h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is an interesting little bird. Tail cocked at a rakish angle, legs straight as if goose-stepping (Or not. That might just be the way the bird was posed for the painting ). Cistus is the genus for Rock roses, so Cisticola is a good derivation for the bird's name.

When I look up Cistus, I see that it's common in the Mediterranean, down into northern Africa. I don;'t see any indication that they are native to South Africa, but plants do immigrate when people want them to.

All sorts of nice little birds are around us all the time, without our noticing them. The best I can do is grow plants that produce lots of yummy seeds that birds can eat if they want to -- Sumemr or Winter, doesn't matter. I leave the seed heads until the following Spring).

Hello! Thanks! Cistus doesn't occur naturally in South Africa, and I don't think it's introduced here either, it's not something I'm at all familiar with. Over here they frequent other kinds of plants - grasses, reeds, sedges, lots of weedy growth, thorny thickets …

I'm really going to work to make my garden even more bird-friendly. This weekend I was off birdwatching on the farm of friends. They put out water for the birds to drink and bathe in and there were some amazing little things making use of it … melba finches (now called pytilias), Jameson's and Cape firefinches, yellow-bellied greenbuls, and yes, lazy cisticolas! They were relaxedly hopping all over the lawn (not much grass there at the mo actually) and yes with the tails cocked high. Not only that, there were also two other species they could be confused with, namely neddickies (another kind of cisticola) and a tawnyflanked prinia. A great opportunity to teach my friends some identification tips!

Thanks for mentioning the idea of putting water out for birds and other creatures. I handle that by collecting rainwater and leaving buckets of it outside for up to a week. (Any more than a week would make them susceptible to mosquitoes laying eggs in them ).

I often find ladybugs floating on the top of the water. When I "rescue" them by dipping them out, they are almost always alive and frisky. Maybe they just like a relaxing swim?

Over here I have a shallow concrete bird bath. My friends use stones with hollows in them. These serve adequately! Water gets renewed weekly, which seems to be all right.

Good to hear!