Halleria lucida ripening fruit

Halleria lucida fruit is eaten by birds. This Cape white-eye was caught, not red-handed but white-eyed, close to many tree fuchsia green fruits and a couple of black, ripe ones, seen at Grootvadersbosch between Swellendam and Heidelberg.

The Cape white-eye, in Afrikaans known as the Kaapse glasogie (little Cape glass eye), eats fruit as part of a varied diet including small insects, aphids, spiders and their eggs, fleshy flower petals, sepals and nectar. Cape white-eyes are adapted to almost the whole of South Africa and are common residents in much of southern Africa.

Whether they actually eat tree fuchsia fruit is not certain, although the photo suggests this. Should a fruit be swallowed whole, the white eyes might well be rather big for a minute or so. Grandfathers who visit Grootvadersbosch and witness such an event will have a story to tell (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Maclean, 1992).