Wilkinson's World

Initially it takes a few days for the club to get noticed, but once the word spreads we are inundated with guests.  We often find them waiting even before we have opened our doors in the morning.  They get quite impatient too – if we are late delivering they set up a dawn chorus of chirps to remind us that they’re hungry.  It’s gratifying to see how popular our unofficial restaurant has become.

We get to know the little quirks and eccentricities of some of the regulars and that’s what makes a club like this so interesting.  It really broadens one’s knowledge of temperaments and dominant characters and personalities.  And when we move house we get to meet new and different friends and our next club is soon established and vibrant.

Here in Windhoek we have a wonderful pageant of birdies who visit us every morning.  Apart from the usual house sparrows and canaries, we get to see a number of very colourful birds.  And of course their plumage often changes with the seasons, so we also see them tranforming from their drab winter outfits and developing fine breeding feathers, then strutting their stuff in front of the ladies as they get more beautiful.

Because of the regular supply of seeds and bread, a number of southern masked weavers have built nests in the trees next to our fence.  We’ve been able to watch them rearing their babies and launching them into the world (sometimes with disastrous results!)  If we could offer crawling and flying insects as well we would have a much wider variety of birds to welcome to our space, but unfortunately that is a little more difficult than buying a packet of seeds or a loaf of bread from the local supermarket!

Some of the birds we’ve fed here include :

Bulbuls, blue waxbills, red-headed finches, southern masked weavers, red-billed queleas, rosy-faced lovebirds, southern red bishops, long-tailed paradise whydahs, chestnut weavers, acacia pied barbets, shaft-tailed whydahs, laughing doves, speckled pigeons, pale-winged starlings, great sparrows, canaries, white-browed sparrow weavers.  (I’m sure there are a few that have slipped my mind!)

It’s delightful to start the day off watching these beautiful little creatures getting stuck in to their breakfast.  Kind of sets a peaceful tone for the rest of the day.  An added bonus is that we can photograph them too.

 

 

 

Previously called the Melba finch, the Green-winged pytilia is a popular cage bird.

The males and females are similar in size, but are quite different in their plumage. The male has a red forehead, throat and cheeks; grey head, face and nape of the neck. The rump is red; the tail brown with red edging; the breast is a greeny-gold colour and the balance of the under-parts are white barred with black, The female lacks the red on the head, the entire head being grey, and the throat and breast are white barred with black. Both sexes have orange-red bills and grey-brown legs and feet.

Green-winged pytilias feed mainly on seeds and insects, particularly termites. They generally forage on fairly open ground or in low vegetation, in pairs or in small groups. They are quite shy and retiring by nature and in spite of their bright colouring are often overlooked.

Green-winged pytilias are monogamous and build a nest that is an untidy ball of dry grass with a side entrance, and is generally located in a thorny bush just one to two metres above the ground. The females usually lay a clutch of four or five white eggs that hatch after an incubation period of about 14 days. The nest may be parasitized by the Long-tailed paradise whydah (Vidua paradisaea).

The scientific binomial for the Green-winged pytilia is Pytilia melba; Pytilia from the Greek for the diminutive form of the grosbeak genus Pitylus; and melba which was the name used by Linnaeus, apparently without explanation and the derivation of which is unknown.

We placed some left-over burger meat on the ground, Rob set his camera up on a tripod and we waited for our dinner guest.  It took about an hour for the mongoose to arrive.  It was very nervous and detoured through the flower bed to grab a piece of meat before disappearing back under the garden wall.  Having obviously enjoyed the tasty morsel, it followed this procedure until the food was gone.  Rob, in the meantime, had been clicking away and getting some magnificent shots.

On day two cold chicken was on the menu and sure enough, right on cue, our little mongoose arrived.  We could see by its size that it was a juvenile.  Still nervous, the meal took more than an hour to eat as the mongoose kept running off with each piece of meat.  There was great excitement when halfway through the meal a Slender mongoose arrived on the scene.

They are quite different in colouring – being darker and having a black tip on their tail as opposed to the white tip on the tail of the Yellow mongoose.  The Slender mongoose also has a very different face with a pink nose.

