Our monthly meeting was held last Wednesday and our speaker was Doug Harebottle from the SABAP2 (South African Bird Atlas Project) which is run by the ADU (Animal Demography Unit) of UCT. Doug explained why there is a need for bird atlasing, how it is done and what results have come from the project over the past couple of years.
Atlasing is about listing birds within a pre-determined area, in the order that you see them, for a minimum of 2 hours. The information we as birders gather in our own area is vital to their project and they see us as Citizen Scientists.
I have been atlasing birds for a number of years and really enjoy the "birding with a purpose" side of my hobby.
Adel and I went out with Doug on Thursday morning to do some atlasing around Franschhoek and we found the Purple Heron he had mentioned to us at the meeting. It may still be there for those who would like to see it. We found it at the entrance road to the Berg River Dam in the patch of water on the right side of the road. In the same area we saw a juvenile Black Shouldered Kite sitting all alone on a pole next to the road. He just sat and sat and was not at all concerned about us parked right in front of him taking photos. Doug sent these lovely pics for us to see.
We will be going out on Sunday morning for a local birding trip but will probably go to the dam and then on the Wellington Road towards Paarl. If any of you would like to join us, please meet at FTL at 7.30am.
The morning market fundraising is going well. We have collected R2500.00 so far which is more than half of our target of R4500.00. Thanks again to those of you who have contributed towards this effort. The market for tomorrow has been cancelled due to a forcast of rain but hopefully we will be there next week.
Enjoy your week and let me know if you see anything unusual.
Regards
Robyn
