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CAPE BIRD CLUB NEWSLETTER MARCH 2015
CLUB ACTIVITIES
Sat 7 RONDEVLEI OUTING
Meet at 08h00. These regular monthly outings are for all Rondevlei enthusiasts and beginners are especially welcome. Duration about 2½ hours but you can stay as long as you like.
Directions: Travel down the M5 towards Grassy Park and look out for Nando's at the 5th Avenue traffic light. Turn left here and continue along 5th Avenue to the first set of traffic lights. Turn right into Perth Road and continue to the end of the road.
There is a small entrance fee for those without season tickets.
Convenor: Merle Chalton (phone 021 686 8951)
Wed 11 WEEKDAY OUTING: LOWER TOKAI PARK
Meet at 08h00. This area, once covered in a forest of pine trees, now has a ‘wild’ centre of fynbos. The 4 km perimeter path (sometimes gravel and sometimes boardwalk) has been lined with young indigenous trees and also takes you through some remaining plantation areas.
The fynbos, indigenous trees and pine trees along with the little river provide a variety of habitats for birds.
Directions: We meet at the larger and shadier parking area on Orpen Road (Spaanschemat River Road from the Constantia side becomes Orpen Road on the bend).
If approaching from the Cape Town side this is the first parking area you will see on your left with a large “Beware of the baboons” sign.
If approaching from the Steenberg side, it will be the second parking area on your right.
Leader: Frank Hallett (phone 082 825 1788)
Thurs 12 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Meet at 20h00. Come and learn more about your club and its achievements over the past year.
Following the Chairman's and Treasurer's reports a new CBC committee will be elected.
A few vacancies have arisen so please consider serving on the new committee.
As usual, there will also be a short presentation to follow the business of the meeting.
Heather Howell will talk about "The Richtersveld for Sissies".
Sun 15 OUTING WEST COAST NATIONAL PARK
Meet at 07h00 at the gate to WCNP. Catching the tides at the right time is crucial for optimal viewing of waders at Langebaan Lagoon.
On Sunday 15 March in Table Bay (Saldanha Bay 10 minutes later) Low Tide is at 04h45 and High Tide at 11h00. Thus we need to make an early start.
After meeting at 07h00 we will do some early bush birding whilst travelling to Seeberg hide where we will catch the incoming tide between 10h00 and 12h00.
After a picnic lunch at Geelbek homestead we will go to the Geelbek hide to catch the ebb tide at about 15h00. We suggest you allow for a full day’s outing. Please try to share transport.
Remember to take your Wild Card so that you do not have to pay the entrance fee of R40.
Leaders: Vernon Head (phone 076 569 1389) & Mel Tripp (phone 083 461 4365)
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BIRD COUNTS AND HACKS
Sunday 1 March: Kirstenbosch BIRP Count.
Meet at 08h00
Leader: John Magner (082 881 3845)
Sunday 8 February: Strandfontein Count (Please note the correct date)
Meet at 08h00
Leader: Dick Barnes (021 689 1106)
Please meet at the Julie te Groen Bird Information Centre.
Directions: At the Works main gate turn right, go under the boom & it is a short drive along that road.
The original meeting place (outside the gates of the Works) now looks like a building site - not very conducive to drinking tea/coffee after the count!
Thursday 12 March: Wildevoelvlei Count
Meet at 08h30
Leader: Eric Barnes (021 782 5429)
Saturday 14 March: Zandvlei Hack
Meet at 14h00
Leader: Gavin Lawson (021 705 5224)
Thursday 19 March: Athlone WWTW Count
Meet at 13h00
Leader: Dick Bos (021 423 2546)
These counts will take place weather permitting
Saturday 28 March: Paarl Bird Sanctuary CWAC
Meet at 09h00
Leader: Yvonne Weiss (021 872 4972)
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KIRSTENBOSCH BIRD WALKS
Tuesday 17 March at 15h30
These bird walks led by members of the Cape and Tygerberg Bird Clubs have been so popular over the past 2 years that it has been decided to continue them into 2015.
Anyone who is interested in learning more about our Kirstenbosch birds is welcome to join the walks.
The walks are free of charge but the entrance fee for Kirstenbosch is payable if you do not have a BotSoc Card.
This month the walk will take place on Tuesday 17 March.
Meet at 15h30 at the Information Desk at Gate One.
Leaders: Linda Hibbin and Margeret McIver
Linda can be contacted on phone number 021 788 1528, or e-mail hibbins@telkomsa.net
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OUTING TO FALSE BAY ECOLOGY PARK
Thursday 18 February 2015
By Helen Fenwick
On Thursday 19 February a keen band of birders met at The False Bay Ecology Park for The Cape Bird Club's midweek outing.
The section visited was the old Strandfontein Sewage Works but the park also includes Rondevlei, Zeekoevlei Nature Reserves, and the Coastal Park landfill site.
