Cats and Partridges

May 10th

We just went out for about an hour, from about 4.30 p.m. overcast light intermittant rain, otherwise humid and quite warm.

The rain didn't dampen the birds' spirits.. .. although the woodpeckers were quieter than usual there was still plenty of *collared dove, sparrow and jackdaw activity. Blackbirds* were also in good song and feral pigeons were active. We were interested to see a pair of *turtle doves* in the company of a *senegal* dove on the valley road. Some say the turtle dove gets its name from its pleasant 'turrrr' coo but the scalloped pattern on its back and wings does strongly suggest a turtle.

Toward the end of that road there is a hill slope up to the west with some drama today. A* Chukar partridge* 'chokked' loudly, in alarm and ran to the top of a rock. We could hear the rest of its family chokking quietly under cover at other places on the slope. The reason for the adult's alarm turned out to be a cat who was returning to her den in the rocks where she had several pretty well grown kittens. It seemed the partridge had almost walked right into her. Ooops, panic! While the chukar was worried about its family and obviously wanted to get them clear of the cats, perhaps heroically lead the mother cat away, the cat was quite oblivious because she was busy with her own young, checking them out, grooming them and such.


The chukar made its way carefully up the slope and away, often pausing to listen to the calls of its family and to check if the cat was following it at all, which she wasn't. She'd probably forgotten all about him. Two hyraxes were watching the whole scene from the side. Now I've read that hyraxes hate the damp but obviously these two hadn't read that article, or else the whole cat/partridge drama was too fascinating to miss. A hoodie was also hanging out on another rock observing.. well we know the hooded crows, (from previous blog entries) they wouldn't miss out on any action in their province ;)


At the end of that road we loop around across a bridge over the dry creek and then head back north along the creek path toward the abandonned orchard. Right before the loop we found a very nice *Masked shrike* (Lanius nubicus) around the acacias. Not a full breeding plumage bird, I reckon a first summer bird but perky and dapper all the same.


Another pleasant surprise today was a swallow fly-over, *Hirundo rustica* about twenty of them over the forest. The other major aerial insect eater, the *common swift* was also heard screaming over the valley and seen earlier today. I'm keeping tabs on them because I'm curious to know their latest date. They always appear in the third week of February but have bred and left for Africa by mid summer.







There's an *orange tufted sunbird* calling right now outside my window, sounding a lot like a plaintive squeaky toy. These are one of my favourite birds of the region. They've been sipping the nectar from the Bauhinia tree blossoms for right outside my window for the last few weeks but now the blooms are finally finishing and turning into long pods. I shall miss their visits. The male is a beautiful iridescent bird. In poor light he just looks black but with any sun his feathers are glossy with malachite and violet highlights. The female is a little grey job, though she flits around as active as the male and has the same slender decurved bill. The orange tufts are under the male's wings and are rarely seen.. only in a breeding display performance for the female's benefit. You have to be pretty lucky to see that.