Tuesday 30 July 2013

Gull, gull, goose!

After a walk on the ‘Seagull nursery’ at Robberg Mark reported some startling news, the birds are getting ready to breed and are scraping out nesting cavities. But I’m not ready yet! Slow down birds slow down! So I decided to take a trip out to the two Keurbooms colonies to see what their breeding status was. It was a solo recon trip to the peninsula and so I decided to take the paddle ski that I brought with from home (more for the kids to play with than for me to actually use!) because it is the only flotation device that I can carry and use entirely alone. Thank goodness for a waterproof bag! In the canoe, you feel relatively safe, there are sides. The paddle-ski feels treacherous in comparison! Trying to balance is ridiculous, the added weight of my wet-bag behind me didn’t help, and the tide was going out, bad timing. There are rip currents in that area that are well known, there have been drownings in the outlet to the sea, and today I experienced their full force, not pleasant. I made land at the last possible moment and dragged my soaked self and paddle-ski from the water, under the watchful eye of the cormorants, hopefully the only spectators! I pulled myself together and started the walk to the colony, dragging the paddle-ski behind me to launch the trip back further up river. Before I had even entered the vegetated area which marks the start of the colony I found a beautiful nest scraping, that should have tipped me off. Quite pleased with the find I pulled out my GPS, took photos and was off again, into the vegetated area of the colony. Pandemonium erupted, well a sedated version of the full mid-season response of hundreds of disturbed breeding gulls erupted. It has begun. Birds are pairing up, scraping out their spot on the ground, preparing nests and getting ready to lay. These, thankfully, are the early birds and the full breeding season is closer to October but these nests need to be monitored, adults caught and colour-ringed. An interesting find while wandering through the colony looking for the super early birds that may have eggs, was an Egyptian Goose nest! Quite chuffed with that I decided to head on back before the tide was so low that I would have to drag the paddle-ski back. By this time the wind had picked up and there were wind waves to contend with along with the current. Launching up river helped as the current pulled me along towards my destination in some ways, but it was not a pleasant trip. In all honesty it must have looked ridiculous, I was too nervous in the rough water and so hung my legs in the water as stabilisers and paddled along (not a professional, competent image!). I got to a sand bank where I could sit and touch the floor and spent some time giving my very unconditioned arms some time to recover. Onward I continued, until the water was so shallow the keel was scraping sand, and then I took my paddle-ski for a walk pushing it along using the paddle (crazy lady that’s not how you meant to do it!). I arrived back at the beach, pulled and carried everything back to the car, loaded up, tied down and sat down. I felt like I should giggle hysterically, it must have been pretty entertaining for an onlooker, but I just sat there in awe. I did it, I made it, and I was EXHAUSTED! I will plan things a little more carefully next time, and work on getting more muscley!

A gull nest, getting ready for eggs.
A surprising find, an Egyptian Goose nest!

Friday 19 July 2013

Fynbos ringing

With Mark back from his time away, we had another ringing session at the fynbos study site, on a beautiful winter’s day. We appear to be getting slack as firstly neither of us remembered a head torch (again) and then realised we had left the bird stand and gazebo at home! Not so good! But we put up 11 nets and waited. With all 6 of the Nature’s Valley Trust interns there, as well as a big group of volunteers from ORCA joining us, it was a busy people day! And a relatively busy bird day, a total of 47 birds including the usual suspects of Cape Sugarbirds, Cape White-eyes, Orange-breasted Sunbirds and Southern Double-collared Sunbirds. While checking the nets with a small group of NVT interns that I am training I passed a bird that made me do a double take and extract it, taking it to Mark with a big smile on my face! A quite rare species, this Victorins Warbler is the second that we have caught at this site, and as Mark pulled rank and ringed the first we caught, I was granted the privilege of ringing this one, a new species for my ringing list! Whoop!

Enjoying the morning.
An Orange-breasted Sunbird coming into his colours.
Victorin's Warbler in the spotlight.
Victorin's Warbler.

