Green Machine back in action!

In lieu of my trip to Cape Town I managed to check on all of the colonies, including a trip with Mark to the Keurbooms peninsula colony. During previous excursions I had gone solo on the paddle-ski, but now with a second person we had to use the Green Machine. She had been resting under cover at home and hasn’t been used since much earlier this year. I went and did my counts at various foraging sites and then went home to pick up the Green Machine and Mark. I thought my paddle-ski was heavy, the canoe is even worse! Wow! But finally we managed to get it onto the roof racks and tie her down. Unfortunately, we arrived at low tide, which really isn’t too much of a problem, but there is a choice to make: carry the canoe and then paddle the short bit to the peninsula, or take a long circular paddling route to arrive at the peninsula. I enjoy paddling so I always go for option 2! Mark and I set off, a leisurely paddle relatively in sync with each other, not like the last disastrous paddling experience! We made land on the opposite side of the peninsula that I usually arrive at, after an entertaining rip-current experience. It is probably a very good thing that I usually stop on the other side, not because of the rip-current that should be avoided but because of the treasure trove that one can find there! After some heavy rains and big swells oh what a happy place that can be! So we spent some time wandering the shore picking up all sorts of really awesome stuff! Then we got down to business and headed for the colony. Besides bringing all sorts of marine treasures to the beach, the bad weather flooded the river and washed away part of the peninsula, along with the sign declaring it a protected beach! So no nests there, but we did find a nest in the area just before the flooded section, the first in that semi-vegetated area. The first stop after that was the Caspian Tern nest, which held a surprise! No, no chicks yet, but they have a second egg! Which hopefully means two chicks, one for me and one for Mark, no ching chong cha battles to determine who gets to ring it! Along with a second tern egg we found a second goose nest, which brings the current total to 3 nests in the area, lots of cute goslings! Otherwise it was business as usual, checking the existing marked nests and marking new ones. No gull eggs yet, which is a relief for me, but soon they will be welcomed, after the trip to Cape Town!

Green Machine ready for another voyage, not much water though..

The vagrant Black Swan.

Floating with the family.

Caspian Tern eggs.

Egyptian Goose nest.

Water Thick-knee.

Blacksmith Lapwing.

Robberg

After my first morning out at the Lookout colony, I headed for an afternoon at Robberg, another first visit. I donned my super cool fisherman’s jacket and off I went. The walk/hike to the Robberg colony was quite pleasant, I was time limited so didn’t dawdle but kept a steady pace along the path, really enjoying being out and active. Once I reached the island the real work began. Searching for the nests proved entertaining, the Robberg colony is on a semi-vegetated rocky island, and I am grateful I am not afraid of heights! I had a grand time wandering around only a small section of the island but found a total of 12 nests. It really is so cool to see already how the nests at Robberg differ to those at the Peninsula with many being under overhanging rock shelves, in a small cave of sorts, for protection from the full force of mother nature. It was a short visit but I did so enjoy it, I am looking forward to the future trips to Robberg, it is a place I will never tire of!

Nest number 2 tucked under a rocky overhang.

Nest number 12 also somewhat tucked under a rocky overhang.

Investigating Lookout

As the start of the breeding season has arrived, the start of my intensive fieldwork season begins. So to kick it off I have started visiting the three breeding colonies that will be my field sites. As the peninsula is largest colony I have made visits there, but decided to expand my operations and keep an eye on what’s happening at the other sites. So I made a trip to the colony at Lookout. It is the colony that has the easiest access, no paddling, and no hiking, just park and take a stroll along the beach. The first thing I come across is a delightful surprise, two gulls feeding on an octopus. There had been some heavy rains and some flooding so it’s most likely the poor creature met its demise due to acts of God and not gull, but the gulls got the feast! Besides that, the gulls are slowly preparing nest scrapes but I marked only 4 as looking likely for a breeding attempt. I also found an Egyptian Goose nest, in thick grass near the water’s edge. Finding it was not incidental however, an inconsiderate individual walking dogs off the leash was the cause. The dogs were uncontrolled and went dashing through the colony chasing gulls and flushed the goose off the nest. The geese made such a racket during their escape to the water that I just knew there was a nest in the area and sure enough I found it. I managed to have a word with the individual in question who is a Plett local of 20 years and well aware that it is a protected bird breeding area, but ‘dogs have their place too’. Dogs need to run, and walking a dog straining on the leash is an unpleasant experience, but to walk them off the leash in a protected area is irresponsible and egotistical; there are other areas available for such activities. I left feeling helpless and seething with anger. Dogs chase birds, and when those eggs hatch the chicks will be easy prey. But it is not only about the geese, or the gulls, but about the other threatened seabirds that nest in that area. There are signs declaring the area protected and banning dogs on the beach, but there is a lack of enforcement and with the beach now made accessible after the flood a few years ago, Lookout beach is popular, for humans and their canine companions. It seems to be a hopeless situation.

