Sunbirds 22/08/2006 (This is one of a series of articles I wrote dealing with memories of an African childhood. To read the first of these, click here)Two Eyes has (appropriately enough) two videos of hummingbirds at his bird feeder - Hummingbird Video and Hummingbirds ...more than I can count. I found them fascinating, not only because hummingbirds are so rarely seen and yet in profusion in these videos, but also because they reminded me of the sunbirds of Africa.Sunbirds are really just big hummingbirds and they take their name from the fact that they are like flying jewels, iridescently colored emerald green, ruby red, aquamarine blue and golden, colors that flash and reflect the light of the sun so that they really are creatures of the bright sunshine. There was only one place where we knew we were guaranteed to see them: Ewanrigg Botanical Garden, near Harare in Zimbabwe.This was perhaps the best example of the European concept of "garden" adapted to an African theme. Instead of fighting the heat and glare of the African sun, battling against dehydration with constant irrigation to achieve a greenness foreign to such a climate, Ewanrigg went with the flow, accepting that lawns were going to be parched dry and brown, and populating the dry, rocky high points with the aloes that thrived on dessication, the few pools surrounded by those strange tree ferns, the cycads. The native trees too were allowed to grow, providing their patchy areas of shade for the sun-bleached visitor.It was a wonderfully peaceful landscape, as I recall it, a welcome change from the open grassland of the highveld. And, when the aloes were flowering, the sunbirds were there, delighting us with their brilliant colors and zig-zagging flight, hovering before some great orange or white aloe flower before zooming off to the next, sating themselves on the nectar. They were so much a part of the garden that I cannot remember them ever being absent in any of our visits; in fact, I think it was for them we came before anything else. Perhaps my parents were wise enough to know the times when the aloes would be in bloom but I was too young to take note of such things.To see those hummingbirds in James' videos took me right back to Ewanrigg in an instant, a place I have not visited since my early teens. Some quick research on the net has reassured me that the gardens still exist and so I have been able to provide the link up there for any who are interested. And it is good to know that, in Texas at least, similar scenes are enacted daily.Technorati tags: Sunbirds; Ewanrigg; Aloes.(to read the next of the African Memories articles, click here)
Clive
Way Those are unimaginably magnificent little creatures. How lovely and strange. The Hoopoe gets my vote for appearing to be so cocky, altho two others run a close second, with their exotic feathered coats. Link two failed, but I am very thirsty now. Date Added: 22/08/2006
Gone Away The links work for me, Way - must be your techno-gremlins at work, methinks. ;)
I agree the hoopoe is an attractive little fellow but there are so many others to be considered. And those hummingbirds are definitely very special. Date Added: 22/08/2006
keeef How apt. Just this morning i was walking to work when a dark shadow blotted out the sun, i felt a blast of air waft over my head and instinctivley i ducked. Looking up i saw a cockatoo had settled on the branch above and was watching me intently. There is somthing about birds that keeps me enthralled. The parrots and cockatoos that are native here especially grab me. I think, aside from their plumage, it is the scale of the birds and their apparent intelligence that captivates me. Back home the only large birds you see in cities are crows or rooks. Both are attractive in their own way but they are sinister looking birds. The Cockatoo on the other hand is perfectly white, save for his yellow crest and always appears to be studying you as you study him. After a bit of head tilting (which they mimic and that fascinates me further) I noticed a second one sat on a branch higher up. It appears quite common for these birds to hang about in pairs and i wonder if they mate for life (how exhausting). I could google it and read up on it but sometimes i prefer not to know the answer to all my questions and i will leave this one so as not to spoil the mystery of this enchanting creature Date Added: 23/08/2006
Mad That's something I loved about Sydney Keef, the flocks of cockatoos delighted me. To european eyes these flocks of huge white birds with their yellow crests and comedy walks are most bizarre. As for sunbirds they amazed me when I saw them in Harare when visiting granny Bazeley. Date Added: 23/08/2006
Gone Away I agree, Keef that Oz seems to have the most bizarre birds in strange situations. It must be weird to walk around in a big city accompanied by something like a cockatoo that we know only from the caged birds at home. And then there is the thought of all those budgies, completely unable to survive longer than ten minutes in the wild in Britain, swarming in their thousands in the arid outback of Oz.
As for not always wanting to know the answer to questions, am the same. Gotta leave room for a bit of imagination... Date Added: 23/08/2006
Gone Away Purty, ain't they, Mad? Date Added: 23/08/2006
Janus I have to stop looking at this Park Website now and try to get back to work. Which is tragic because I could look at these Botanical garden photos all day. Wonderful post Date Added: 23/08/2006
Way Sydney Keef. There is a name I can use in some future tale. Date Added: 23/08/2006
Gone Away Thanks, Janus. And thanks too to Way's nephew whose hummingbird videos inspired this one. Date Added: 23/08/2006
Gone Away Sydney Keef? Wasn't he the sheriff at that town in the far Kinnells? You know, the one just by the Andover Fist. What was it's name? Oh yes, that was it - Hosstawater. You could bring anything there but you couldn't make it drink... Date Added: 23/08/2006
Way Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay. Yes he was. Date Added: 23/08/2006
Gone Away The "neighs" have it. Date Added: 23/08/2006
Keeef Its like a big pirate theme park...........without the scurvy Date Added: 24/08/2006
Gone Away Where's the fun in that, then? Date Added: 24/08/2006
way I dunno if yer a fan of Fractal Cat or not, but I highly reccommend her last post at http://chaoticgardening.blogspot.com/ Date Added: 02/09/2006
Gone Away Ooh, Way, a gem! I have been out of general blog circulation of late, thanks to network demands, but the Fractal Cat goes straight to bookmark! Thanks, mate. :) Date Added: 02/09/2006
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