That’s a tit’s nest!
Thank you very much for
Platteland – I enjoy every season’s issue full of advice and tips.
On page 67 in your article “Herbal healers of the Karoo”
(Platteland #20, Spring 2018), Antoinette Pienaar refers to the nest of a cisticola, but according to all my bird books it is actually the nest of a Cape penduline tit.
In Hopefield we host the Fynbos Show every year, and for the past 30 years we’ve shown guests this type of nest and told them the tit’s story the way Prof Christo Pienaar told it on his radio show back in the day.
Over the years, we’ve received the most wonderful information from experts and ordinary folks alike, but I still use Prof Pienaar’s story as a basis for educating people, especially children, about how different species protect themselves.
There are gorgeous pics of the Cape penduline tit and its nest in Sappi Birds of South
Africa. The book claims the bird uses the false entrance to open the actual entrance, and we’ve also heard the male sits there while the female sits inside, especially when there are eggs and little ones. The male flies away when an enemy approaches and the actual entrance becomes a trapdoor that only this bird with its curled feathers above its beak can open.
It’s the white fluffy seeds of wild rosemary (Eriocephalus
africanus) that are used to make these beautiful nests. Older people have told us that, as children, they’d tried to break open the nests, but the material is incredibly strong, which makes me wonder whether the birds use some kind of liquid with the seeds when building them.
Someone also told us that the numbers of this particular bird have diminished in the Karoo because they use tufts of sheep’s wool caught on fences to build their nests. Wool contains lanolin, which clogs the pores of the eggs.