Western Cape Birding

Sorry to my loyal blog followers for not keeping you updated on South Africa. I tried thinking of a defense but the real explanation is birding. The past week I’ve done quite a bit of birding around the Western Cape accumulating lifers and provincial ticks. Most of my birding has been around the northern suburbs so it was great to go further afield and go after some easy target birds. Here’s the breakdown of my week.

Wednesday - January 13, 2010
Last Wednesday I joined the Tygerberg Bird Club on their weekday outing to the Meerendal Wine Estate outside Durbanville. Roughly 30 birders surveyed the estate accumulating nearly 70 species including my first Maccoa Ducks and Black Sparrowhawk. Other interesting finds include 50 White Storks, two endemic Blue Cranes, African Hoopoe, Acacia Pied Barbets and a Pin-tailed Whydah. The Tygerberg Bird Club is a branch of Birdlife South Africa representing the northern suburbs of Cape Town.

Thursday - January 14, 2010
This day was spent doing some target birding around Cape Town with local birder – Gerald Wingate. I've mostly birded the Table View area so it was great to check out new spots and get some easy (and not so easy) lifers out of the way. Our first stop was Dolphin Beach where we quickly picked up two White-backed Ducks among the Yellow-billed Ducks, Cape Shovelers, Red-knobbed Coots, Little and Great Crested Grebes. We continued to the Potsdam Sewage Works where I picked up two more easy birds – Yellow-billed (Intermediate) Egret and Common Sandpiper. It’s probably obvious I haven’t birded Europe yet. Our next stop was the world-renowned Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, which covers 528 hectares at the base of Table Mountain. These gardens are great for seeing your typical garden and woodland species such as Sombre Greenbuls, Cape Batis, Southern Double-collared, Malachite and Orange-breasted Sunbirds. My targets were African Olive-Pigeon, Lemon Dove and Spotted Eagle-Owl, though only the latter was present. Spotted Eagle-Owls have successfully nested in the gardens for a while now – usually right off the path. After the gardens we continued to a local birders property where he’s had African Wood-Owls roosting behind his house for the past few years. Within a minute of pulling into the driveway, I was face-to-face with three African Wood-Owls – definitely one of the easiest ticks ever. Our next stop was to look for a local rarity - an African Openbill that’s been hanging around Bergvliet. African Openbills recently invaded South Africa and is an exceptional record for the Western Cape so I'm glad to have ticked it in the province. After a quick stop at Cecilia Forest picking up Chaffinch and Red-breasted Sparrowhawk, we continued to our final stop of the day and one of Cape Town’s most popular birding spots – the Strandfontein Sewage Works. These sewage works are perhaps the best waterbird locality in Cape Town hosting thousands of shorebirds, waterfowl, grebes, pelicans, cormorants and flamingos and not to mention my first Swift Terns. I definitely plan to return numerous times to collect data for eBird which is going global this spring.

Kirstenbosch National Gardens

Saturday - January 16, 2010

On Saturday Charles Hesse, Carolina Castaño and I visited Intaka Island which is smack dab in the middle of Century City. This massive development took roughly $1.4 billion USD to build and includes residential neighborhoods, entertainment and Africa’s largest mall. To comply with conservation measures, a 16-hectare wetland area was created in the middle of this high-density development. As bad as it seems, the birds appear to be content and Peregrine Falcons even nest on one of the large buildings overlooking the wetlands.

Intaka Island

Nesting Platforms at Intaka

Bird Hide at Intaka

Sunday, January 17, 2010
Yesterday the three of us joined the Cape Bird Club on their outing to the Paarl Sewage Works (see a pattern here?). Paarl is approximately one and a half hours northeast of Cape Town in the heart of the winelands…and Afrikaans culture. The town hosts a monument for the Afrikaans language as well as a museum. It is apparently one of the only towns in South Africa pronounced differently in English and Afrikaans – English, Paarl is pronounced like ‘marl’ and Afrikaans it’s ‘Pair uhl’. The sewage works offered fabulous birding and good numbers – nearly 400 Blacksmith Lapwings and 800 Hartlaub’s Gulls! Some of the highlights include Hottentot Teal, African Fish-Eagle, Booted Eagle and African Harrier-Hawk among others. I also added six birds to my list and a few province ticks.