Processing pellets

After the colony clean-ups, I had amassed a large number of regurgitated pellets (anything that the birds are unable to digest gets formed into a pellet and regurgitated) which needed to be dealt with! The various bags of pellets were moved into my kitchen, which has also become my office. At the time, and currently, I am uncertain as to the best way to dissect and quantify the contents of the pellets, and am in the process of reading other published papers to see what methods they used, and how detailed their data was. In the meantime though, the pellets needed to be processed and frozen to stop, or at least slow, any fungal growth and decomposition. After purchasing and numbering 400 ziplock bags (surely enough!) I started processing the pellets. Each pellet was assigned a number, which relates to the date and location it was collected from, and was photographed, dimensions measured and weighed, then bagged and frozen. I then had to buy more bags. At 750 pellets processed, and many more to do, Mark and I decided that I should finish the bag I was busy with and discard the rest; this number is already far more than most published papers incorporate, and the breeding season hasn’t even started yet! The final count is 798 pellets, frozen and awaiting dissection. It has been so interesting to go through the pellets that were collected, a scarily large proportion of them had plastic, glass shards and tin foil in them. Something that fascinated me was the pellets that looked better suited to an owl than a gull, as it is clearly the remains of a rodent, a regurgitated globule of fur and bones. It was reassuring to also find many pellets with fish bones and scales, as well as shells, part of their natural diet. The true story will become more apparent as I start the dissections, but for now, an interesting glimpse into their diet.

Many pellets had fragments of glass in them.
Fur and bones, probably rats.
A variety of shells in the pellets.
All sorts of urban sources of 'food'.

Friday 5 July 2013

None but one

Stace, part of the PMB crew (who really lives in PE but does her fieldwork a few months a year in PMB) has been wanting to come and join us for some fynbos ringing, and had the chance recently. She and her husband have been in Knysna for the Knysna Oyster Festival taking part in some of the races, and on an off day she came through to Plett to do some ringing with me. Unfortunately, Mark has gone on holiday to PMB taking with him most of his ringing gear and so our net supply was really limited (4 nets in the fynbos is really nothing). Add some wind, never good for ringing, to a low net count and it turned out to be a pitiful day! All we caught was a single Lazy Cisticola! We had our nets up but with the wind making them billow rather obviously we moved them, repositioning them in a more sheltered spot using an inventive net layout, but still we caught nothing, it was all a bit of a fail.. Sorry Stace!

Putting up the nets. Photo by Suzette Witteveen.
Trying to ID the one bird we caught! Photo by Suzette Witteveen.
It was a Lazy Cisticola! Photo by Suzette Witteveen.
A Protea sp. Photo by Suzette Witteveen.

Raptor record

After spending the weekend away in Cape Town for the summit, Shane and I spent some time together and took a day to go raptor ringing, and bird watching. After an early morning drive over the pass, and picking up a colourful hitchhiker, we turned towards George and began the search. It turned out to be the most successful of raptor catching days! With a grand total of 5 birds caught and 2 new species turned the day into a record breaker! I got a lot handling experience, and we spend some good time bird watching at a variety of ponds along the way. Lunch was had at a quaint farm stall, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, a simple lunch of a toasted cheese sandwich and coffee but by then I was starving and man was it amazing! It was a long day out, we only arrived back home after 5pm that evening after a 7am start, but with 2 Jackal Buzzards, 2 Rock Kestrels and a Pale Chanting Goshawk, it was awesome!

The release of the first Jackal Buzzard caught. Photo by Shane McPherson. 
The second Jackal Buzzard being released.
What a beautiful bird, with long legs like a runway model.
A little Rock Kestrel, they have quite a bite! The Jack Russels of the bird world..
UGH! They touched me! Get if off! Photo by Shane McPherson.

African Marine Debris Summit

African Marine Debris Summit. Waves of Change: African Lessons to Inspire Local Action.

Waste is wealth. A statement made by Honourable Deputy Minister for Environmental Affairs, Rejoice Mabudafhasi during her opening speech which was reiterated throughout the 2 day summit. Beaches are windows into marine litter. And we’re being given insight into a dire situation. There is hope, but as Dr. Seuss writes in The Lorax ‘Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not’. Through innovative ideas, waste can be made into wealth, and things can get better.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, the 3 R’s. There are various childrens’ songs to remember the 3 R’s, and various advertising and awareness campaigns. But this has evolved, we must do more than reduce, reuse and recycle. We must rethink our strategies for rubbish management, recycling and minimising environmental impact; redesign products with recycling in mind; refuse one-use plastics such as straws, barrier bags and shopping bags; respect the environment and ultimately be a responsible  plastics user, and with our rubbish in general.

