Although Vangas are rare - according to Newman’s ‘Birds of Southern Africa’ - we’re lucky enough to have a resident pair and see and hear them around our house almost every day.
This is probably because years ago a Frelimo co-operative who took over the old Magalhaes sawmill planted several eucalyptus trees and the taller the trees, the more the Vangas like them. They seem to be the only birds we have that make their nests in these trees.
This, of course, makes them difficult to film and is a great strain on our neck muscles!
Since we’ve been watching the Vangas, we’ve noticed that they’ve only ever produced female offspring. After the eggs have hatched (usually one egg, occasionally two) they fly around for a while with the little females and then they all disappear for a few weeks. When they return, they return without their offspring and leave us wondering if they had taken them to Gorongosa to pair off with other Vangas there.
Although quite a small bird, the male Vanga can be very aggressive. Once, when he felt threatened by a young hawk sitting on a nearby branch, he flew towards it with such terrific speed that the hawk actually fell off the branch with surprise.
This year in October, the Vangas attacked an African Emerald Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx caprius) that was visiting us for the summer. As our pair of Forest weavers had also attacked the Cuckoo, it made a hasty departure and we haven’t seen it since.
We’ve never seen this particular Cuckoo before and at first O’D thought it was a Green-headed Oriole. Wow! How excited we were! This Oriole is really, really rare.
Alas, closer scrutiny of the film in our camera showed us how wrong we were.
But, who knows? Perhaps one day a Green-headed Oriole may well fly in to take advantage of the safety of our little forest …
Val.
To Watch Video Click the You Tube Link Below-:
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