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!

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.

Flower power

Another side project that I have been working on is looking at the pollination syndrome of Brunsvigia orientalis. Monica from Offshore Adventures has been running this project, supervised in part by Mark and I have been assisting with a lot of the fieldwork. Besides locating as many populations as possible and counting the number of flowers in each (sometimes ranging up to and over 1000 plants!) we have been bagging flowers and measuring nectar volume and concentration. We have also been doing pollinator observations, and it seems that sunbirds are the primary pollinators. We are hoping to publish the data we have collected, which would be awesome!

Amethyst Sunbird on a Brunsvigia plant.

Bagged flowers.

One of the fields we were working in, and our faithful fieldwork companion.

Full anther contact on a Greater Double-collared Sunbirds head.

Natural and human hazards

While out on the boat with Offshore Adventures collecting seal behavioural data I have seen some interesting things. One being a seal that had miraculously escaped death by shark but bore the marks of the encounter. A half moon bite mark, seeming severe but seals are resilient creatures and will survive this, but the next seal may not be so lucky.

Once bitten twice shy?

The other sighting of note was a seal with what appeared to be netting or twine wrapped around it's neck. The seal didn't seem to be in great discomfort but the noose was a little too tight for my liking. Unfortunately I have not spotted this individual again, and not for lack of trying! I can only hope that it somehow managed to free itself.

Human hazards.

Swimming with seals

One morning Mark and Jesse joined me on a seal swim with Offshore Adventures. Jesse was very taken with the pups, and them with him, perhaps due to his small size. We all had an awesome time and I got another session of data collection done, I am going to miss this once all the data has been collected!

Mark and Jesse.

Jesse and I.

Monica from Offshore Adventures.

Jesse greeting the seals!

They come very close, and are often interested in the dive slate that I use to record data.

Sleek seals

While doing boat observations with Offshore Adventures, I took the opportunity to take some photos of the seals that I am spending so much time watching. They really are such cute creatures!

Offshore Adventures

Although the kelp gull breeding season, and my fieldwork, is finished I have managed to not be confined to my desk for too long! Mark has set me up as a research assistant with Offshore Adventures doing seal behavioural observations. Observations need to be done from land, from the boat, and from the water looking at the seals reactions to swimmers in the water. Robberg is home to a colony of roughly 5000 Cape Fur Seals and I got into the water with them. At this time of year, the pups are testing themselves and learning their limitations, and they are exceptionally friendly! Luckily, the first excursion into the water was for me to familiarise myself with the seals and their behaviour. I was far too taken with these incredible animals to do any data collection! If you have the opportunity to swim with seals, take it! It is a most incredible experience!

Ready to jump in!

White-fronted Plovers

We were made aware of some White-fronted Plover chicks in Nature's Valley and so a trip was made to go and ring them, a new species for Mark to add to his ringing list! There were two pairs and we ringed a total of three chicks. They are very difficult to find, and a mission to catch, but with 4 of us we managed to get them, putting both metal and colour rings on.

What a cutie!

A lightweight.

Get it OFF!

The view.

Colour-ringed and ready for resightings.