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Some unfortunate people regard mousebirds as pests. The very name “mousebird” seems to conjure images of filth. In truth, we have at least 10 Speckled Mousebirds on our feeder each morning – and they do mess (very big mess!), but they are a daily joy. On the other hand 30 rats are born every second of the day in South Africa!!! (from South African Pest Control Association data). And these are not friendly mousebirds or even Raton Mickey types, these are R Rattus of black death fame. The greatest nightmare is to find that they have “discovered” your bird feeding...

(A Bird by any Other Name Part 1) I recently had the good fortune to play at a golf day at Kyalami Country Club. At the function afterwards, a magnificent Dikkop proceeded to stroll into the function room collecting morsels from under the tables and the guests feet! (Really!) Obviously many golfers had no clue as to the name of this audacious creature, and were rapidly informed that it was a “Dikkop”. Someone quickly corrected that notion and pronounced it a “Spotted Thick-knee”. Frankly, a rather stupid name for a very beautiful bird. At least the name has been around...

DID YOU KNOW?   In spite of it's top heavy appearance the beak of the grey hornbill is made up of a light skin of keratin overlying a bony support. The beak has lots tiny holes that are air chambers, resulting in the beak being incredibly light. The large bill may be the reason why hornbills have the first two neck vertebrae fused together. Nesting african grey hornbills are monogamous. When nesting natural cavities are used. The female lays two to four white eggs. The female undergoes a molt of all her flight and tail feathers at the time of...

The best sound to wake up to in the morning is the sound of birds chirping. To attract them to our gardens requires bird feeders, bird food, bird baths, bird houses and lots of indigenous plants and shrubs.   Once we have the perfect bird garden, there are a couple of ways to care for our birdies and to keep our feeding stations safe and clean. Bird Feeders Bird feeders can become dirty very quickly, especially when it is a very busy feeder. To reduce the likeliness of spreading disease: Remove bird seed debris daily. Old husks and seeds can...

Attracting a sunbird to your garden can stir up a lot of excitement. Who can resist watching that small, agile little bird, with its magnificent colouring and unique call. The question is, how do we attract them to our gardens? To start off with, sunbirds love the nectar of plants. People try making all sorts of nectar cocktails in an attempt to attract sunbirds, most of which are very difficult for sunbirds to digest. We are very much for nectar feeders, however, we believe in the correct nectar mixture. We wrote a blog post “6 Nectar Feeding Questions and Answers”...