Carol’s Column

The day I exhibited distinct birding characteristics

In a week of rest and travel, I want to change the subject and talk Aldo Berruti, which sounds like a good Italian wine or a Harley Davidson type of motorbike. It, or more accurately he, is neither. Aldo Berruti is the director of BirdLife South Africa.

Their new magazine, Africa - Birds & Birding, is being launched today. To mark the event, conservationist and publisher Peter Borchert of Black Eagle Publishing invited a small press party to come birding with BirdLife South Africa.

Aldo Berruti, PhD in biological sciences, is very serious about birding, a true scientist, I was told. Aren't all birders?

I have two passions in life: scuba diving and game watching. I'm not good at either, but personal paradise would be living on an island surrounded by a coral reef, or in a remote game reserve where I could realise my ultimate ambition of seeing an aardvark. The point is, I am a wildlife enthusiast.

On arrival I was introduced to some of the Main Manne of birders: Warwick Tarboton, Geoff Lockwood and, of course, Aldo Berruti.

"Do you like birds?" asked Aldo, in a friendly manner.

"I eat chicken," I answered. He looked not a little worried.

"Do you enjoy the bush?" he inquired.

"Yuk, I hate the bush, unless there is a flush toilet within walking distance," I replied. I'd imbibed a beer shandy, you understand.

He blanched. "Perhaps we'll get you to change your mind," he murmured and escaped looking distinctly concerned, with good reason. The true birders had superb high-tech binoculars around their necks. I wore a gold chain.

We arrived at the game reserve north-west of Johannesburg on the borders of Botswana and were assigned to open vehicles each with a Big Birder, lesser expert birders and us.

I got Guru Aldo. What can I say other than that within a few hours, we travelled not more than two kilometres, saw over 70 species of birds and the neck muscles outside that customarily seen during the Wimbledon finals.

We stopped at a smelly shepherd tree (really, that is its name). "I'm going to splash," announced Aldo. Poor man, I thought, he has a weak bladder, for we'd left the lodge, with flush toilets, just five minutes ago.

Then I almost fell from the four-by-four as a most extraordinary sound emerged from the region of his belly. "That's splashing," said Garth, an expert birder beside me. "He's attracting birds."

Within moments, we were surrounded by birds, the variety astonishing. And then there was an exclamation of ecstasy. "That's a OOE for me."

"An OOE?" I enquired.

"She's never seen that bird before and it's really rare," explained Aldo, or was it Garth. In birder talk it means an Orgasmic Ornithological Experience.

I learnt a lot about birders.

They are passionate and serious about birds, their conservation and absolute importance to the betterment of our lives.

They are also unbelievably witty, quite naughty and wonderful company.

In birdspeak they twitch (get excited), see a tick (worthwhile bird), mega-tick (really unusual, worthwhile bird). And when carried away, will describe a most rare, seldom sighted species as a CMF, which stands for a Cosmic Mind Four-letter-word which I cannot repeat in a respectable newspaper, but it rhymes with whitefaced duck.

There are "trash birds" (commonly seen birds), "not a trash bird" (the opposite), "cracking birds" (great birds). By the end of the day, we'd seen over 100 species and I could tell the difference between a wailing, tinkling, croaking, rattling, chirping and lazy cisticola (all different), known by the masses as little brown jobs.

Aldo, who loves all birds, admitted he was particularly attached to the sooty albatross of colder climes. "Large yet with such graceful flight," he enthused. "It has panache."

He had his moment of vindication when we stopped at a waterhole and I was mesmerised by a helmeted guinea fowl.

"They're beautiful giraffe," someone said.

"Giraffe?" I removed my binoculars. The guinea fowl was surrounded by six great giraffe. I hadn't even noticed them.

Aldo's eyes lit up. "This is victory," he proclaimed. "You're becoming a birder."

Life is not full of joyous events but this was one of the most joyous days of my life. Now all I want to see before I die is an aardvark AND a sooty albatross.

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