I have known about the Wakkerstroom xanthochroic black-collared barbet since it was first reported about six months ago, but I had no idea of its specific whereabouts. If you meet me, whether you are into birding or not, we WILL have some discussion about birds. And on Sunday night, so it was with our dinner host, Lizzie. Great was my surprise and excitement when she started bragging about the rare yellow form BCB that regularly visits the fruit feeding station for the birds in the garden of her restaurant, the Bistro. Within a jiffy I had her convinced that ringing the barbet would be a good idea and so I made an appointment with Lizzie to catch and ring the barbet on the Wednesday some time before noon. But my curiosity needed to be sated and I was back the next morning, just to make sure…

The young barbet was at the feeding station almost constantly…

In xanthochroic black-collared barbets, yellow replaces red. This is caused by a genetic mutation. While fairly rare, the condition is nonetheless reported in a number of species of birds. One South African bird in which this is noticed more often is the crimson-breasted shrike.

Johan van Heerden (one of the qualified ringers training us) set out a modified flap trap outside the window of the Bistro that looks out over the bird feeding station. We would trigger the trap with a length of string rather than letting the feeding birds set it off. A new soft pear quickly had red-winged starlings and a juvenile pied starling peeking around. While we waited for the target bird to pitch, Lizzie gave us some history on the celebrity… It’s parents had a brood going somewhere close by and the yellow form barbet was assisting them in a collaborative effort to feed the nestlings. Itself was from the previous brood and not yet a year old.

Within minutes the xanthochroic black-collared barbet arrived and chased off the starlings. At the first attempt we caught the bird! Have a look at that beak… then imagine Lizzie cheering the bird on to “…bite them, my boy!” Later that evening at dinner Lizzie confessed to having second thoughts about the ringing exercise. She thought she’d never again see the celebrity bird. She was wrong… the glutton was back and scoffing down the same day!

In the hand it was clear to see that this barbet had not yet reached adulthood as the eyes still had a degree or two to go before the deep red colour of an adult would be evident. Later we managed to also capture and ring one of the parents, but that was it, while the trap remained on the feeder, not a single bird would approach it.