: Two lessons: Geography and Birding

I’m writing this on the solstice; summer for us, winter for our readers (both of you). As I recall, that means the sun is 23 ½ degrees below the equator, and because we are about 26 degrees below the equator, at noon I will have to look between my feet to see my shadow. And living this close to the equator means we don’t get much variation in the length of our days. Sunrise is roughly 4:30 a.m. and sunset is around 7 p.m. today, and this is the longest day of the year. I do miss the late summer evenings of the Pacific NW.
This is being written by the non-birder. We have a nest of black collared barbetts (I’m told) right out our front door. We watch them come and go all the time. What makes it interesting is their call. Each bird has a short call of a single note, but they are sung antiphonally so it sounds like one bird, one tone about four notes below the other, kind of like a European siren, but higher, quicker and more musical. It makes me wonder, if they both chose the same tone, would it sound like _________ instead of -_-_-_-_-_.
During the mating season, the male of another bird grows very long tail feathers. It makes him a handsome fellow but upsets his flight characteristics so that he is nose high and the wings are working very hard. It reminds me of a student pilot who has seriously miscalculated his weight and balance.
We hear another bird which I think of as ‘the Swazi bird’. His call seems to wander aimlessly, never hitting or maintaining a pure tone, but smearing from tone to tone, like a drunken whistler. If you’re not sure why I call it the Swazi bird, read my blog on writing Swazi music.
Finally, I make frequent sightings of full-breasted mattress-thrashers; the African variety is darker than the American but is less shy about ‘displaying’.
This is being written by the birder. The birds here are plentiful, colorful and in general have pretty calls. I have forty plus birds on my Swaziland list and about thirty new birds on my life list without having had much time to go out in the “field” yet. The poor “flyer” that Gary mentions above is glossy black with a bright red collar during mating season. Non-mating season he is just a brown non-descript bird with a short tail. We have multiple bright yellow canaries that vie with the barbetts to wake us up in the morning. The ‘Swazi bird’ is elusive and has not yet been identified. I am making no comment about the Swazi mattress-thrasher.