By day three we’d almost run out of meat so used cat pellets to supplement the meal.  We were delighted when our Yellow mongoose (note how possessive we had now become!) brought a friend along to eat.  They weren’t too nervous and stayed eating at the dish, all the while ‘talking’ to each other with little cooing noises.  When alarmed by something, they made a completely different warning sound as they ran off.  At one stage our cat went outside and one of the little mongooses bushed out its tail and rushed at him in a threatening manner.  I was somewhat alarmed by this as I wouldn’t want any harm to come to our beloved cat.

On the fourth day no less than six mongooses arrived.  Our little garden was completely overrun by these animals and we decided that we’d taken enough photos and would stop the feeding/photography project.  It’s amazing how quickly the word spreads when there is food to be had.  One or two still come nosing around during the day looking for food and it’s very difficult not to feel sorry for them and throw a few cat pellets their way.

If you’d like to read more about the variety of mongooses that we’ve seen, click on The Heroic Mongoose and Namibia’s Largest Endemic Carnivore.

 

 

 

The flightless Common ostrich is a member of the same large family as other flightless birds such as the kiwi and the emu. It is able to run faster than any other bird, with a top speed approaching 95 km per hour. The males are slightly larger than the females, and the sexes differ in plumage, with the males having predominantly black feathers, with some white on the wings and tail. The females are a drab grey. Both sexes have bare legs and necks. Bills are broad and flat.

The Common ostrich is one of the very few species of birds that is farmed on a large scale; for its feathers that are used in fashion and also for feather dusters, for its meat and for its skin which is used for a variety of leather goods. The feathers differ from those of most other birds in that they lack the tiny hooks that lock them together, and so the feathers of the Common ostrich are quite fluffy.

Although Common ostriches are generally fairly common, the wild population is quite small, and is limited to the arid regions of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. They are quite nomadic, and form flocks of up to fifty or more birds as they move through the drier areas of southern Africa, feeding mainly on vegetable matter, but also on insects and other invertebrates, If threatened they will usually run away, but if cornered they can defend themselves very ably with powerful kicks.

Common ostriches are polygamous and make a nest that is just a scraped hollow in the ground. Several females may lay their eggs in the same nest, until the clutch reaches twenty or more eggs. The eggs are the largest eggs of any bird, and they hatch after an incubation period of approximately 40 days. They make good use of their dimorphic colouring as camouflage during incubation, with the grey females incubating the eggs during the day and the black males during the night.

The scientific binomial for the Common ostrich is Struthio camelus; Struthio from the Latin for an “ostrich”; and camelus from the Latin for “pertaining to a camel”. So “Struthio” makes sense, but I have no idea about “pertaining to a camel”!

The instructions inside the box say that you should first enjoy an ice cold beer.  Not a problem for me at all in our current Namibian heat wave.  Then take another can of beer, drink about a third of it and place it firmly inside the holder on the frame.

That done, you take one wholesome chicken, rub it inside and out with oil and seasoning of your choice (I chose lemon, herb and garlic). You can get really creative with your spice rubs (e.g. mustard, peri perid, garlic – whatever).

Then stretch the cavity of the chicken over the beer can.

If you have a Weber Kettle barbeque, or a barbeque with a lid, you place the chicken in the centre and cover the barbeque.  Your regular kitchen oven is also fine if it’s big benough.  (If using an oven, you need a drip tray under the grid, in which you place your potatoes or vegetables for roasting.)  The chicken gets cooked for about 90-120 minutes over medium-high, indirect heat (no coals or burners directly under the chicken), or at 180C in an oven.

While it’s cooking and giving off the most delicious aroma imagineable, you can enjoy knocking back a couple of frosties.  When done, you remove the chicken carefully from the beer can in the barbeque or oven (don’t burn yourself) and let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes.  Your reward for all this effort?  The most tender, succulent and tasty chicken you’ve ever eaten.  It is absolutely delicious, as the moisture from the beer has risen and permeated the meat.  My mouth is watering just thinking of it.

Don’t take my word for it, give it a try.  The South African manufacturers can be contacted at www.beerbird.co.za.  I’m not being paid to advertise for them by the way (I wish I was!)   I just think this is such a super idea.