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Rush-hour traffic in our tree

...The very next morning during breakfast on the verandah, while we were watching the traffic in our bird-feeding tree – we suddenly stood up to cheer, like the crowd surging up for a brilliant goal: a small bird pushed the pin-tailed polygamous preening parasite right off the seed-tray – and did it again when the whydah returned.

It was the first time in almost ten years that we have seen the pin-tailed whydah bested by any other bird remotely his own size. And we do get annoyed at the way he hovers, chirps and dives on any Little Brown Job that isn't one of his six wives, keeping all the little ones of all kinds away, throughout the season, from the seeds we put out every day.

This morning's bold hero was it's true, slightly larger than an LBJ. He may have been a Greyheaded Sparrow, judging by the single white wing-bar. But it's also true that the whydah sometimes sees off birds as big as doves from coming near the tree. This abashed King-of-Six returned only after the Sparrow had left, pecking at the seed for a long time, to reassert his ownership. And not a wife in sight.

Meanwhile in the background, unfazed by the centre stage drama, two male tree agamas were madly bobbing their blue heads as they rushed down the barkless branches of our dying old bird-tree, to get at the pawpaw skins we left as usual in the crook of the tree.

They are for the birds, really - bulbuls, little yellow white-eyes, black-collared barbets are the regular papaya-peckers. Yesterday even the normally shy mousebirds came teeming in, showing their perpetual bad-hair days as they scrummed down into the fruit looking just like a raid of mice, in fact. But the bobbing bluehead lizards are an increasingly common sight, sometimes feeding side by side with a bird or two. Which shows that agamas don't eat only insects.

The only members of our garden and bush clans we don't like to see coming near the pawpaw skins are our Vervet monkeys – and they very seldom do. They seem to get the message that nothing is deliberately put out for them. They rarely rush in to grab a peel, and they would never dream of sitting there and calmly eating it.

Time was when they might have done, during our earlier years. One of our tribe even raided the kitchen fruit basket once, and was found calmly sitting on the dresser, in the laid-back manner of a picnicker in the famous French Impressionist painting Dejeneur sur l'herbes, calmy, neatly chewing an apple.

We quickly learned to take all the physical and psychological precautions necessary to keep our beloved bush neighbours from becoming marauders. No person must ever be seen or seem to be leaving food in their paths. Grandchildren and other young visitors were warned that feeding a monkey was like sentencing it to death, as the Balfours point out. Perhaps the final and most effective deterrent has been to have small but loud firecrackers to hand, and if ever they get a bit close and cheeky, we chase them back into the bush - and then, when they are out of range but not out of earshot, we throw a cracker or two in their direction, to explode like a gunshot (but aimed to land on open lawn only).

So for years now, we watch the vervet families fondly as they pick neatly at seeds under the trees or near the rosebushes, helpfully weed out the clovers in the gezania bed, crouch over the bird bath for a sluk, swing playfully through the acacias and the honeysuckle bush at the bottom of the garden, on their way to their night roost and sometimes, wander near the driveway or the compost heap, keeping company with our so beautiful red duikers.

If they spot us, usually inside the house, or far away, they bob their heads up and down, side to side, and get ready to scram. When we bob our heads in reply – it’s time to clear off, they reckon.
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I’ll end off with a footnote from a relatively novice fan of nature – about the way the naming experts have gone about their task.

I’m intrigued that a bird one always recognizes by his – and her – bright red chest, is called the black-collared barbet. Then there’s the lesser striped swallow – always distinguished by the size and clarity of its stripes (Yes, we know the ‘lesser’ refers to the bird’s comparative size, but didn’t the original namer realize the danger of confusion?).

And today when I was looking up lizards and agamas, I came across this gem in a guidebook, in the description of the Festive Gecko: below a picture of the gecko which hits you with the sight of its extraordinary bright orange/yellow tail are the words: “This very small, diurnal, flattened gecko is easily distinguished by the slender clawed toes that lack flared tips or adhesive scansors.”…

Can anyone come up with other examples?


Tony Hall

Matumi

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