Calamari for breakfast!

He was a big one!

Collecting nest lining.

The goose nest.

A new experience

Eliska, the visiting student from the Czech Republic, is looking into the pollination system of Erica discolour. As part of the study, she wanted to look into the avian pollinators of the species. To do this we set up some nets in the NVT owned and managed fynbos area to catch some sunbirds. The weather wasn’t on our side with scattered rains throughout the morning but we managed to catch some sunbirds to take pollen samples from their foreheads. The pollen collected can be matched to pollen samples taken from various plants, so collect pollen from avian pollinators we did. It was a new experience for me, and good fun! A secret formula sticky jelly was rubbed and dabbed on the forehead of each bird, the jelly was then placed on a slide, covered by a coverslip and melted. These slides can then be stored and the pollen collected counted and matched to plant pollen samples. It was a wet but productive morning, we collected a good few slides and I learnt more about studying pollination systems.

Collecting the pollen off a Lesser Double-collared Sunbird.

Melting jelly to fix the pollen on the slide.

The end result!

CWAC round 2

CWAC round 2 dawned a grey, chilly day and I was concerned about being rained upon, weather for ducks came to mind, but as it was ducks and waterbirds we wanted to count that meant until the rain actually arrived, we were going to go forth with the count! And luckily we were not rained on! We had a bigger crowd involved in this count, a few members from the bird club as well as Mark, Eliska (student from the Czech Republic), Hannah (volunteer from England), Dawid from Cape Nature and myself. We broke into two groups, one taking a boat along the Keurbooms and Bitou River and another taking a car to certain areas (marshes) that the boat was unable to go. Mark, Eliska, Hannah, Maaike, Dawid and I were on the Cape Nature rubber duck which I was stoked about; regardless about the weather I love floatation devices! What an awesome morning! It was wonderful to putter along the river sighting and counting any water birds that we came across. We saw the usual Kelp Gulls, various cormorants, and counted over 1000 Swift Terns, which outnumbered the 450 odd gulls we saw! We saw both the Greater and Lesser Flamingo, an odd occurrence in Plettenberg Bay but they have been known to irregularly frequent the area. African Spoonbills and Black-winged Stilts are high on my list of exciting sightings, they are such cool birds! We came across a fair number of Little Grebes which are so entertaining as they run-fly across the water as they escape the oncoming boat. Unfortunately, we only saw one Pied Kingfisher, again the Half-collared eluded me. All in all an exceptionally pleasant way to spend a morning!

The team, Eliska, Maaike, Hannah, Mark and Dawid.

Surveying the Keurbooms colony.

Water Thick-knees. 

Little Grebes running on water.

African Spoonbill.

Reed Cormorants.

Lesser and Greater Flamingoes.

Little Egret.

Black-winged Stilt.

Blacksmith Lapwing.

African Darter.

