Kelp Gull Project: 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!