Glorious Gorgeous

Gorgeous Bushshrike (Chlorophoneus viridis), Penryn College Campus, Nelspruit, South Africa.

Birds that live in dense cover tend to have strong voices. They have to. How else would they let their neighbours know where they are, and how else to attract and keep a mate?

The aptly-named Gorgeous Bushshrike inhabits tangled thickets in the hills and valleys around Nelspruit, where its predominantly green plumage provides camouflage, but its strident, liquid call: “kong, kong-koit, kong-koit!” can be heard throughout the year. Pairs defend rather small territories it seems, but habitat that perfectly suits all their needs (foraging for insects, nesting and raising young) is limited to the thickest, most-impenetrable gullies and hill-crests. Once in a while, if you are patient and lucky, you might catch a glimpse of one of these secretive birds as it turns in such a way that its radiant scarlet throat lights up its leafy abode. Like an old English pillarbox in the fog, it just cannot be missed.

Once in a while, one of these birds may abandon its shy nature and hop up into the more exposed upper branches of a small tree. So it was, that I was out walking with our equally gorgeous blonde labrador Josie on the Penryn College campus this week, when the unmistakeable call of a Gorgeous Bushshrike rang out from a thicket on the southern boundary. We paused, then watched in awe as it came out into the open and peered down at us. A sharp autumn breeze was tearing yellow leaves off the twigs as the shrike held up its head and let out its morning chant. Nearby, but well-hidden, its mate replied.

Penryn College Campus, Nelspruit, South Africa, May 2013

Jabbering Jays

Steller’s Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri), Greer, Arizona, USA

A couple of hours’ drive north-east of the Sonoran Desert around Phoenix and you are up on the Colorado Plateau – high country defined by the Mogollon Rim and known as the White Mountains. The contrast of the two landscapes – cacti-crowded desert and conifer-clad mountains – is extreme, with totally different climates, totally different vegetation and totally different birds.

Being spring, the desert had been ablaze with flowers, but in the little village of Greer, at an elevation of some 2,500 metres (8,300 feet), there was snow on the ground and ice in the air. Being a resident of Africa (and one whose global birding exploits have invariably had a tropical bent) this was really my first time in genuine, wild, coniferous forest. Bear country! Mighty Ponderosa Pines perfumed the hills and valleys with their sharp scent, the largest Douglas-Firs rose above them, and Engelmann Spruce had their skirt of lower branches deep in the snow. Quaking Aspens – with their snow-white bark – formed ghostly groves among the dark greenery. Juniper bushes were overloaded with purple berries, but the naked oaks were bare of acorns as well as leaves. Slim, rusty-barked willows lined the banks of the Little Colorado River that rushed along at my feet.

Above my head, three or four little birds were moving restlessly among the pine needles, darting this way and that, before giving their family identity away as they used their long toes and sharp claws to clamber straight down the tree trunk, beak-first. Nuthatches – Pygmy Nuthatches to be precise. These little critters were prying into the bark and pine cones, seeking out whatever food they could. So hungry was one of them, that it landed within inches of me, to peck away at a fallen cone. A Mountain Chickadee and half-a-dozen Pine Siskins came into view before my attention shifted to some raucous jabbering coming from the willow scrub. Moving closer, I surprised a large, long-crested bird which jumped up into a small fir tree, raised its feathery peak up and own, then bounced off.

It was not alone. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by about 20 Steller’s Jays, feeding excitedly on a cache of nuts. Each jay darted down to seize a nut, then flashed back into cover with its bounty which was held down with one foot to be pecked open. These agitated bundles of cobalt, turquoise, charcoal and black scolded one another, and me, as they gathered their lunch.

Steller’s Jay is one of four jay species that I encountered in Arizona, with Western Scrub-Jay, Mexican Jay and the highly sociable Pinyon Jay all being predominantly blue in plumage. Belonging to the Corvidae family (and thus closely related to crows and magpies) jays are predominantly nut feeders and typically harvest and cache supplies to last them through the year.

Meanwhile, the unmistakable drumming of a woodpecker echoed through the forest. I left the boisterous blue mob to track it down.

Greer, Arizona, USA, April 2013

Cactus Condo

The Sonoran Desert spans the border country between southwestern USA and Mexico. Here, around Phoenix, the lowlands are all set about with imposing Giant Saguaro cactus – many over 15 meters tall and clearly ancient. Ghostly Arizona Sycamore grow along the rivers that flow from the juniper-clad (and in winter, snowy) mountains.

