Ch.2 – Bird blindness

Index – Intro – Ch.1 – Ch.2 – Ch.3 – Ch.4 – Ch.5
Ch.6 – Ch.7 – Ch.8 – Ch.9 – Ch.10 – Ch.11 – Ch.12 – Ch.13

  1. Early days
  2. My time in South Africa

Imagine the scene: we’re walking along the Glamorganshire canal in Forest Farm when we see these girls walking towards us, chatting amongst themselves. Just prior to this we had seen a kingfisher sitting on a branch overlooking the canal. The girls never break their stride when they walk straight past the kingfisher without noticing.

Now I imagine that, until a few years ago, that was me. Utterly oblivious to the birdlife around me. All of these critters reduced to bitparts filling nature’s background panorama. Why, I haven’t a clue. I can honestly declare that all through my life in Belgium, all 28 years of it, birds never featured beyond the background noise.

ligusterpijlstaart / Privet hawk moth / Sphinx ligustri
meikever / cockchafer
fossils
farm Rudolf and his cows – Flika the horse, also the early morning call of his rooster (something I don’t remember hearing where we live in Wales)
insert something about aunt Therese and her African grey parrot, and uncle Raymond and his voliere

Early days

Unlike many people who are writing bird books, birds don’t feature at all throughout my childhood. Hence I can’t from personal memory tell whether bird life has fallen away over the years or not. It doesn’t help of course that until my late twenties I used live in Bruges, whereas the last few decennia I’ve been living in South Wales. Still, it is rather strange, with a farm and meadows at the back of our garden you would expect birdlife to be plentiful. And maybe it was, but I just don’t have any memory of it: I remember my dad grumbling about keeping the starlings away from the pear tree, and I remember the swallows getting ready for their migration to Africa by sitting all in a row on the electricity lines. I also remember the name for the black-headed gull in Dutch being “kapmeeuw”, which somehow seems a more appropriate name. But beyond that? No. Nothing. Zilch.

Example of bird blindness: Iceland 1981. One picture of puffins out of a whole album for a 2-week holiday.

map showing location of puffin colony Puffin colony

My time in South Africa

I used to keep a list of noteworthy animals and where I’ve seen them during my time in South Africa. That list contains 43 mammals, 5 reptiles and only 11 birds (and even then some of them come from captive populations such as bird sanctuaries). It’s clear that at the time I only included birds that were seriously big and could therefore qualify as honorary mammals. Nothing smaller than a ground hornbill or an African spotted eagle owl make it on the list, hence red bishops and yellow bishops or none of the various bee-eaters make it on the list. That had to wait until my 2 weeks in Botswana.

The list of birds from 5½ years in South Africa contains :

Ostrich Mountain Zebra National Park, Addo Elephant National Park, Thabazimbi, Robert Austin Bird Sanctuary (Pretoria), Oudtshoorn Cheetah Safari Park, Willem Pretorius Game Reserve, Pilanesberg National Park, Krugersdorp Game Reserve, Krugersdorp Lion Park Observations of Ostrich in Southern Africa
Marabou Stork Kruger Park Observations of Marabou Stork in Southern Africa
Secretary Bird Suikerbosrand, Willem Pretorius Game Reserve, Pilanesberg National Park, N1 near Orange River Observations of Secretary Bird in Southern Africa
Fish Eagle Malolotja (Swaziland), Kruger Park Observations of Fish Eagle in Southern Africa
Blue Crane Robert Austin Bird Sanctuary (Pretoria), Oudtshoorn Cheetah Safari Park, Mlilwane (Swaziland) Observations of Blue Crane in Southern Africa
Spotted Eagle Owl Queen Elizabeth Park (Pietermaritzburg) Observations of Spotted Eagle Owl in Southern Africa
Crested Crane Robert Austin Bird Sanctuary (Pretoria) Observations of Crested Crane in Southern Africa
Saddle-billed Stork Kruger Park Observations of Saddle-billed Stork in Southern Africa
Yellow-billed Stork Kruger Park Observations of Yellow-billed Stork in Southern Africa
Ground Hornbill Kruger Park Observations of Ground Hornbill in Southern Africa
White Stork Schweizer-Reneke (Western Transvaal) Observations of White Stork in Southern Africa

One notable memory from South Africa was that, when I moved into Aalwyntuine, I noticed something that looked at first sight like a wasp’s nest near the front door. The previous occupant reassured me it was a swallow’s nest, which put an end to the matter, and put my mind at rest. What is strange though is that at no time during my stay at this address did I try to find out what type of swallow it was. Clearly not the type that migrates to Europe in the northern summer, because then it wouldn’t be nesting in the South African summer. The funny thing is that when I spoke to the next occupant of the house, they had exactly the same reaction as I had on seeing the nest, i.e. thinking it might be a wasp’s nest.

Index – Intro – Ch.1 – Ch.2 – Ch.3 – Ch.4 – Ch.5
Ch.6 – Ch.7 – Ch.8 – Ch.9 – Ch.10 – Ch.11 – Ch.12 – Ch.13

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