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July 07, 2025

Of Honeyguides, Their Love Nests and Hatching Hostilities

By Ndaba Sibanda

Of Honeyguides, Their Love Nests and Hatching Hostilities

The mutualistic actions are like this: honey hunter, my invite tweet.
Deal! It’s near and dear. Tweet, tweet, it’s sweet. Flap. Get to your feet.
Heave wide the hive, hahaha honey’s here, hunter harvest and feast!
Human, you have your honey. Are you not happy? I have my wax feat.

Procreation and poetry. Males decide to be a bit melodic, or is it poetic?
Romantic males lure ‘ladies’ by whirling over a female while hammering
hums or harmonies with their wily wings. Wonders of wooing, art and zeal!
Males mooring near the dated honeyguide, and fluttering wings of lyrical love.

Ornithologists, away from courtship cavorts, do honeyguides guide the honey badger?
Twitchers: There is no such evidence. Hatching histrionics, honeyguides with sharp hooks
on their beautiful beaks have a habit of blocking the chicks of their hosts from their nests.
It is not rare for them to punch and puncture the host’s eggs or crush the chicks
.




Imaged credit TonyCastro via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0


Article © Ndaba Sibanda. All rights reserved.
Published on 2025-07-07
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