Numerous birds and other forms of life have evolved in this desert, including the Gila Woodpecker. This is a conspicuous and noisy bird that excavates its nest hole in the ‘trunk’ or limbs of the giant cacti. These condos are frequently taken over by other birds including the tiny Elf Owl. It is springtime here now, so the woodpeckers (and most other birds) are starting their breeding cycle, while migrants from the neotropics pass through the area.

Phoenix, Arizona, USA. April 2013

Highveld Hula

Long-tailed Widow (Euplectes progne). Wakkerstroom, South Africa.

Like black handkerchiefs being tossed about in a stiff breeze, the five birds moved randomly above the tall, lush grasses. Their impossibly long tail feathers and red shoulder patches identified them as Long-tailed Widows – one of the iconic bird species of the South African Highveld.

These performers were on their display ground – or ‘lek’ – competing for the attention of the drab, sparrow-shaded females which will line the nest shell made by each male and lay a clutch of 3 or 4 eggs.  The polygynous males typically mate with 4 or 5 females and play no role in the rearing of their young.

Wakkerstroom, South Africa. November 2010.

 

Long Claw

Cape Longclaw (Macronyx capensis), Bongani Mabuso Ecopark, Sasolburg, South Africa.

Until you see it from the front, the Cape Longclaw is a rather drab, cryptically-plumaged bird that resembles its close relatives – the pipits. But when it turns to face you, its luminous orange throat is nothing short of startling.

This common inhabitant of higher elevation grassland on the central plateau of South Africa, is often heard before it is seen – the cat-like ‘meeuw’ call being a characteristic sound of open country. Like other grassland birds, it nests close to the ground, laying three or four eggs in a shallow cup of stems built into a dense grass clump.

The hind claw is extremely long, giving the bird its family name and assisting it to move easily over flattened grass stems. Insects and spiders make up the bulk of its the diet.

Bongani Mabuso Ecopark, Sasolburg, South Africa. March 2013.

 

 

Small Paintings for Sale

Lilac-breasted Roller. 20x24cm. R650/$75.

I have worked on a number of illustrated print projects in recent years, and am now putting the best of the original artworks up for sale. These watercolour paintings are mostly quite small, ranging in size from 18x18cm to 21×30 cm, but would look most attractive if placed in a sizeable mount as per the roller above. Most of the available paintings are of birds, but there some reptiles, fishes and mammals too.

 

Take a look here to see a gallery of some of the available pieces: http://duncanbutchart.wordpress.com/the-bird-art/

and please contact me if you would like a full list, or would like to commission a painting of your favourite bird:

duncan@dbnatureworks.com

Pygmy takes Dwarf

African Pygmy Kingfisher (Isipidina picta) with Cape Dwarf Gecko (Lygodactylus capensis), Schagen, South Africa. January 2013.

Like all kingfishers, the African Pygmy lays its eggs in a hole rather than build a nest. For some kingfisher species this hole is a tree cavity, but for this little gem of a bird it is a burrow. Weeks are spent excavating a tunnel into an embankment – quite often on a road cutting. The burrow is typically about half a metre in length, ending in a rounded chamber.

Earlier this week, local nurseryman Tim de Wet called me to say that he’d just seen one of these tiny kingfishers flying in front of his vehicle with something in its bill. This, Tim knew, was a sure sign of an active burrow.

A couple of days later, and I was on the scene with Tim to watch this glorious little kingfisher deliver two lizards to the burrow. One was an adult Cape Dwarf Gecko (Lygodactylus capensis) and the other a presumed juvenile Eastern Striped Skink (Trachylepis striata). Although the situation for observation was far from perfect, as the embankment was close to a junction where farm vehicles came and went, we noted that the little kingfisher followed a particular procedure: It approached the burrow from the south, then landed on the horizontal branch of a Pigeonwood sapling above the embankment. Once it was happy that the coast was clear, it flew down to land in the middle of the road right in front of the burrow which was barely 30cm off the ground. Here, it paused for a few seconds, before flying straight into the hole with its prey.

The African Pygmy Kingfisher lays between 3 and 6 pearly-white eggs, with 4 being the usual number. Incubation is 18 days with nestlings being fed for a similar period before fledging.

Schagen (west of Nelspruit), Mpumalanga, South Africa