Summary. The latest Afring News paper is about ringing birds in Aloe patches. Two important conclusions were:

1. ringing at the aloe patches has provided some evidence that individual sunbirds and weavers do return to the same site in subsequent years, and are probably not present during the period when the aloes are not in flower.

2. Aloe ferox is bird pollinated, and it is the occasional nectarivores such as the weavers which are the important pollinators - weavers carry heavy pollen loads, but the Malachite Sunbirds with their longer bills can take nectar without picking up any significant amounts of pollen, and are effectively “nectar robbers” for this plant.

Download this (and any previous) Afring News paper here.