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From: Self <MUSEUM/WVADER>
To:
Subject: back in South Africa (mostly doves)
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 13:11:51 -0200
GETTING TO KNOW THE DOVES
Earlier this year, in January-February, I visited South Africa for
the very first time. I then spent most of my time at sea, on a
fisheries cruise, and sent a few impressions to Birdchat. Now I have
the chance to renew and deepen my acquaintance with the fascinating
nature and bird-life of this subcontinent, as I shall work on my
beloved amphipods in Cape Town, at the South African Museum, until
mid December.
I started out with some 10 days of intensive birding, first in
Zululand and afterwards in Natal. The impressions from these crammed
days were so many and overwhelming, that it still needs time to sort
them out and digest them, and I am as yet unsure whether I shall be
able to give you more than snapshots of this bird feast.
Then it is easier to describe more simple environments, such as the
hotel garden in Johannesburg, where I had to stay the first day in
Africa, and the surroundings of Tokai near Cape Town, where once more
I enjoyed the hospitality of Michelle and Schalk van der Merwe.
As I have written earlier, this is a country of doves. Both in the
hotel garden, and in Tokai one is never out of earshot of 3-4
different doves, so the first thing to do was to figure out
some mnemonics to remember the various cooings by. For the three
Streptopelia doves I now have figured it out, after I slipped one
day and fell into a muddy patch. One of the doves, the Laughing Dove
, laughed at my predicament, although in a fairly
civilized way The second, the Cape Turle Dove, called
with much empathy:" How HORRIBLE! How HORRIBLE!". Meanwhile the third
species, the Redeyed Dove came with much more practical
advise: "OMO, it works for you! OMO, it works for you ." Since that
day those doves do not give met any problems any more.
At my workplace, the South African museum, I look out over an
atrium, where the only birds also are pigeons: many feral pigeons,
but maybe still more of the confusingly named Rock Pigeon Columba
guinea, a dapper bird with its speckled mantle and red-rimmed eyes.
The males are most ardent suitors, and this ardency clearly sounds
through in their incessant series of "hoo hoo hoo hoo" of increasing
strength and insistence, so much so that these birds are far from
popular among the workers here. The pigeons call with their bill
almost closed, but their breasts heave" at every "hoo", and they
look exactly as ardent as they sound.
Another common and most interesting dove-call during my travels in
Zululand was the melancholy voice of the Green-spotted Dove Turtur
chalcospilos, consisting of "a short introduction", followed by a
long series of "oo's", slowly dying away. The Zulus say that this
dove sings:" My father is dead, my mother is dead, they are all dead,
oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo ", and that interpretation exactly
captures the mood of the song (At least in our ears, in dove-ears it
is no doubt the usual mixture of: "this is my territory; buzz off",
and "I am a virile and available male".) Although the doves
themselves are niot all that conspicuous, their call is one of the
most characteristic" voices of the bush" in this region. The
Tambourine Dove, T. typanistra, has a roughly similar call, but does
not sound half as melancholy, probably because all the "oo's" are at
one pitch and do not die away in the same way.
One other birdsong gave me unexpected feelings in Tokai, and in
the
plantations above the Arboretum there. That was the cheerful positive
statement of the European Chaffinch, a common bird in this entire
area, both in suburbia and in the pine plantations. It has been
introduced into S. Africa more than a hundred years ago, and has
clealry survived well enough, but without spreading out of the
original area of introduction, and without becoming a nuisance.
The garden of the hotel in Jo'burg, close to the airport and
surrounded at all sides by traffic-machines, nevertheless was home to
quite a varied suite of birds. Cape Whiteeyes were everywhere,
Masked Weavers nested in the garden trees, a pair of Red-faced Colies
spent the entire day in the same Pepper tree, munching the fruits,
two young Hadeda Ibises patrolled the lawn, overlooked by a Fiscal
Shrike perched on the bushes, and the open areas were shared by Cape
Sparrown, Cape Wagtails, and the inevitable doves of various species.
Redwinged Starlings kept mostly to the roofs, but raided the fruiting
bushes regularly, and Greyheaded Gulls flew overhead.
It was a promise of things to come, a promise that was to be
more
than fulfilled.
Wim Vader, co South African
Museum
Cape Town,
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