Colours of Wildlife: Red-Faced Mousebird
Created | Updated Jul 28, 2019
Red-Faced Mousebird
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
This is a bird that ought to be new for most of you. It's a Red-faced Mousebird, Urocolius indicus. In spite of its scientific name meaning 'Tail-coly from India' ('coly' being another name for a mousebird), it is exclusively African. Indeed, all mousebirds are restricted to Africa. These birds are not closely related to any others, and are placed in their own family and order. There are only six species; we are fortunate to have three of them here in South Africa. They're highly unique birds, a remnant of a group that was larger and more widespread in the past, some fossil forms being known from Europe.
The name 'mousebird' is very descriptive of these birds. They're small, mostly grey; they have soft, fur-like feathers, long, narrow tails, and a habit of creeping and clambering about trees and bushes rather than flying. They're acrobatic with flexible joints; they sometimes hang upside-down or cling to widely separated twigs in spread-eagled fashion. Their inner and outer toes are reversible, and can either point forward or backward, which aids them in climbing dexterity. They do fly, with a straight and direct flight from one tree or bush to another, a flock of them looking like a volley of arrows.
Pests or Pals?
Sadly, mousebirds are considered pests by many people in South Africa. They are vegetarians, eating all parts of plants – leaves, buds, flowers, nectar, pollen and fruit – and in large flocks can cause damage to orchards or to vegetable patches. They're much persecuted, some people shooting them on sight. In my own garden, they're partial to some of my succulent plants. They also like the fruits of my broom cluster fig tree. Well, actually I plant my garden so as to attract birds, and I enjoy having the mousebirds here. What I do is to provide a few plants that the mousebirds prefer, and that are vigorous-growing enough to recover rapidly from their depredations. So, they eat these plants and leave my more sensitive specimens alone! I wonder if we might find a similar strategy for safeguarding farm crops against them …
Actually if you can get over their destructiveness, they're charming, delightful birds. They're very social, always occurring in flocks. They maintain contact with each other through their melodious three-note whistle, from which they get their Zulu name 'Tshivovo'. The 'tshi' is at a higher pitch than the following two 'vovo'-notes. When they fly from tree to tree, they give a slurred chirp. One bird starts flying and then the others follow behind it. They dust-bathe frequently, this being good for their feathers; they make little hollows by wriggling their bodies, flicking dust over their backs and wings. They also bask in the sun. Mousebirds roost at night in a clump of birds all snuggled together. Because of their social nature, mousebirds are easily tamed. They are very affectionate, becoming attached to the people who rear them and the houses they're reared in, so that it's not necessary to keep them in cages.
The red-faced mousebird occurs over practically the whole of Southern Africa, only being absent from the high mountains and from dense forests. Because of its versatile diet, it can feed on almost any kind of plant at any time of the year. This means they breed any time of the year also, even though it mostly happens in summer, the rainy season, when plant growth is most abundant. The main display recorded between the sexes, is the male or female bouncing up and down on a twig prior to copulation. The nest is a shallow bowl made of thorny twigs, lined with soft material. In this the female lays up to four eggs. But sometimes nests containing up to eight eggs are found! That is because sometimes more than one female lays her eggs in the same nest. These sociable birds help each other with the breeding. In addition to the parents, the other flock members may attend the nest and chicks. They are usually the older offspring of the same couple. The chicks are scrupulously attended, fed by regurgitation by their parents and the helpers. They leave the nest before they can properly fly, clambering about the vegetation. They learn how to be proper mousebirds by playing with the others in the flock.
Despite much persecution, mousebirds remain abundant. In South Africa, the three species overlap largely in range, and in some places, they can all be seen together. Somehow they're able to avoid competition and to co-exist without conflict. In Africa as a whole, four species are widespread and abundant, while the other two are limited in range though not really rare.
