Exploring Pigeon Valley:The winter transition
This is the 66th in an ongoing series that highlights the riches of Pigeon Valley, the urban nature reserve in the heart of Glenwood.
WINTER is a strange concept in Durban, but in Pigeon Valley we have a sudden transition to still days with cool mornings and warm sunshine.
The reserve often seems very quiet, a change that the current lockdown must of course be amplifying.
That transition seems the signal for major changes in the birdlife. Purple-banded Sunbirds arrive in significant numbers from further north, and the most special of our birds, the Spotted Ground-Thrush, makes its appearance.
In the last few days I been listening to birds whose call I have not heard for many months, such as the Yellow-bellied Greenbul, Crested Barbet and Olive Bush-Shrike.
Perhaps the most remarkable was seeing a large black and white raptor surge majestically up from the side of the reservoir.
I did not at first recognise it, but from my rushed photos people were able to identify it as a Palm-nut Vulture, a very rare visitor to our area.
Some birds have moved along the coast, but the Fiscal Flycatcher, like the one in the photo, comes from further inland – what is called an altitudinal migrant.
The Fiscal Flycatcher practises, no doubt without conscious awareness, a subtle deception.
Across much of South Africa, a familiar sight is the Common Fiscal, the shrike that perches on barbed wire and impales insects on the barbs.
If this sounds fearsome, no doubt that is also the way it comes across to possible predators.
The Fiscal Flycatchers are very easily mistaken for Common Fiscals and draws on their reputation to protect themselves.
In reality, their behaviour is not aggressive; they can become quite confiding, clustering in a group not just in the reservoir, their favourite location, but also in the neighbouring gardens.
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