Where You’ll Find Them
The folded mountains of the Cape are made up of rock derived largely from beach sand. This origin, combined with the leaching effect of heavy rainfall over millennia, has resulted in the soil of the area being particularly low in nutrients.
It is possible that the very reason the hardy Cape fynbos blooms so profusely is to give it a better chance of perpetuating itself in this difficult environment. Relatively few bird species are able to survive here, but sunbirds, such as the Malachite sunbird, and sugarbirds are especially well adapted to fynbos, and can usually be seen perched on protea and erica bushes, their long, curved beaks probing the blooms for nectar.
The orange breasted sunbird, Nectarinia violacea, which will often bathe itself in the dew on an erica plant, supplements its diet of nectar by catching insects on the wing. The male Cape sugarbird, Promerops cafer, advertises his territory by perching on a protea and calling, then flying up and giving a vivid display, flicking his wings and flipping his streaming tail over his back.
His call is as curious as it is varied, involving grating, chirping, chipping, clacking and hissing sounds. The Cape rockjumper, Chaetops frenatus, forages on the ground in the southern and south- western Cape for insects and lizards. It is a timid bird, quickly vanishing from its perch on top of a rock if disturbed, but it can be easily located, concealed in low brush or a rocky outcrop, by its shrill call, which sounds somewhat like an alarm clock running down.
By David Bristow