Page 36 - Silver Lakes September 2021

NATURE

What happens in spring? They say a young
man’s fancy turns to love and, being young
myself - well, relatively young if you bear
in mind the age of the Bushveld Igneous
Complex - my thoughts naturally turn to
love.
I don’t necessarily mean the love that
American humourist, SJ Perelman, defined:
“Love is not the dying moan of a distant
violin. Love,” he said, “is the triumphant
twang of a bedspring.”
Nor do I mean the love described by
a young schoolgirl: "Love cards like
Valentine's cards say stuff on them that
we'd like to say ourselves, but we wouldn't
be caught dead saying."
I speak of the emotion that makes you
shout for a pen because you’ve smelled
jasmine in the air and you’ve heard the
first Piet-my-vrou and you feel a jot-worthy
poem coming on.
Some years ago, I wrote that spring does Crested barbet
not really twang for me until the piet-
my-vrou has spoken and, talking of bird they are raising a cacophony – a rowdy, FEEEET Gwegory! Wipe your FEEEET!”
calls, a reader says that the spring dawn full-throated dissonance with all the
chorus is all very well for those who have harmony of a panel-beating shop. This sets off the sparrows with their
earplugs but, being a new mother who incessant Chinese torture call: “Chip! Chip!
looks forward to a bit of sleep before the First comes the demented screech of Chip! Chip! Chip!”
day begins, she is painfully aware of “the the Karoo thrush – that worm-hunting
disharmony of the dawn chorus”. brown garden bird with an orange bill that Then, like a cheap alarm clock, the crested
goes “Chree! Chree! Chree! Chree!” Just barbet joins in: cheeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Many will agree – it’s not really a chorus at four skull-piercing notes repeated every
all; it‘s a racket and I ask myself: “Why are 10 seconds – like the sound of somebody And then the confounded hadedas.
the early birds no longer quietly catching starting an old Chevvy truck on a frosty Several at a time. They sound startled,
worms?” morning. which they probably are. They shriek out
their 90 decibel witch-like calls that seem
In high summer they begin calling as early This wakes the exuberant bulbul which to herald not the break of day but the end
as 3.45am. Seriously. They are not singing; starts hysterically calling, “Wipe your of the world: “Aar! Aar! Aar! Aaar de daar!”

Karoo thrush Bulbul pair

34 INTRA MUROS SEPTEMBER 2021