Informal settlement near Paarl Bird Sanctuary

Monday, January 18, 2010
Today I joined Gerald Wingate with some atlasing for the South Africa Bird Atlas Project near Philadelphia. I know what you’re thinking, wrong Philadelphia. We surveyed one pentad accumulating 75 species, which is quite good for an area of mostly wheat farming. Some of the highlights include Spotted Eagle-Owl, 17 Blue Cranes, Martial Eagle, two Lanner Falcons and a Giant Kingfisher – not to mention good numbers including 1,550 Southern Red Bishops! Although certain habitats don’t look inviting to bird, you would be surprised what you might find. I remember doing breeding bird atlasing around northern Ohio two summers ago and was shocked by the number of Vesper Sparrows in corn fields. If I didn’t survey the corn fields, I would have had no idea Vesper Sparrows were relatively common breeders.

Tomorrow Gerald Wingate and I are heading to West Coast National Park at 5:30am, which reminds me I need to get some sleep!

African Penguins

The African Penguin, also known as Jackass Penguin due to their donkey-like call, is endemic to Namibia and South Africa. They are the only species of penguin to breed in Africa, mainly on offshore islands. However, since the 1980’s, two populations were established on the mainland due to the decline of predators; the Simon's Town population being the most well-known due to its close proximity to Cape Town and Betty’s Bay (east of Cape Town), which is where I took these photos.

Unfortunately only 10% remain from the estimated 1.5 million back in 1910. Many factors contribute to this substantial decline including egg harvesting for human consumption, commercial fishing and oil pollution. In 2000, an iron-ore tanker sank off Cape Town oiling about 19,000 adult penguins during the height of the most successful breeding year on record. After three months and tens of thousands of volunteers, 91% of the penguins were successfully rehabilitated and released. This was the largest animal rescue in history.

Today this vulnerable species continues to decline. Fortunately, nearly all of the offshore islands are now protected and the mainland populations patrolled. If you ever find yourself in Cape Town, be sure to visit one of the populations and your small fee will go a long ways in helping the conservation of the African Penguins. Many thanks to the South African National Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), which has one of the world’s highest successes rates in saving oiled seabirds.

Rooi Els

Saturday morning I visited Rooi Els, a well known spot for Cape Rockjumper, a South African endemic. Situated on False Bay, Rooi Els offers breathtaking views and a huge diversity of fynbo plants. I strolled down the rocky track taking in fynbo-loving species including Cape Bulbul, Cape Grassbird, Cape Sugarbird, Cape Robin-Chat and Cape Siskins (see a pattern here?).

Cape Sugarbird

Eventually the distinctive calls of Cape Rockjumpers echoed down the hillside from above. There are only a few pairs along this stretch so without hesitating, I climbed the rocky slope. The next hour or so was spent scanning the rocks unsuccessfully. However, a trio of Ground Woodpeckers mobbing a Dassie and a Victorin’s Warbler nearby made the trek worth it. The latter is highly sought after and with its limited range and skulking habits, this species is a tuff one to see. Luck was with me as I watched it from a few meters away as it blissfully foraged, occasionally teeing up to sing.

Victorin's Warbler

I eventually descended down the slope and once I returned back to the rocky track, there were the rockjumpers! I didn't know what to think about being fooled by a bird but I happily watched them as they teed up on the rocks and jumped down the track. They eventually moved on and after I had my filling of Familiar Chats, Karoo Prinia and Orange-breasted Sunbirds, that concluded a remarkable morning of birding.

