Tag Archives: birdbath

Nailed at Last

What’s that at the birdbath? Luckily the camera is on the tripod nearby and I manage to get a few shots. Ah! An Ashy Flycatcher, the old Blue-Grey Flycatcher, Muscipapa caerulescens. Often seen before, but never in my garden.

As he leaves he calls, and I have my mystery bird that I’ve been hearing, ‘knew that I knew,’ but couldn’t identify. Nailed that call down.

That was yesterday. Today he flew round and round my garden to the tops of all the trees, calling continuously. A piercing call for such a little fella.

~~~oo0oo~~~

thanks xeno-canto.org for the call recording

Birdbath Flurry

The birdbaths have been quiet. Maybe the winter rain we’ve had? Yesterday was different, we had a little flurry. I heard the tirrilink of firefinches and there they were, at the dripping tap birdbath. They usually hide from me.

– African Firefinch and Spectacled Weaver –

A Dark-capped Bulbul, A Dusky Fycatcher and Cape White-Eyes joined them.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Bird Bathing

A red-capped Robin-chat, a vervet monkey and a Purple-crested Turaco visit the birdbaths. Then later:

More vervets, Red-eyed Dove, Dark-capped Bulbul and Black-bellied Glossy Starlings. And then no birds, but a nice shadow:

~~~oo0oo~~~

– some more recent visitors – Red-eyed Dove, Laughing Dove in the tree, Red-backed Mannikins and Olive Sunbird –
– Brown-hooded Kingfisher, PC Turaco, Olive Thrush, Black Flycatcher, Black-bellied Starlings, Red-capped Robin Chat –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Welcome Visitors! Daily and Occasional

Tea on the patio was a pantomime with five vervet youngsters playing tag and hide-and-seek in my meadow using branches, the birdbath and the semi-engulfed garden bench as their staging posts.

Then as they left, two banded mongooses arrived:

and the White Pear showed up nicely. Apodytes dimidiata Trish got from Geoff Caruth’s Geoff’s Jungle

Remote Cam Adventures

– hadeda ibis –

I got the remote setup working again: Canon on a tripod, targeted on the tap birdbath in the shrubbery, and viewfinder on my cellphone. Then I waited. The same problem I noted before is still evident: my attention span. Eventually, a rare bird strolled by and seemed quite interested.

Hours later the Underbrush Eagle, who today has been playing a Klaas’ Cuckoo, came for a shower.

– bracing! – a red-capped robin-chat – famous mimic – has a bath –
– red-capped robin-chat – notorious eagle and cuckoo mimic –

Later an Olive Sunbird arrived and then two White-Eyes – both blending too well with the background and too quick for my camera – just blurs and water droplets! That’s another challenge: the delay between my finger firing the button on my phone and the camera firing – I’d guess near a quarter second. So the bird has often flucked or flitted – or at least changed his pose!

~~~oo0oo~~~

I made a .gif of the pics and – 😉 – froze the lil bird in mid-moon for three frames!

~~oo0oo~~~