Trilled with twitching progress

TRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

The sound is doing my head in. Morning and night, and sometimes at noon.

Not because of the long trilling call, but because I cannot ID what bird it is.

The couch science council is no help at all. The only real wildlife they react to are the occasional foraging hadedas and the monkeys.

Because our jungle-garden provides so much food and hydration, we are on their route, twice a day, there and back. They do not come into the house. There is no need with all the berries and stuff outside, or because there’s a loud snarling, barking pack on the ground. The monkeys ignore them from the treetops.

When I turn up the TV volume for some of the roars, saws or whoops of really dangerous predators, they sleep right on through. Nary a cell of natural selfpreservation.

But the bird app is failing us, not through any fault its own.

A couple of years ago, first during lockdown and then a general lack of mobility, I needed a new hobby so I started birdwatching. The couch research council turned to twitchers for advice on ethics: if you only see it on a wildlife show, can you add a sighting to a list?

The guide on the drive has found it, yet you benefit. Many bird-lovers see these amazing animals thanks to guides, but they have at least hiked from their rooms to the Landy.

In any case, I bought an app and set some rules. In a nod to my conscience, once seen I had to learn the bird’s call and other interesting facts before it was listed.

This did not go well. The rest of the couch became very exercised about the cries from the device. The barking drowned out most of the sounds. Ear pods can never be found.

We managed a few of the more soothing ones like the pearl spotted owlet and southern ground hornbill. Even the blue waxbill and the little bee-eater made it through with only some side-eyes. The lyrical fiery necked nightjar tweaked them and the arrow-marked babblers, spurfowl, francolin and korhan set them right off.

It’s mystifying. Two of Africa’s noisiest birds – the hadedas that nest about 5m from my “office” window and the Egyptian geese who kamikaze on and over the roof – don’t raise a furry brow.

Even the bat colony’s evening screechy fly-by doesn’t stir them.

I have been delighted and honoured with all the discoveries in the garden. Birds I never knew existed eat, poop and replant the chillies and (shamefully unidentified) trees while I peer at them through my hide – the kitchen window. The little robin, of course, pops in regularly for the dog food.

It’s such a thrill to learn a new call and identify it on your own, in the garden or the background noise of a bush show. Or if it’s not calling, just knowing what you’re looking at.

It’s a hobby that can be done anywhere and a wonderful source of tranquillity if you need some of that.

I hope to treat myself to a set of binoculars (if I can get them delivered) for Christmas, sit in the driveway and chase that bird. And then it’s definitely going on the list.