Fiscal looks like.

The Speckled Pigeons became a real nuisance once they multiplied and moved holus-bolus into our roof. Happily, they moved off once we had the eaves fixed and now appear in more reasonable numbers – although at least two couples have taken to roosting on ledges overnight: one outside the upstairs bathroom and the other outside my study window.

African Green Pigeons are heard more often than they can be seen amidst the dense foliage of the Natal fig tree.

A rare sighting around here is that of the Dikkop – now known as the Spotted Thick-knee. This one is on the pavement.

Why travel all the way to the Addo Elephant National Park for the next two birds? Well, although I have spotted a Secretary Bird on the edge of town it has always been too far away to photograph. These are really interesting looking birds I want to share with readers from abroad. This one is standing near its nest.

Lastly, recent comments in another post relating to birds highlighted how we tend to take the familiar for granted. I mentioned that Ostriches are no real cause for excitement here because we see them so often – yet overseas tourists are excited to see such an enormous bird for the first time. It is in honour of those of you for whom the Ostrich is an exotic creature that I present to you … an Ostrich.