NEXT Tuesday, March 22, is World Water Day, but it’s also World Sparrow Day and I think we’ve all had lots of talk of water, or the lack thereof, just lately, so let’s talk mossies and other birds.
The Cape sparrow, or mossie, was the first bird that caught my attention, a very long time ago, leading me over the years to a constant delight in birds generally. He is one of four sparrows we have in South Africa, the others being the house sparrow, which is found pretty much everywhere; the southern grey-headed sparrow, another fairly ubiquitous bird except in the far west; and the great sparrow (who you would not want to meet on a dark night) to the north, north west and central South Africa.*The Cape sparrow is found almost everywhere (including the Hide), except the eastern Lowveld and northern KZN, but let’s move on to other birds that have caught my eye recently.
For years we’ve been listening to the glorious sounds of the Natal robin coming from the forest around us, in fact we’ve come to assume that all glorious birdy songs from the forest are Robbie’s.We stand corrected. The other day we were listening to what we thought was a particularly complicated song from the robin when we heard a distinct tapping on the window in the guest bedroom. We investigated and sitting on a branch of a dwarf turkey berry (a particularly attractive shrub) growing very close to the window was a pair of beautiful forest weavers. It was then that we realised our mistake as they were singing a most delightful and complicated duet and one of them, presumably the male (both sexes are identical), would occasionally leave the perch and fly to and peck at the window pane. My wife closed the curtains to disrupt the view of his own image, but he persisted.
Now we have a new set of songsters in the forest, competing with the Natal robin, and what a pleasure. Anyway, the other day we were sitting in the Hide when a pair of puff-back shrikes landed on the tassel berry that grows over the Hide. They perched on a dead branchlet and he was clearly excited about something because his ‘puff’ was particularly spectacular, rather fun too that they chose the tassel berry, as in Afrikaans it’s known as the voelsitboom.
The red enamel plate in the Hide continues to delight. It’s usually the olive sunbird that makes such a song and dance (quite literally) about her frequent baths, but the facility is also enjoyed by the black-eyed bulbuls, who make a real fuss of the occasion, as indeed they tend to make a fuss about everything. And just this morning our Natal robin came in to bath in a discreet fashion.
And finally, we met a woolly-necked stork the other day, a rather special bird, but I have a feeling that we shall be seeing quite a lot of him in future, so more of that later. Cheers!
*Roberts Bird Guide, Hugh Chittenden, John Voelcker Bird Book Fund, Cape Town.