Peninsula

So after my recon trip last week onto the peninsula, I went back for round 2! I had a most wonderful paddle to the peninsula, at looow tide so I was forced to take a scenic route but what nice calm waters. It was a beautiful day, clear skies, sun beating down but man the water was still icy cold! Arriving safely, I geared up! I bought a fisherman’s jacket, with lots of pockets and hooks, to put all my bits and pieces of equipment in, rather than lug a backpack around. I’m impressed by how much I was able to fit in! It does feel a bit nerdy though.. But it’s just me and the gulls for now. I was hoping to find some eggs on this trip and had made some nest markers but alas alack after walking my designated study area there were no eggs. The goose was still there, with her eggs but no chicks, yet. So I ended up marking 27 nest scrapes, the ones that appeared tended to, a defined bowl ready for eggs. Each nest has a unique number for that site, and the GPS co-ordinates recorded; imagine trying to find nest 25 in a sea of nests! After that, I decided to take a quick walk deeper into the colony to see if there were eggs further into the vegetation and I did find a nest with an egg, just not a Kelp Gull nest! I have become relatively accustomed to the outrageous raucous protest the gulls raise when there is an intruder in the colony, but strange noises seem to stand out. The strange noises in this case belonged to a pair of Caspian Terns, and I was able to find their nest with one lone egg. It is very exciting that this species is breeding on the peninsula! But I high-tailed it out of the area once I took a quick picture of the egg so they could return to their nest; gulls are well known for their predation on eggs and chicks. This trip has given me a taste of things to come, the work that is involved and how I will need to conduct it. It is going to be an interesting few months!

Getting ready to build a nest.

The goose nest.

Caspian Tern.

Me in my new habitat, cool fisherman's jacket and feather in my hat.

Nest number 7.

Nest number 9.

Nest number 22.

Ringing

Yet another wonderful morning out ringing this morning. The weather forecast was perfect, clear day with no wind and no rain, and it did indeed turn out to be a perfect day. Surprisingly though, with such good weather the 43 birds we caught was a bit disappointing. That said, cool birds make up for low numbers and a Scaly-throated Honeyguide, Knysna Woodpecker, White-browed Scrub Robin and another Victorin’s Warbler made the day! At the same time, today was the launch of a new project looking at the blood plasma glucose levels in certain species in the fynbos. The hope is that at our long-term fynbos ringing site we can regularly catch certain species and this allows us to investigate the effect of time of day, season, temperature, and to some extent species and diet, on blood plasma glucose levels of naturally foraging birds. Quite excited to see what we are going to get out of this cool little project!

Knysna Woodpecker.

Scaly-throated Honeyguide.

Investigating Erica spp pollination with a Southern Double-collared Sunbird.

Interesting colouration on a Cape White-eye.

A grumpy Victorin's Warbler.

CWAC!

As part of the BirdLife Plettenberg Bay’s winter Coordinated Waterbird Count (CWAC), a small group of us from Nature’s Valley Trust, South African National Parks and BirdLife Plett spent the morning paddling the Groot Rivier in Nature’s Valley counting waterbirds. The Coordinated Waterbird Counts (CWAC) project was initiated by the Animal Demographic Unit (ADU) in 1992 as part South Africa’s commitment to international waterbird conservation. BirdLife Plett has been doing CWAC counts for the past 20 years and as a side project I am going to be analysing the data for the area looking for trends in bird numbers. Next week we will do a CWAC along the Keurbooms River, and past my colonies, lots of gulls! That, however, will be done in a boat, not a canoe. Paddling can be a great deal of fun, but perhaps not so much when you are paddling a big 2 man canoe with 3 people in it and an inexperienced paddler at the back, fail! But oh did I enjoy it! Lack of sleep does tend to make me a bit ridiculous, and I was seriously sleep deprived and so, thankfully, instead of getting frustrated with the poor man at the back, I giggled, laughed and had a ball! Straight lines did not exist in our world. We weaved and wandered along the channels, trying in vain to follow the straight line of Mark’s canoe, but we were all about going through overhanging branches, patches of grass, there was an occasional circle when the possibility of trying to straighten out was too far gone, there were wobbly moments where the stability of our little craft was put to the test but it was all part of the adventure! As were the semi-soaked state I arrived back in, and the blister I now have on my hand. Unfortunately, we did not see the Half-collared Kingfisher I have been dying to see, but we had a total of 13 species for the morning including Grey Heron, Little Grebe, White-breasted Cormorant, Cape Wagtail, Swift Tern and, of course, Kelp Gull. It is going to be interesting to see what we see on the CWAC of Keurbooms River, watch this space!

Grey Heron. Trying to take photos from a wobbly canoe proved difficult at first!

Mark, Maaike and Wally on a beautiful day!

White-breasted Cormorant.

White-breasted Cormorant sunning itself.

Reed Cormorant.

What a stunning place!

A cool find on the beach!

Swift Terns, en masse.

The team! Me, Eliska, Wally, Mark, Brandon and Maaike.