A couple of weeks ago, while on a short visit to South Africa, I saw this bird on Table Mountain:

I didn’t know what type of bird it was, but it looked to have a messy white cap.

Then the bird started poking its beak into the nearby flowers:

See how the flower touches the top of the bird’s head? The flower is dumping pollen grains — a handy way to get its genes transferred to the next plant visited by the bird!

The bird is a Red-winged Starling. The male is black with red flares on its wings. It typically doesn’t have a white patch on top of its head! The female’s colouring is softer, with a grey head and blue hues in the rest of the plumage. She also has orange-red wing flares:

The two birds spent some time playing together on the edge of the mountain. In the next photo, the male shows the red wing flares nicely as it comes in to land:

Being on top of Table Mountain is a magical experience. It really is flat up there, like a table top. The morning that we were up there was misty and quiet:

If you’d like to see more about being there, take a look at my bookmark’s blog: Atop Table Mountain in the clouds.