Who Said Bird-Watching Is For Sissies? Definitely not in Sabie park &  Mpumalanga

At our waterhole, are two containers for seed. One is the so-called bird restaurant with five decks and ten seats. It is a “patent” of Chris van Rensburg. The other one is a more orthodox version from a curio shop near Graskop. Chris’s restaurant attracts swarms of smaller birds: blue and red waxbills with endless energy and a "hotchpotch” of LGB’s (little grey birds) that all look the same. The other container attracts the larger specimens: up to five yellowbilled hornbills at a time.

The guineafowl arrive in droves and have become utterly spoilt. Like the white fantail-pigeons of Melkbos, they come pecking on the dining room window for food. Tokkie regards them as her “lodgers”, and does not neglect them. One of these lodgers became utterly confused when it saw its image in the glass. With an agitated “keck! keck! keck!” it attacked the “intruder” with beak and wing, making a complete fool of itself.

The guineafowl are usually welcomed heartily, especially if there should be a string of chicks. After such a visit, Tokkie usually picks up little feathers to give to her friends. “Put a feather in your cap,” she says. It can be rather a nuisance when they arrive while I am ready to clear up after the “night before”, however. Ash has to be cleared out and the paving has to be swept. The problem is that the guineafowl do their own “sweeping” by scratching in the ground and digging holes. Soon the paving is returned to its previous disorderly state, buried under sand and leaves. It is then that I let fly with loud expletives, much to Tokkie’s annoyance.

Clashes also occur when their visits coincide with that of the crested francolins. Please note, theses francolins are not Natal francolins. The tails of the crested ones point skyward when they pick up speed. That always happens as soon as they smell the seed. Often the guineafowl “pip them at the post”; then they appear really crestfallen, with the result that Tokkie rushes to the bag of pips to restore their spirits.

Owls are always unwelcome at Tarlehoet

They threaten our bushbabies, which are “royal game” any way. Should an owl risk coming too close, Tokkie will defend her “children” by swinging the scoop-net of the swimming pool. This scoop-net is also an effective deterrent against fruit-bats, competing for the shreds of banana on Colin’s table.

On an early morning walk, Tokkie and I were pleasantly surprised to find in a hollow, a little way from Tarlehoet, an African goshawk. This shy member of the falcon family was sitting in the dense plants along a stream, eating its breakfast that had been recently caught. Its striped chest, like a rugby jersey, and yellow feet left little doubt as to its identity. Fortunately, Tokkie takes her “Newman” guide everywhere she goes.

On night drives, we often find a little sweet-voiced nightjar in the middle of the road. It makes no attempt to dodge the big wheels of the car. It’s Tokkie’s responsibilty to get out of the car and make sure that the bird in the road is not injured. Only when she reaches it, the bird reluctantly takes off. A sucker is born every minute.

Bird-watching for an hour or two at the picnic spot can be recommended

Within the space of half an hour Tokkie and I have, through our binoculars, seen an African fish eagle doing an accurate dive and plucking a fat fish from the water; a greenbacked heron struggling to down a fish that was much too big; a great white egret swallowing a frog, and a giant kingfisher preparing its meal by smacking it against a tree trunk. Thirty captivating minutes!

An exceptional robbery was intriguing to observe. We were watching a goliath heron waiting like a statue for a frog or a fish to swim past. Suddenly that long neck (snake neck?), magically, produced a fish from the water. The spectators were in ecstasy, admiring its timing, grace and skill. The heron pierced his catch with his sharply pointed beak; then smashed it against a tree trunk to tenderise it. But “there’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip”. A fish eagle swept down from a fig tree. The robber grabbed the fish from the talons of the heron, and flew to a nearby branch to enjoy the spoils. The heron could only sit and stare: a picture of dejection. You can’t always win.

We often pity the poor pied kingfishers. They are as busy as bees. They twirl and spin and hover above the water. Then they dive down to catch their prey. But it is like angling. The big one usually gets away.

Huge swarms of redbilled queleas in flight present an impressive sight. Like a dark cloud of locusts, they descend on a young tree. With a loud swish, they leave again in formation. They flash about without collisions – a miracle of bird traffic control. One thing I now understand: why a student friend of mine, Vos Grey, a farmer in Mpumalanga, could bring down 80 of these little birds with one shot from his shotgun out of his bedroom window. After this carnage, the swarm quickly departed. Vos could continue his afternoon nap without any further disturbance.

Also at the picnic spot, one would observe the saddlebilled stork (one of the “Big Five” in the world of the feathered ones), the yellowbilled stork, the whitebrowed coucal, the malachite kingfisher, the African finfoot (one of the “Special Five”), the whitecrowned plover, the longtailed wagtail and other scarce water birds. Just wait patiently, they will come sooner or later.

