I was moving quickly, following a faint flash of white through the lush broadleaf woodland, spurred on by the insistent chattering of a Honeyguide. This game of follow-the-leader stirred a primal joy deep within me. Nothing else mattered except catching up. Then something changed. The chattering stopped. I stopped.
In the sudden stillness, I could hear the drone of bees. There was a hive in a large tree trunk just off to my right. “What are you waiting for?” I could hear the Honeyguide’s question as it stared at me from a nearby perch. “We have a deal, you and me. Don’t you remember?”
The Greater Honeyguide is the only bird in the world known to lead humans to beehives regularly. They are not physically capable of opening the hives to get to their preferred source of nourishment; bees, larvae, and wax. They trust us to help them. Except for the most part, we’ve forgotten how.
I looked at the expectant bird. My lack of action felt like a betrayal, and I dropped my head in shame. What have we become? Have we forgotten our place in Nature? And if so, what terrible consequences await us? When I looked up again, the bird was gone.
Symbiotic relationships such as mutualism, where both participants benefit, are recognised as a selective force behind evolution. Many species have a long history of interdependent co-evolution. It has become widely accepted that the mutualistic relationship between the Greater Honeyguide and humans results from direct co-evolution between those two species*.
It is the most developed relationship between any bird and any mammal on the planet. We are not exactly sure how far back the relationship stretches, but 77 000-year-old rock art from Tanzania depicting honey hunters following Honeyguides can be considered recent evidence.
Their guiding habits are inherited (not learned) and extremely well developed—adults of both sexes guide at any time of the day and year. The birds generally initiate the guiding by calling from a nearby perch with a distinctive soliciting call (chattering). The Honeyguide flies off with its typical, fast, and exaggerated undulating flight as a human approaches. Their white outer tail feathers stand out and create a distinctive ‘follow-me’ signal. They fly towards a known hive, often perching on an exposed spot on a tree and wait for the human to catch up. They constantly chatter to keep our attention and even come back to fetch us if we take too long.
At a beehive, the Honeyguide changes its behaviour, altering its call or falling silent, and patiently watching while the human calms the bees with smoke and extracts the honeycomb. The Honeyguide then feeds on the wax combs left behind by the human.
It is a widespread traditional belief that if you don’t provide honey to the Honeyguide after a harvest, it will lead you to a venomous snake or dangerous animal such as a lion the next time you decide to follow it. Perhaps this acts as an incentive for humans to fulfill their duty to the bird, given the role of honey in our evolution. As hunter-gatherers, we derived a large proportion of our calories from this wild resource, perhaps as much as 80% per month in some areas.
In some parts of Africa, there are records of two-way communications between humans and these free-living wild birds. The human’s special honey-hunting call is a loud, deep trill, followed by a short grunt. This signals to the Honeyguide that a human is looking for a beehive to harvest and that they are willing to follow. In other parts of the continent, specific whistles attract the bird’s attention.
But there are also regions where birds have never guided and others where the frequency of guiding has decreased or ceased, possibly because fewer humans are following Honeyguides than in the past. Some ‘Protected Areas’ showcase prime examples of decreased interaction as humans have been removed from the ecosystem and cannot use its resources.
Except for a mere 0.01% of our evolutionary passage, humans have lived in a natural environment and largely owe our existence to the relationships we previously established within that ecosystem.
As I walked away from the beehive, I knew that in losing our relationship with these birds, we’d lost more than a taste of wild honey. We’d lost our sense of kinship with the natural world, and with it, the wild part of our identity that recognizes all living things as kin to be valued and appreciated far beyond our modern, utilitarian proclamations around biodiversity protection or climate regulation.
In framing the living world as a ‘machine’ for energy and matter processing, or a natural ‘factory’ that produces services, we have taken humans out of Nature and placed them above everything else. But Nature’s intrinsic value is independent of the potential usefulness of biodiversity for human beings.
The Honeyguide had reminded me that Homo sapiens are simply an expression of Nature. Just like the Honeyguide (and all other species), our evolutionary success is the consequence of our ecological history. Therefore protected areas are a living stage and an example of humans’ unique evolutionary heritage and culture. A protected area without a small band of nomadic humans is incomplete.
Kincentric Ecology refer to the manner in which indigenous people view themselves as part of an extended ecological family that shares ancestry and origins. Reviving our kinship with Nature offers a way of connecting to the landscape, which acknowledges our need to use plants and animals but constructs relationships beyond use. Interactions that result from this kinship – like working with Honeyguides to harvest wild honey – enhance and preserve the ecosystem.
With this in mind, Lowveld Trails Co. is undertaking one of the most significant reintroduction programs in Protected Areas throughout Africa. We use ‘Primitive Trails’ to facilitate direct human-nature interaction in savanna ecosystems for personal, social and wilderness benefits.
For the past 15 years, we have witnessed how direct interaction with these landscapes deepen peoples’ relationships with non-human Nature and motivate a shift in how we relate to and behave in our environment. These immersive experiences often lead to a heightened consciousness amongst participants that everything is connected. We are merely the human expression of Nature – its conservation is fundamental to our survival and identity as a species.
As long as the Honeyguide calls us, there is hope. They remind us of kinship and that a sustainable conservation model requires direct human interaction with wild spaces. It not only improves the ecological integrity of a landscape, but has a positive impact on our well-being and lends support to their conservation.
*Get involved | Your Greater Honeyguide sightings are valuable to the research team working on the ecology and evolution of the honeyguide-human relationship. Find out more about the Honeyguide Research Project at the University of Cape Town at Honeyguiding.me