There were delegates from Germany, Australia, Belgium, Seychelles, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. It was wonderfully diverse, with so many topics covered, I was so inspired and learnt so much! But there was a general feeling that the time allocated for the summit was far too short, sessions went overtime, there was just too much to discuss and debate, too many questions to be asked and answered, too many voices that needed to be heard. Topics covered included: the current state of the marine debris in our oceans and the effects thereof; the current actions that are underway to mitigate the effects of marine debris and litter in general; what microplastics and POPs (persistent organic pollutants) are and the concerns surrounding these and we heard all about the lifecycle of plastics and the urgent need for recycling, as well as the urgent need for the capacity for plastic recycling.

Our Saturday fieldtrip to Robben Island was cancelled due to ferry maintenance, and so we had our fieldtrip at a local beach, Milnerton. Which got rained out. But for the short time of sunshine that we had, I learnt a lot about sampling marine debris, which can be applied to the rubbish sampling I want to do on my gull colonies and that will save me some time and give me better, more specific data.

I left the summit with mixed feelings, the state of the world with regards to litter, both terrestrial and marine, is a shocking concern. The world that we are custodians of, and will pass on to future generations, is not one we can be proud of. As in the animation movie Wall-E, where the world is full rubbish and the humans have left for a better life on a spaceship in the sky, which seemed so entertaining, could be a deplorable reality. The world is filling up with rubbish, landfills quickly being packed to capacity, oceans with raft-like collections of rubbish floating around. And who is to blame?

The circle of blame goes around and around. Who is to blame? Something that came out of the summit is that we all have our part to play, plastic producers need to contain all pellet spills, make recyclable plastics, reduce the plastics they produce, consumers need to recycle, refuse one-use plastics among others. There is an obligation on both sides for producers and consumers to consider the impacts of their actions.

I will take responsibility for my actions. I am recycling everything I can, taking my own bags for my shopping, not using straws, buying fresh produce from a market, and making an effort to spread the news, encourage everyone else to recycle and do their bit.

Other people are doing much more in their efforts to raise awareness about the importance of recycling. Ray Chaplin is one such person doing the Orange River Project. A very inspiring story of how he is extreme riverboarding down the whole of the Orange River and stopping at schools along the way promoting recycling and a clean environment.

We can do so much, there is hope.


Sea creatures made from rubbish, innovative ideas!
Producers raising awareness.
Learning about beach litter surveys.
Microplastics, small pieces causing big problems.
There is hope.

Tuesday 2 July 2013

Rummaging through the rubbish

So for an unfortunately large amount of time I have been set up in the garage sorting out the rubbish that was collected on the colony clean-ups. Due to the large number of bags that were collected, I simplified my life somewhat and did a relatively simple sort –material-like, bones, paper and plastic rubbish. Thankfully, the rubbish was well sun-bleached and didn’t have any of the rotting food/garbage smell that is associated with household waste, but sun, sand, wind and water had cleaned most of the pieces quite thoroughly and what was left of an odour was mildly offensive, but tolerable. The Lookout beach colony is a much smaller areas than the main peninsula, and was covered by only 4 of us whereas the peninsula was covered by a big team from CoastCare and CapeNature. The results were not surprising: an overwhelming bias towards plastics on both of the Keurbooms colonies!

Summary

Lookout beach
Peninsula
Material-like (g)
25
805
Bones (g)
225
155
Paper (g)
150
1110
Plastics (g)
315
7140


Let the sorting begin!
My more advanced setup..
Part of the end result.

Scope sightings

A spate of bad weather, up to 7m swell and heavy winds, urged Shane (with me as a curious tag-along) onto the Seagull Nursery island with the scope to look for albatross that may have been blown closer to land by the bad weather. The walk to the island over the beach gap yielded a rare and exciting prize, a Paper Nautilus! It had washed ashore due to the heavy wave action and was found by two CapeNature rangers. We stopped and chatted, and took some photos and eyed the shell covetously! The octopus was almost dead and abandoned its shell (which is in perfect condition and now resides on my shelf!) and almost as soon as we moved away from it a Kelp Gull swooped down and gobbled it up in one go! Impressive! On the island we found a semi sheltered spot and Shane set up the scope while I wandered around and collected a few more pellets for my ever growing collection. We spent a pleasurable hour or two scanning the ocean for albatross, and spotted a good few Shy Albatross which came close enough to get a good look at, a scope is a marvellous thing! We decided to head back to the mainland as the weather was growing progressively worse, and the gap was on occasion covered by a particularly large wave, and so I walked back in slightly soggy takkies, ugh. But all in all an awesome trip, and a discovery that bird watching with a scope is really addictive!

