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The Yellow-fronted Tinkerbird, Pogoniulus chrysoconus, is essentially a dwarf Barbet. Its continuous repetitive "tink...tink...tink...tink" is a common sound of dry woodland savannah but the bird itself is tricky to locate as its voice has ventriloquist-like properties. You may be able to narrow its position down to a single tree and then still battle to locate it even though it would be mere metres away!

This tiny bird sits motionless issuing “tinks” of varying intensity that drives one nuts: flushing the bird by any means becomes a rash solution that often results in the call going quiet, followed by a tiny, yellow and black pocket-rocket zipping across one’s view. It may alight within your range of view, now allowing some brief binocular views, perhaps, before it would dart off to another secluded spot out of sight where the incessant "tink...tink...tink...tink" will start all over again.



Aaah! But there is a trick to get these birds to show! They react wonderfully to their "tink...tink...tink...tink" played back to them. This is exactly the way we lured this tinkerbird into the net at our ringing station in Venda’s Gundani Camp, not far from the western border of the KNP.

They do at times call perched right in the open at the very top of a tall tree. If you have a good vantage point the calling bird can. with a bit of patience, be located even from quite a distance.

Johan