A bright morning day in Mkomazi National Park, where we are welcomed by herds of buffaloes feeding peacefully on the plains. My attention was gracefully focused on birds that clinger on one large herbivorous, feeding right between the buffalo eyes, others on the nose and the buffalo did not seem to mind about them. The birds were the Red-billed Oxpeckers – beautiful birds with red beak and yellow eyes, often seen perched on the back of giraffes and other animals like zebra, impalas sharing a fascinating and mutually beneficial interaction between two different species. Oxpeckers feed on parasites like ticks, blood and other insects that infest these animals. In so doing the buffalo benefits from a cleaner and tick-free body.
It is so amazing how nature works with animals helping each other at the same time, in which both animals benefit. In ecology it is known as “Mutualism.” But not all animals allow oxpeckers to come eat off them, lions, leopard and other predators don’t allow, and they might end up as dinner.
The martial eagle at the baobab tree we saw earlier scan the open plains had headed off slowly and eventually was out of sight. We stopped under a tree close to the cup of the nests of two birds. I wondered what kind of birds, I got near and noticed that it was the Yellow Bellied Eremomela calling in a high pitch around maybe warning us to stay away. Birds have a language of their own, one bird chirps in a certain manner, another answers and sometimes, they exchange the same chirping as if speaking in the cord.
They reminded me some years back, when bird’s songs woke me up in the early hours of the morning with a wakeup call on the tree closet to my window. I really miss them, my cell phone now had to use as a wakeup call with birds tune.
We moved on and we were very lucky to spot a Twig Snake (Thelotomis capensis capensis) on a tree feeding on a skink and just had to watch it. Also known as vine snake or bird snake, his body is twig-colored hence its name. It has a very long tail and is super venomous. From internet I learned that there is no antivenom for this snake which can cause uncontrolled bleeding, but they are very reluctant to bite. After a while it then froze and swayed gently on a tree making it hard to spot. Upon seeing us it felt threatened, inflated its head and neck looking bigger, I thought the head was a flower getting ready to show its beauty – and it was time for us to move on, back to our lodge.
