Route 62 - Barrydale
Barrydale, the perfect weekend getaway on Route 62. A beautiful 2½ hour drive from Cape Town. We offer a marvelous selection of accommodation, restaurants and delightfully different shops.
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Written by Dr. Terry Oatley
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Monday, 04 January 2010 15:56 |
 January is a comparatively quiet month for the village bird life. The Bokmakieries are still singing their duets loudly, but has anyone noticed that the Common Starlings, so vocally conspicuous in November, have largely disappeared from our rooftops? They are not known to be migratory in South Africa (as they are in Europe), so where have they gone? No further, in fact, than Boetie Cooke’s irrigated pastures, where they fraternise with the dairy cows, using them as beaters to disturb tasty insects hiding in the grass. In Europe, as in North America (to which they were introduced) the Common Starlings pose a major problem to soft fruit crops, but despite fears that their populations would increase to vast numbers in South Africa and become a major farm pest, this has not happened (although nobody really knows why). At the village garden scale they do feast on mulberries and strawberries, especially when they have young to feed. But when feeding in pastures, as at present, they do more good than harm.
Meanwhile, green fruits are fattening on our garden fig trees. These are apt to prove irresistible to Redwinged Starlings, which will forsake their haunts in the Tradouw Pass to indulge themselves in the village gardens. These African birds are not closely related to the introduced Common Starling, and are bigger and longer-tailed, the males in shiny black plumage and the females identifiable by their grey heads. They can be quite wary when raiding fig trees of unsympathetic gardeners, coming stealthily in pairs or trios and sounding harsh warning calls when the approach of two-legged or four-legged danger is detected. Having eaten their fill, however, they may assemble on the roof and spire of the church at about 10 a.m. and socialise for an hour or two in the sunshine, carolling musically with their cheerful whistled calls.
Inasmuch as fruit-eaters such as Redwinged Starlings eat stung figs as readily as immaculate ones, their activities are not entirely harmful. In this context it is important to bear in mind that while it is all too easy to estimate how much damage birds do in terms of diminishing crop yields, it is impossible to evaluate the good they do by consuming harmful pests which can potentially reduce crop yields even more. However, if you like bottling your green figs, get up really early and harvest the ripe ones before the Redwinged Starlings (and mousebirds, bulbuls and white-eyes) arrive for breakfast. |
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