Many birds from across the seas use it as a stop off spot or destination as they traverse the world's migratory flight paths. One hundred and sixty eight species of bird have been recorded in the park. Seventy-six of these are freshwater wetland species. Eighteen are are coastal species that visit the area to roost or breed. For this reason the Park has now been declared a RAMSAR Site.
Dave Whitelaw was our leader and we had a wonderful time exploring the pans.
There were plenty of greater flamingos and we also spotted a few immature Lesser Flamingos on Pan 4.
False Bay Ecology Park always delivers and we saw many species including Red-Billed teal, Cape Teal, Cape Shoveller, Spur-winged Goose, Pelicans, Flamingos, Little Grebe, Swift Terns, Ringed Plover, Kitlitz Plover, Three-banded Plover, Barn Swallows, Rock Martins, Yellow-billed Duck, Purple Swamphen, Common Moorhen, Yellow-billed Kite, Marsh Harrier, Stilts and Avocets among others.
We tried to find the spotted Eagle Owls but they were not showing themselves that day.
It was a wonderful outing and great to see so many members attending.
Thanks to Dave and Mel for their expert leading.
Thanks to Helen Fenwick for the photos below
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Top (Left to Right); Dave giving interesting information on the park;
Checking out the ponds
Bottom (Left to Right): Black-winged Stilt; Nice to see the Grey-headed Gull.
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Top (Left to Right): Swift Terns among the Gulls; Little Stints
Bottom (Left to Right): A Wood Sandpiper looking handsome; A hunched up Grey Heron)
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Counts - Athlone Waste Water Treatment Works - 19 February 2015.
A working partnership of the City of Cape Town and the Cape Bird Club.
Conditions at the beginning of this count were very good, clear skies and just a light wind. Unfortunately the wind picked up during the count and became quite strong towards the end. But that could not deter the group of 11 that showed up today and certainly did not appear to affect the birds judging by their numbers: well over 2400 birds and 47 (!!) species. These 47 included 4 new ones for this location: White-necked Raven, Barn Swallow, Common Waxbill and a Yellow-billed Egret have not been seen here before as far as participants could tell. Especially the last one of these was cause for some exitement since it is a fairly uncommon bird.
Hartlaub's Gull came out 'tops' again, 854 birds were counted in the different sections of the Athlone area. We tried hard to find a few Grey-headed Gulls hiding in the large groups but did not succeed. Greater Flamingos are regulars by now and 410 were counted; this proved a bit of a challenge since they flew between the different ponds in large numbers (see picture). But that is what birds do and we just had to make sure for several species that we were not counting doubles. A few more birds having numbers with triple digits were Pied Avocet (101), Yellow-billed Duck (115), Black-winged Stilt (126) and Blacksmith Lapwing (163).
It was good to see a Black-shouldered Kite again, unfortunately the Black Sparrowhawk of the previous count could not be spotted even though Fay looked hard (she spotted it last month). And like last time there was no sign of weavers nor Water Thick-knee's nor Fork-tailed Drongo.
Despite those last notes, once again this was an exciting and excellent count with many birds and many species! '
Thank you' to Joan Ackroyd, Jessie Blackshaw, Ian Cranna, Delene van Dyk, Gillian Ford, Fay Linder, Derek Longrigg, Sybil Majo, Peter Sumner and John van Zijl for taking part in this count.
Many thanks to Mr Kevin van Rooyen, Manager of Athlone Sewage Works, for permission to conduct bird surveys and Mr Enver Manuel for his assistance during the count.
Counts at Athlone take place every third Thursday of every month and start at 13h00, weather permitting of course. Anyone wanting to join please contact me via email: dick@bosfoto.nl or (when bounced) bosfoto@outlook.com. You could also phone me at 021 423 2546. I have no SA cell phone.
Dick Bos
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SASOL STRETTON'S WADER BASH - WCNP
by Cheryl Leslie
I attended my first ever SASOL STRETTON'S WADER BASH on the weekend of 20 - 22 February.
The Wader Bash takes place within the boundaries of the West Coast National Park (WCNP). The objective of the game is to identify as many bird species as possible within a 24-hour period in the various habitats of the Park.
A number of CBC members participated, including Vernon Head, Mel Tripp, Otto Schmidt and Simon Fogarty who acted as guides for some of the teams.
The only team consisting entirely of CBC members were the "Ruffled Feathers" consisting of Priscilla Beeton, Andrew and Heather Hodgson, and Cheryl Leslie, with Vernon Head as the guide.
After a short briefing at 5pm we had a bit of time to meet up in our teams and to decide on our strategy for the weekend.
With Vernon directing operations we started our quest with a walk to the salt marsh where we were lucky to see a Secretary Bird in addition to some bush birds and Caspian Terns. The Marsh Owl eluded us, though.
After dinner we went for a quick drive to try and see some night birds and were fortunate to see a Spotted Eagle Owl and a Barn Owl. It was very windy so we called it a night as we intended making an early start in the morning.
The wind died down during the night and we woke up to a perfectly still morning, but unfortunately it did not stay that way.
