Angel Maboyakulu is a ranger in Mkuze that takes one on the Fig Forest walk in that Park. Angel knows his birds like many of the very best guides I have had the pleasure to bird with… He is one of those rare sharp-eyed individuals that can correctly identify a difficult bird in flight and, with his keen ears, crack the ID of an unseen bird by listening to the faint strains of its song. Angel mimics birds’ mating song to call them closer and phishes with the best of the phishers. So, with this impression of Angel, I was amused to hear him refer to some of the birds in Mkuze as “Commons”, albeit with a grin. For me finding a “common” lifer is still an experience I marvel at. One such example for me was the pied starlings of Wakkerstroom. Never having seen one before, I found myself in the midst of hordes of pied starlings, amusing the locals with my antics in trying to get good pix of them. And again very recently the Meeves’s starlings of Mapungubwe had the same effect on me.

I took a good friend of mine from the Cape birding on the highveld and he experienced this phenomenon with our widowbirds and longclaws, giving me a reverse-angle on this observation.

It is like there is this invisible hurdle that prevents the birds from crossing over into a neighbouring area; a barrier that we cross, into a territory that holds this “common” bird we have not seen before.

One man’s “Common” is another man’s lifer!

And referring to Meeves's starlings - these are tough birds! On one of the bush drives I did in Mapungubwe we saw a black mamba of over 2.0 m that found itself out in the open with five starlings aggressively dive-bombing it. Comically a small band of Natal spurfowl followed this procession observing the raucous scrap safely from the tail-end of the snake. I was fortunate to catch this bit of the action before the snake disappeared into the safety of a hole.

• 07/01/2009 13:11 - New chicks transmit data
• 18/12/2008 16:48 - Ringing the yellow fellow
• 17/12/2008 11:56 - Engagement party with risky benefits
• 15/12/2008 11:11 - Power cuts, mini-blogs, lifers and early rising
• 02/12/2008 12:40 - Ringing Wakkerstroom
• 21/11/2008 13:06 - #5: Composition
• 30/10/2008 13:28 - #3: Perception
• 25/10/2008 09:44 - #2: Break the mould