Awesome Paper Nautilus!
Twas a tad cold out there, but we had coffee!
Searching the sky and sea for albatross.

Robberg recon

Seeing as I had rubbish and pellet collections from both of the Keurbooms colonies, it seemed a good idea to do a collection on Robberg at the Seagull Nursery island. I hadn’t made a trip to Robberg in quite a while and so instead of organising a team to go and do a mass collection and clean-up, Shane and I did a reconnaissance trip. I had forgotten how gruelling the walk was, the huge thigh-burning steps down to the beach gap and then the trudge up and around the island. There was a pocket of gulls that regularly roost on the beach gap, but very few on the island. Between Shane and myself we collected a small bag of pellets, plastics, bones and glass. That was perhaps the most surprising, the glass shards. Many of the pellets had disintegrated in the weather but the glass remained. Our trip was a wonderfully fresh change from sorting out rubbish in the garage, but also rather successful!

A handsome man that posed for me.

Raptors and waffles

Sunday morning Shane and I decided that it would be a wonderful idea to go raptor catching, so we loaded up the ringing gear, and our hardy mice and began the stalk. The weather was not on our side, an on-off drizzle that was most frustrating! There were very few birds to be seen, and the few drops we did yielded no result. Forest Buzzards, it seems, are for the majority very cautious birds; they make a fly-by and that’s it, or land next to the trap and our mice scare them off. But then we got lucky! Another Forest Buzzard spotted and we dropped the bait.. We could see the trap but not her, as she was sitting in dense tree cover, but she then appeared, a beautifully neat little dive… only to land next to the mice! Grr! And so we waited while she did her cautious thing and observed the rodents in their unnatural habitat. Thankfully she was hungry, or the trap didn’t look too threatening as soon she was on it! Footing and grabbing at the safely enclosed mice. And we caught her, a noose solidly around her ankle! Shane did the ringing and I held her; I still need some experience handling the raptors, I am not as comfortable with them as I am with the passerines or even with the gulls. After that the weather deteriorated again and 2 more birds disdained our apparently crude trapping mechanism, or maybe it was the mice (the unnatural white stripe is one hypothesis). In any case, we made it back to Plett in time to stop and get a pair of amazing Belgium waffles! Happiness!

You just have to stand in awe!
My first Forest Buzzard.

Learning to drive

I have a boat! Or shall I say, the project has a boat! The green machine (the canoe) is awesome, but is more to be used for survey days, where the bulk of the trapping equipment isn’t needed, whereas the boat is big enough for 4 adults and equipment, albeit at a push! It is a rubber duck with a detachable HOW BIG motor and is not made for speed, but she’ll do the trick to get us to the other side and back safely. Her maiden voyage was successful despite initial motor trouble, we got her started and everyone went for a ride, and she managed to take Shane, Mark and myself across to the peninsula in some choppy waves, nice! And I got to drive! Since we were there we took a quick walk about and saw the black swan that hangs out with the gulls, and ever mindful of my project I collected another 17 regurgitated pellets, one with a creative touch of blue ribbon! The one downside to the boat is that it is heavy, and two girls will not be able to get it onto the canopy of my bantam which does restrict its use somewhat.. But all in all I am super stoked about the boat, now all she needs is a name!

Getting her started!
Anticipatory spectators!
The guys on her maiden voyage as a project boat!
But then something went wrong..
Which was sorted out and the kids got their ride!
Crossing the ocean gap, we look a little bit little.

Sea of seals

After a long period of not going out to sea, a trip today totally made up for it! For me though, not so much on Gwen’s whale front.. almost immediately after launching the boat we spotted the first whale blow, and eventually identified 4 whales in the bay, but we could not get close enough to any of them for good photos. Additionally, the bait fish were apparently quite deep down and the whales were diving deep and long so after floating around for a while waiting for some action we moved on. Exciting to know that there are quite a few individuals around but a slight let-down not to get some amazing photos (I think I’m getting greedy!). We headed to the one dependable aspect of the cruise, the seal colony. I love the seals, they fascinate me! They have such character, and amuse me no end with their antics, in the water and out. A huge treat was to see the Elephant Seal! In this colony of Cape Fur Seals there is often a lonely Elephant seal, thought to be a sub-adult female. I was able to get some amazing photos of it and got back to the beach quite chuffed with the trip!

Yaaaawn!
Beautiful!
Just catching some rays!
My rock!
I does love you!
Ah a good scratch!
Aaaaaahhh.... Chhooo!