Caspian Terns

After returning from Blue Hill Escape, Mark, Selena and I made a quick trip to Keurbooms Peninsula to hopefully ring an especially exciting bird. On a previous trip with Felix searching for entangled gulls, we came across the Caspian Terns fiercely defending.. something. I was hesitant to disturb them anymore than our presence already had but managed to take some photos from afar. Once home and the photos were downloaded and magnified, what appeared to be two fluffy bundles were the objects of the tern's protection. So, more than a week later found us on the peninsula to ring Caspian Tern chicks.

Mark went to the nest to assess the contents. There was no certainty about the status of the nest, if there were in fact chicks or whether the chicks (or chick) was of ringable age. Selena and I got the wave and we headed over eagerly! There were two chicks! Perfect size for ringing!

Mark and I each ringed a chick, and after a quick photo shoot we vacated the area. I feel so privileged to have been able to ring one of these amazing birds! Hopefully these two cuties will fledge and soon join the breeding population of this threatened species!

Kelp Gulls unhappy with the intrusion of a human!

What a cutie!

They do appear to blend in very well with the nest bowl.

Mark and I, very chuffed with the days ringing!

My, what a large mouth you have!

You're so cute when you're angry!

Blue Hill Escape

More recently I had the privilege of staying at Blue Hill Escape in order to assist Alan Lee with his Cape Rockjumper project. The aim of the weekend was to capture these spectacular fynbos-endemic birds to ring, take blood samples and potentially attach GPS transmitters. Our team arrived at Alan's Friday afternoon for a brief orientation slide show and run down on our weekend plans. After orientation we headed out on Friday afternoon to 'set the line' for Saturday morning's trapping attempt.

Catching Rockjumpers is not an easy feat. Using mistnets won't work, you can't use walk-in traps as with the gulls, instead you use springtraps. This is made more difficult by the territorial nature of Rockjumpers, which live in family groups. Thankfully, Alan has prior knowledge of the family groups at Blue Hill and knew where territories were, and where best to set the traps. Blue Hill is a collection of valleys and ridges; the wrinkles on a wise man's face. 'Setting the line' involves hiking up a ridge and setting up the springtraps along the ridge contour line, where each trap is on a collection of large rocks.

So Friday afternoon we set out, firstly for a bumpy 4x4 drive to the site and then a hike up to the ridge. Here we split into two teams, Kellyn and myself went left to a lookout spot on a higher ridge, while Daniël, Chrissie and Alan went to the opposite ridge to set the traps. Each trap needed to be visible from the lookout spot so a bird that was could could be easily seen and extracted, to assist in identification of trap locations a bright pink ribbon was tied to an available piece of fynbos a few meters away. The traps were merely placed, baiting them with super worms was Saturday mornings first order of business.

Saturday morning 3:30am came all too soon! We had a 4:00am meet time and breakfast needed to be had and lunch packed for a long hot day in the field. Unsurprisingly, everything looked different in the early morning so Kellyn and I had trouble finding our lookout spot, and finding the traps was even more challenging despite their identifying pink ribbons for Daniël and Chrissie. While we were busy with the trap line set up on Friday, Alan and Jessey set up another line of traps on a neighbouring ridge. We ended up with two teams, and each trap line needed to be actively checked every hour, and it took roughly an hour to walk the line and back to the lookout spot (depending who walked the line of course!). Chrissie and I took the first check of our line and were rewarded with two birds and an Armadillo Lizard, which we really struggled to get out of the netting with all its spikes! That, unfortunately, was our catch for the day! The guys fared slightly better with four birds and two lizards. By 1pm it was hot and quiet, and time to call it a day. We collected the traps and hiked to the bakkie for the bumpy trip back. After a refreshing shower, a nap was in order! As the site Alan wanted to trap at on Sunday was a full hour drive away we were going to set the line on Sunday morning and ended Saturday with a braai.

Sunday morning saw a bleary-eyed team meeting at 4am again for a bumpy ride to our trapping site. This time we broke into three teams, and Chrissie and I had the most successful morning catching four birds, while the others caught nothing.

Although we were unsuccessful in our attempt to trap Rockjumpers I ringed 5 lifers in two mornings, not bad! And the area is spectacular, truly. To sit up on a ridge overlooking fynbos covered valleys and peaks as far as the eye can see, feel a cool breeze upon sun warmed skin and breath crisp mountain air, life couldn't be better in that moment. Hiking up is another story, especially in my current horrendously unfit state, but once there, every drop of sweat and muscle complaint is totally worth it!

Familiar Chat.

Cape Clapper Lark.

Sentinel Rock Thrush.

Cape Bunting.

Long-billed Pipit.

Armadillo Lizard by-catch.

View from the lookout rock onto the ridge where the trap line was set. Spot any pink ribbons?!

Chutney the Meerkat, a furry friend to come home to.

I'm back!

Felix Zundel is an internship student at Nature's Valley Trust from the Netherlands, from the same university as Shirley, also doing a 5 month project in South Africa. The focus of his project is investigating the effects and status of recreational and subsistence fishing along the garden route, from Natures Valley to Robberg. He interviews fishermen along the coastline, and does beach cleanups looking at the predominance of fishing waste. Another aspect is looking at the occurrence of entanglement, so into the breeding colony we went! It has been SO long since I was last at the colony, and man was it good to be back! Unfortunately, I don't think the birds felt the same joy that I did.

The breeding season is in full swing! The early layers have chicks, the oldest I would put at 2 weeks, but most birds were on eggs. As we entered the colony we came across our first entanglement case. An adult gull incubating 2 eggs stood up and struggled to walk as it had a piece of driftwood attached to it's leg by what appeared to be fishingline. Not a good start for our outing. Luckily the bird managed to loosen the piece driftwood but the fishingline was still wrapped around the leg. That was thankfully the one and only entanglement case that we saw. We did however find 2 dead gulls, one with a ring from November 2008. 5 dead terns and 1 dead Cape Cormorant were also added to our list of fatalities for the day.

On the positive side, it appears the Caspian Terns are breeding, and we hope this clutch will be successful! Little Egrets are also breeding on the colony, as well as African Black Oystercatchers but no Egyptian Geese were seen.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed being back in the colony, all the poo attacks and divebombs included (it's part of the experience!). We will be back in a month to do another walk through the colony, and hopefully will be able to ring some of the larger gull chicks at the same time!

Entangled bird flying with a piece of driftwood attached to its foot.

The Kelp Gull colony.

A group of Sacred Ibis also calling the colony home.

Caspian Tern croaking it's defense.

Little Egret.

Hiding under mom.

One of Phil Whittington's colour-ringed gulls.

Newly hatched!

Coming out!

Soon to be sibling.