32. Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird A tinker, of course, is someone who mends pots and pans: at least, they were in the long-gone days when people mended pots and pans. They did it by some form of soldering or welding, I suppose, and by hammering. The call of the tinkerbird – at least around here – is a regularly repeated tink tink tink, rather like someone hammering a pot with a light hammer. Though it is a small bird, the sound carries a long way and, curiously, its source can be quite hard to locate by ear. Disappointingly, the sound is sometimes described as ‘poop’ or ‘ponk’ rather than tink but it seems to be true that the same bird calls in significantly different ways in different places where it is found, i.e. central and west Africa as well as Kenya and down the east coast to the Eastern Cape. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that each kind of bird calls the same wherever it is: but it is not necessarily so. The Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird is a common bird in Africama’s garden, heard more often than seen. I have seen one looking intently into a small hole in a tree, and my guess is that it was nesting. Birds of AFRICAMA House 68 Birds of AFRICAMA House 69