Cape Rockjumper

Karoo Prinia

Cape Town, South Africa

After nearly 40 hours of traveling via Pittsburgh, John F. Kennedy, Abu Dhabi, Johannesburg and Cape Town airports, I arrived in Cape Town early Sunday morning. The past couple days were spent recovering from jet lag and exploring the surrounding area. I’m currently staying at the Tropical Birding office in the northern suburb, Bloubergrise and only had time to bird areas within walking distance. It appears the the blogger photo uploader isn't working right now but when it does, I'll go more in dept on what I'm seeing.

Northern Wheatear!

After receiving several phone calls around noon, I was Bunker Hill bound. Ohio’s third record of a Northern Wheatear was found at the residence of Emery Yoder in Holmes County. After a 45 minute delay on Rt. 62 with a car completely engulfed in flames, I was eventually standing there with a small crowd watching the wheatear. It was probably the most cooperative bird I have ever chased teeing up only 30 meters away. Ohio’s last wheatear record came from Marion County in November 1998.

Here’s a shot by Gabe Leidy:

For more details visit: http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/OHIO.html

Arctic Pelagic

Sabine's Gull

Last Saturday a local Inupiaq invited us on a pelagic trip to look for whales and birds. After boarding his boat, we were soon 4.5 miles out into the Chuckchi Sea and surrounded by Gray Whales, Bearded Seals and seabirds. Lewis has a lot of experience with whales being one of the local whaling captains so he was able to get us fantastic views of Gray Whales.

Here’s how close we got to view these majestic mammals. Words can’t explain how incredible it was to have them surface just feet away. We could feel the rumble as every whale took a deep breath before submerging back into the water to feed on the ocean floor.

These whales skim the top layer of sediment on the ocean floor returning to the surface straining the sediment through their baleen. This allows them to swallow only the bottom-dwelling invertebrates. As we watched them surfaced, we were able to see a lot of the sediment they brought up from the ocean floor.

After tearing ourselves away from the whales, we cruised along some of the sea ice in search of pelagic birds.

As we passed an iceberg we came across this group of Red Phalaropes. It took me a split second to remember that Red Phalaropes are actually pelagic birds. For the past two months I was studying their nesting habits on the tundra.

Here are the three most common Laridae off Barrow apart from Glaucous Gull. From left to right – Arctic Tern, Sabine’s Gull and Black-legged Kittiwake.

Arctic Terns are rather abundant in well…the Arctic. Here’s an oddly shaped iceberg with a couple dozen roosting on top.

I really want to get out on another pelagic but with only four full days remaining in Barrow, it’s unlikely. Perhaps next week, we will take a trip off Homer or Seward, Alaska.

July update 7/16

Baird's Sandpiper

Things are slowing down here on the tundra and only a few nests remain on our study plots. Even though a lot of chicks hatched, the majority of the clutches were predated – probably around 60%. This is partially due to it being a lemming crash year. Predators such as jaegers and foxes feed on lemmings and when numbers are low, shorebird eggs are next on their menu. During the past month and a half, I personally saw only one Brown Lemming. Last year a few hundred a day wasn’t out of the question. Here are a few chick photos..

Semipalmated Sandpiper chick (the white dot on its bill is an egg tooth which helps them break through their shells)

Red-necked Phalarope chick

Red-necked Phalarope chick point-of-view

Dunlin chicks

Two days ago we experienced record high temperatures reaching somewhere in the low 70’s. I would have never guessed that 70 degrees would feel too hot but we were feeling it. Every year the Barrow shorebird group partakes in a ‘mandatory’ polar bear dive in the Arctic Ocean. With water temps barely above freezing, it’s actually not that cold…you just instantly go numb!

The height of the moment when we were asking what did we get ourselves into?

The rest of the season will be spent monitoring the last remaining nests, data entry and gear cleanup/inventory. I leave Barrow on August 1st and will be back in Ohio on the 10th. The time between will be spent birding around the Denali/Seward/Homer area with a few friends that I’ve been working with in Barrow. Until next time, cheers!

Semipalmated Plover - banded in '08