Estate Living Magazine Precinct Living - Issue 33 | Page 52

We have so many fabulous birds on our
estates, we can hardly help becoming
birders, or – to be more jargonny –
twitchers.
Birding is one of the fastest-growing outdoor activities in the
world, and it’s far more interesting than just peering into a
tree, muttering to yourself, ‘that’s a lesser-spotted grey-winged
hooplededoop’, ticking it off on a list, and then moving on –
binos glued to your face, pencil poised, ready to add another
metaphorical notch to your binocular strap.
What’s the big deal?
Birding is not just about ticking off as many birds as you can
in a flurry of one-upmanship. Most birders do actually enjoy
themselves, and will gleefully watch birds they’ve ticked off
many times – in fact, that’s how you get to know the fascinating
behaviour of birds really well. And some birders (make that most
birders) develop a fondness for certain birds that almost borders
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on silliness. I have my few favourites and, I discovered when
chatting to experienced birder Rob Little, so does he. We were
having coffee overlooking a whale-filled False Bay, supposedly
discussing his latest book, Birding in South Africa’s National
Parks, but we ended up comparing our favourite birds. Rob’s
list is longer than mine, and there was some overlap, but our
choices were pretty consistent with our respective statuses of
seasoned ornithologist and enthusiastic wannabe. Rob tends to
be intrigued by the biologically interesting birds, while I favour
birds that are weird and wonderful – or just pretty.
Our favourite birds – and why
• Rob loves the Namaqua Sandgrouse, which lives in very dry
areas, so it has developed a cunning strategy for obtaining
water for its young chicks. The males fly off to the nearest
water source, which may be quite far away, and then loll
about in the water until their belly feathers are soaked.
They then fly back to the flightless chicks, which ‘drink’ the
transported water. This practice goes by the charming term
‘belly wetting’.
• I love Helmeted Guineafowls – firstly because they are
beautiful, and they have turquoise faces, but also because
they are kind of crazy, and very entertaining. They’re found
all over – including in suburbia – and the thing that I think is so
cool about them is that, all of a sudden, the madness comes
upon them, and they start running around crazily in circles. I
once saw a guineafowl in a parking lot running circles around
a parked Toyota Yaris. It went on for about three minutes. I
birds
FOR THE