BoS #13: Red-Winged Starling
The cache, a small camo-taped tablet pot, is hidden in a striking weathered rock formation just off the trail. Our first thought on seeing this rock was that it looked like a tank! - not the fluid-holding type – the shell-firing one.
This easily identifiable bird was seen several times during our hike / caching mission and is commonly seen and heard in most wild and less-wild locations within its range.
To Reach the Cache Location:
a) From the East / Bos #12: simply continue following the Spitskop Traverse Trail (my name!) west.
b) From the West: make your way from parking at Gate 2 via the top of Wolfkop Steps to the west end of the traverse trail at the Fat Lady Shelter @ S 34 5.589 E 18 26.200 and follow the trail heading east (shown simply as View Point on the stone column signpost there) to the cache location
The red-winged starling (Onychognathus morio) belongs to the starling family Sturnidae. There are 2 subspecies of which the one found here is O. m. morio (Uganda and Kenya to Botswana and southern South Africa).
Its range extends down eastern Africa from Ethiopia to the Cape. It has a wide habitat tolerance and pairs or flocks may be found in savannah, grassland, wetlands, fynbos, farmlands and commercial plantations, as well as urban centres, but it generally avoids forests.
It is now common in many urban areas, due to the similarity between the structure of tall buildings and houses as nest sites with the cliffs of its original habitat. It may also nest in residential areas, breeding in roofs and apertures and up house eaves.
The male is 27–30 cm long and has mainly iridescent black plumage, with black-tipped chestnut primaries (flight feathers) which are particularly noticeable in flight. The female has an ash-grey head and upper breast. The juvenile resembles the adult male, but is less glossy, and has brown rather than dark red eyes. It has a graduated pointed tail.
It has a characteristic and familiar loud liquid oriole-like ‘wher-teooo’ contact call (listen here) and various other musical whistles and warbles.
Its flight is fast and direct, and it can cling onto cliff faces and vertical walls.
Like other starlings, it is an omnivore, taking lizards and a wide range of seeds, berries, nectar from plants such as Aloe and Schotia brachypetala, and invertebrates, such as the ticks, millepedes, and beetle species Pachnoda sinuata. It may take nestlings and adults of certain bird species, such as the African palm swift. It will also scavenge on carrion and human food scrap.
Fruit it may eat include figs, such as the sycamore fig and others, marulas, date palm fruit, berries from species such as wild olive Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata and Euphorbia, and commercial fruit such as apples, grapes, citruses and others. It forages arboreally or on the ground, moving with bounding hops.
In rural areas, they are often spotted perching on livestock and game, such as cattle, klipspringers and giraffes, and may take insects and ectoparasites such as ticks, similar to oxpeckers.
It is territorial, aggressive and intolerant when nesting, and will attack (dive-bomb) other species, including domestic animals and humans. When not breeding, it is highly gregarious and will associate with other members of their species in large flocks.
It is a cliff nester, breeding on rocky cliffs, outcrops and gorges. It builds a lined nest of grass and twigs, and with a mud base, on a natural or structural ledge in the overhang of cliffs and buildings.
It lays 2-4 blue eggs, spotted with red-brown which the female incubates for 13–14 days, with another 22–28 days to fledge. It is commonly double-brooded and may be parasitised by the great spotted cuckoo.
It is preyed upon by other birds such as peregrine falcons, lanner falcons, tawny eagles, cape eagle-owls, pied crows, and gymnogene.
It can be a pest in some areas, raiding orchards and attacking people that wander too close to their nests.
Watch short videos here and here (feeding), here (drinking and bathing), here (feeding nestlings) and here (feeding a chick at a bird table).
See here for a fascinating 2017-initiated UCT project (with many great photos) on campus red-wing starlings – ringing and observing them to see how they adapt to city life. Two issues being focused on are the effect of replacing their natural food with scavenged human (‘junk’) food and the lack of such food over weekends and holidays. See here for a related 2021 paper reporting on some of the research findings.