The “Big Five”? A “Special Five?” Tokkie and I one day read on a notice board in the rest camp Satara that among birds there were a “Big Five”, a “Special Five”, a “Colourful Five” and an “Impossible Five”. The origin of these categories is unknown, and why the graceful fish eagle with its haunting cry did not make a list, I don’t know.

It is highly unlikely that bird-watchers would reach consensus on these lists, I suspect. Nevertheless, for what they are worth, here follow the various “hit parades” :

Big Five: kori bustard, ground hornbill, martial eagle, lappetfaced vulture, saddlebilled stork;

Special Five: Dickinson’s kestrel, crested guineafowl, giant eagle-owl, African finfoot, racket-tailed roller;

Colourful Five: malachite kingfisher, squaretailed drongo, lilacbreasted roller, Marico sunbird, violet-eared waxbill;

Impossible Five: thickbilled cuckoo, Pel’s fishing owl, narina trogon, half-collared kingfisher, yellowbilled oxpecker.

Let me tell you about the “special owl” that became an “impossible owl”. Herman and Rina le Roux came to visit. We sat at the picnic spot, drinking a glass of chilled wine, when the two women spotted a “gigantic owl” through their binoculars on the opposite bank. Excitement galore! Herman had his doubts. “If it is an owl, it is one heck of an owl,” he proclaimed sceptically. Everyone had another look. Closer examination proved it to be no owl indeed. It was a waterbuck. The buck’s white-ringed backside (“kringgat”) caused the confusion. But little mistakes can easily be made. I once identified a spotted eagle owl in a dense fig tree as “undoubtedly a leopard”. A look-again proved me hopelessly wrong.

Bird calls is a field of study which really taxes one’s stamina and patience

The endless whistles, coos, screeches, croaks, quacks, calls, chirps and cries can cause much speculation. Some sounds are unmistakable. They are the signature tunes of the bush, and as African as the continent’s sunshine and big blue skies. The call of the African fish eagle – mysterious and melancholy – heads this list. It is a song that gives wings to the soul. It takes one floating over the high tree tops, far, far from the maddening noise of the city, to a distant nirvana in the sky where stress and daily routine are no longer part of your existence.

The cry of the hadeda ibis certainly also qualifies as an unmistakable part of the African scene. Some say the well-known “ha-ha-ha-dah-dah” of the old long-beak with its shiny bronze feathers is a warning of what it intends doing to your roof. But late in the afternoon, as it flies to its nest, it is a goodnight message to all.

The fierynecked nightjar’s familiar sound deserves a place of honour in the bush. His soothing song “Good-Lord-deliverrr-us” is pure Mozart, Africa’s own “Eine kleine Nachtmuzik”. And it is not at all stingy with its singing. One night I timed the song of the Mozambique nightjar on my stop watch. For exactly five minutes and 22 seconds it sustained the note. Takes some doing, Mimi Coertze?

In the late summer, the proud woodland kingfisher becomes prominent. His clear song, a pure-sounding “trp-trrr, trrp, tirr” (together with the “doo-doo-doo” of the Burchell’s or whitebrowed coucal) seems to call the rain. Or do the two of them simply serenade nature: a song of joy for the abundance of late summer; the lush, green grass, dense plant growth, trees heavy with fruit and pods, rivers and streams flowing strongly and soft drizzle in the trees?

The traditional “coo-coo-ru-coo-coo” of the doves in the bush come in a great variety of tunes. Doves differ; so do the tempo and key of their songs. When you sit on your stoep, working or reading, dove song is ideal background music. My personal vote for the most beautiful call goes to the greenspotted dove for its nostalgic “do-doohoo-do-doohoo”.

In the greater partridge family, one of the stars is Scotland’s “famous grouse” wich adorns a whiskey bottle. We have our own “partridge”, the crested francolin. This keen salesman sells “beer and cognac, beer and cognac”. Listen to the urgency in its voice. Its assistant, Shelley’s francolin, urges the customers to drink or else "I’ll drink your beer, I’ll drink your beer” – a nasty threat when the summer sun beats down.

One bird call which I miss in Sabiepark is that of the orangebreasted bush shrike, which boldly advertises “coffee, tea or me”. It is also known as the “air hostess bird”. Unfortunately, scheduled flights to Skukuza are no longer in operation. The new airport for the Kruger is the Mpumalanga International between Nelspruit and Witriver. But please inform the hostess: I am a happily married man. I would always prefer coffee, old bird!