August 2010
Bird Hotels
By Jenny Dean

Once again I am entranced by the 'bird hotels', the thickets, in my garden and the life they harbour. I have just spent 20 minutes watching a female Cape batis, minutely handsome in her tiny rufous waistcoat. She flits through the thicket hunting insects, chattering softly all the while, keeping in touch with the rest of her party. These cute little birds are permanent residents and always give me a thrill when I see them completely at home and thriving in our piece of paradise. How is this possible? All the beds in my garden are linked, creating one great green corridor humming with insect life. This corridor, composed entirely of indigenous plants (mostly local to KwaZulu-Natal), is the great attraction to all the creatures in the garden. I am fortunate to live on a 10-acre smallholding, but if you have a smaller space you can still create a similar effect with the correct plantings. Here’s an example of the plants that so please my Cape batis population.

The prize specimen, attractive to huge numbers of insects even when not in glorious flower, is SCHOTIA brachypetala, the weeping boerbean. It pops out of the top of the thicket and is the main calling card to a bird flying past. Spring brings a flush of coppery pink new leaves followed by the deep red flowers, literally dripping with nectar. Tightly packed beneath is a range of shade-loving plants that can take a bit of sun, which is an essential attribute during the time it takes for the Schotia to grow to its eventual height. METARUNGIA pubinervia (red sunbird bush) rubs shoulders with grey-leaved HELICHRYSUM populifolium. The former has red flowers that peep out between stem and leaf, while the chief attraction of the Helichrysum for us humans is its most attractive large grey leaves – the flowers, although not particularly showy, attract many insects. Three DRACAENA aletriformis cluster together in a group, their bright green strappy leaves contrasting pleasingly with their neighbours. INDIGOFERA micrantha – knee high and dainty with its snowfall of tiny white flowers – is also part of this group.

Making up the rest of this bed, which is seven metres long by three metres deep, is DUVERNOIA adhatodoides (pistol bush), PSYCHOTRIA capensis (black bird berry) and BURCHELLIA bubalina (wild pomegranate). The pistol bush provides marvellous white flowers with pinkish stripes and is incredibly useful in semi shade. Black bird berry provides a seemingly never ending supply of fruit and the wild pomegranate (which is evergreen and always neat and showy) bursts out into orange bloom every spring. At their toes is CRASSULA multicava (fairy crassula). I use the form that has leaves with bright maroon undersides; it gives great colour and the dainty flowers attract butterflies and other small insects. It is extremely tough and thrives in dry shade.

And, of course, I can never resist providing a bird bath in the middle of such a thicket – definitely making the hotel 'five star' for little creatures. The usual layer of leaf litter is left undisturbed as a feast for the robin-chats and thrushes. The seed eaters have not been forgotten either. A shady corner harbours SETARIA megaphylla (broad-leaved bristle grass) and flocks of seed-eating birds, including bronze manikins and, when I am very lucky, blue-billed fire finches, come to feed on the great arching seed heads. I never have to provide artificial food, which is good because doing so would promote unhealthily large populations of birds and weaker offspring.
I urge you to look at your garden with new eyes and find a place where you can plant up a thicket or bird hotel. Your garden will be the richer for it.