GARDEN ROUTE | Garden Route’s treat as our feathered friends show off their personalities

Once upon a time I was more or less oblivious to all the birds around me, but then I did live in Hong Kong for nearly 20 years where any and every creature is in danger of being eaten, and can be found in local food markets rather than trees.

I can’t remember being aware of birds in Istanbul except for the seagulls that came from the Bosphorus at night to nest on the roof. They made a din to compete with the adhan, call to prayer, which happens five times a day.

Then we came to the Garden Route and it’s so rich in birds here that it would be hard to not notice them.

You don’t even need to go looking further than your garden to find a host of species endemic to the area. Birds find me while I am hanging washing.

The Knysna turacos (loeries) come to eat Chinese guavas and it’s always something special to hear them barking.

We have double-collared sunbirds, regular visitors with their iridescent green and flash of red, along with mousebirds, common waxbills, Cape robins, members of the dove and pigeon family, Egyptian geese that drop in from time to time, guinea fowl that screech for seed, Cape canaries and red-winged starlings.

At certain times of the year, a gymnogene can be seen circling high in the sky. Pin-tailed whydah flit around in the trees.

My favourite are the drongos. They have learnt to copy the sound of our cats so well that often I will think a cat is summoning me from the kitchen, only to find the drongo at the window chirping for its cheese.

Some of the drongos eat from our hands and it’s extraordinary to see a wild bird so trusting, so close that you can see their eyelashes.

I had a miraculous encounter this week.

For a while now we have had a Burchell’s coucal visit us. It hops clumsily and so trustingly around in the back vegetable garden.

I was feeding the drongo and noticed the coucal coming closer. It was only good manners to offer it cheese, but, blow me down, I didn’t expect it to also hop on my hand for its treat, which it duly did.

It’s a striking, almost prehistoric-looking bird, big and long-tailed, with a glossy black head and body set against rich chestnut-brown wings.

Its deep red eye gives it a slightly fierce, watchful expression, especially when it sits low in the undergrowth or clambers slowly through bushes.

Unlike the quick, darting movements of many garden birds, the coucal moves with a deliberate, almost stealthy gait, its long tail trailing behind like a banner.

When it calls, a series of deep, hollow bubbling notes rises from the thicket, a sound quite distinctive.

We have cows that come from the township area to graze on our pavement, and with them come the cattle egret who sit on the cows.

When dustbins don’t get collected the sacred Ibis birds rip bags open and eat rubbish.

There’s a shy woodpecker to be heard sometimes and we have seen a brown-hooded kingfisher on the washing line.

The dikkop (thick-knee) come out at night.

At the beach, we will always find oyster-catchers with their orange beaks.

Seagulls have mastered the art of stealing meat off a braai; various cormorants are found near the estuary and then we have our resident stork at the yacht club, which stands on the jetty on one leg as it stares out over the water.

I used to think that birdwatchers were a boring, stuck-up bunch with nothing else to do but spend hours glued to their binoculars and those cameras that make the sound of rapid-firing machine guns.

I will never forget going into a bird-hide in Sedgefield after a long, particularly overgrown forest walk.

I thought it would be a peaceful place to rest and have a snack, but my backpack dropped with a loud crash. The hairy eyeball I got from the birders was unforgettable.

At the time I didn’t understand that some of them might have been there to spend hours waiting for just that one bird to appear, only to have me chase it away in one fell swoop — which is what apparently happened.

Over time I have learnt that one must listen because very often before you see the bird you will hear its call.

I inevitably hear the burbling sound of the Burchell’s coucal before I see its plump body.

The Garden Route and Klein Karoo area hosts more than 450 species, which is just over half of SA’s bird species.

The district’s natural bounty of unique indigenous habitat and its location along the southern coastal belt mean that it is also rich in endemic and near-endemic birds (species that are found nowhere else in the world).

Some of the endemics you can hope to see in the coastal forest belt include warbler, woodpecker and turaco (loerie), while inland the Klein Karoo’s collection of characters include the chat, eremomela and lark.

Sugarbirds, rockjumpers and siskins are to be found where there is fynbos.

OK, so I wouldn’t go as far as to call myself a twitcher, which in birding lingo is a person who goes on dedicated bird outings oblivious to all else, but I am very aware of birdlife wherever we are.

And, who knows, one day when I have more time, I might just become a twitcher.

A person who starts watching birds seriously is called a lister and can record their finds officially on the SA Listers’ Club webpage of GoBirding (www.gobirding.co.za)

BirdLife SA is a membership-based organisation with more than 5,000 official members.

Should you want to join the Listers’ Club, explore birding sites and specialist accommodations, as well as official birding sites, visit the GoBirding website.

Entry level birders are those who already have about 300 birds on their list. Serious birders have 500 while the obsessive kind might have seen 700. I suppose I have about 50.

Chickens, budgies and even peacocks, which aren’t indigenous (unless you see the peacocks on Robben Island where they supposedly colonised themselves), don’t count.

A dip is the official word birders use when they hurtle somewhere at high speed, or spend hours upon hours, waiting for just that one little bird and it doesn’t show itself. It’s short for disappointed.

A stringer is a person who fibs about the birds they have seen — a mortal sin in the birding world.

Suppressors are the selfish dudes who don’t share their finds with the birding fraternity.

An indication of just how popular birding is in this neck of woods is the Bitou Birding Festival taking place later this year from October 23 to 30.

It’s essentially a full week of birding immersion and has become the flagship event for the Garden Route.

Whether you’re a seasoned twitcher or just starting out with a pair of binoculars and a sense of curiosity, the Bitou Birding Festival offers something for everyone.

With guided bird walks in breathtaking locations, expert insights from conservation leaders, canoe birding adventures and a few surprises still under wraps, the festival promises a week full of unforgettable nature-based experiences.

Back by popular demand, festival favourites such as the interactive bird-ringing demonstrations, wellness-and-birding sessions and canoe trips on the Bitou River and Keurbooms estuary will return.

For the more adventurous, the pelagic birding trip heads offshore in search of seabirds, a bucket-list experience for any birder.

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