On our way to Abrahamskraal we saw my first lifer of the day - a covey of Grey-winged Francolin. My second lifer of the day was a Cape Grassbird seen on the road from Abrahamskraal.
The wind was picking up which made birding more difficult as the bush birds were laying low to keep out of the wind!
We visited the Geelbek hide to add as many waders to our list as possible then headed to Tsaarsbank in the hope of seeing some sea birds that might have been blown inshore by the wind and were rewarded with a sighting of a Southern Giant Petrel.
After adding Cape Gannet and various cormorants to our list we made our way to Mooimaak where we spotted Southern Black Korhaan (male and female) and a Pale Chanting Goshawk sub-adult.
Our next destination was the Seeberg Hide where we added Bar-tailed Godwit and some terns to our list. We were also very fortunate to see a few Roseate Terns huddling on the sand among the Common Terns, which earned us the Rarity Prize at prize-giving.
All together we saw 104 species of birds - not too shabby given the howling wind for most of the day!
Thank you to the rest of my team and to Vernon for a most enjoyable day (although I was exhausted by the end!). I learned a lot and added to my personal bird list.
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Vernon's Wader Bashers aka "The Ruffled Feathers"
Photo by Otto Schmidt
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The Ruffled Feathers searching the Salt Marsh for one more bird!
Photos by Cheryl Leslie
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Caspian Terns in the light of the setting sun.
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Fork-tailed Drongo hitching a ride.
Seen at Beloftebos, near Stanford, February 2015
Photo by Cheryl Leslie
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GUY GIBBONS BIRD CALLS
Andy Miszewski has a box set of 6 tapes of Guy Gibbons Bird Calls of Birds of Southern Africa for sale.
If you are interested in making an offer please contact him by email at andy@riveroaktrading.co.za
SECOND HAND BINOCULARS
Zander Venter is a beginner birder who would like to purchase a pair of second-hand binoculars.
If anyone is able to assist please contact him on email at zander.v@hotmail.com
AFRICA BIRDS AND BIRDING
A FULL set of the magazine "Africa Birds and Birding" for sale to the highest bidder, all proceeds for Cape Bird Club funds.
99 magazines in total, 1996-2012; a great reference set for birders.
Catalogues included with the set: the "official" catalogue for vols 1-10 and a painstakingly collated catalogue of the remaining volumes.
Some information about the publication can be found at
www.mediaupdate.co.za/?IDStory=18325#idstory=18325
and examples of content at www.mediaupdate.co.za/?pub=5010000501.
The publication was endorsed by Birdlife South Africa.
Suggested price is R650 - but make an offer to boost club funds
To be collected in Cape Town; postage/ courier could be arranged to destination outside Cape Town at extra cost, total volume of magazines is 4 6-bottle wine boxes.
Please email bids / questions to yacht_neutron@hotmail.com
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Enquiries to Rosemary Scheepers
Phone: 049 892 3453
Email: Rosemary.Scheepers@sanparks.org
Website: www.sanparks.org
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SITUATIONS VACANT
CLUB SECRETARY
On behalf of the members of the Club, the committee would like to thank Helen Fenwick for mamaging the potfolio of Club Secretary for many years.
Unfortunately, Helen has decided that it is time to retire and go travelling, so we need someone to take on this important portfolio.
If you are willing to take over this important portfolio please contact a committee member.
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BIRDATHON FESTIVAL 2015
The 2015 Birdathon/Festival will take place in the False Bay Nature Reserve on the 28th of March.
This is an annual event organised by the City Council, BLSA and the CBC.
It is aimed at making school children and their families more aware of the importance of the area and its bird llife.
Briefly the participants will walk a route through the birding area ranging from 2.5 to 5.5km (depending on age).
Along the route they will be asked a number of questions and the those answering all questions correctly could win a prize. Significant prizes are also offered to schools in a variety of categories.
On completion of the walk there will be a variety of activities and exhibits to entertain the participants including raptor, reptile and amphibian exhibits as well as food stalls.
Members of the club are asked to seriously consider assisting us in registration of members, marshalling along the route or manning the question tables.
It is a major event on the club's calender in terms of educating the youth .
This year we are hoping to have a CBC tent where the objectives of the club are explained and membership will be offered to interested individuals.
Please consider this seriously, it is a fun event with an important educational input.
If you feel moved to assist us please contact Dave Whitelaw at davesue@mweb.co.za for more details or to indicate that you will be available.
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Contributions for the Newsletter
Please send any contributions for the newsletter (interesting sightings, photographs or any interesting news items) to Cheryl Leslie at cdleslie@kingsley.co.za.
Photographs should not exceed 1MB in size.
Postal and Email addresses
Please ensure that we have your correct postal and email address, otherwise you may not receive the Bird Club newsletter or reminders.
Address changes: Please notify BirdLife promptly by post at P O Box 515 Randburg 2125 or fax to 011 789 5188 of any change in address to ensure that you continue receiving Promerops.Email changes:
Please contact BirdLife at membership@birdlife.co.za if you change your email address with a copy to ackroyd.joan@broadwalk-mews.co.za
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