Overberg Underwater

Our attempt to leave Wildcliff on Wednesday was thwarted by a usually subdued stream swollen to a raging torrent by 80mm of rain on Tuesday that kept us indoors all day. Our rendezvous with Chris in George was just not going to happen. Later that day we learnt of an ambulance swept off a road by high waters near Montagu, for which the search for the missing driver is still going on as of today.

On Thursday Chris came through in the Landcruiser to pick up Matt who had been assigned house-sitting duties, while I managed to get out on foot to survey for the first time in 4 days. It was a lovely day, which included records of Red-winged Francolin, and quality views of the resident pair of Peregrine Falcon. In addition, I had several records of Protea Seedeater, which made me wonder why I was suddenly picking them up now in winter in the Langeberg – as I’d had them on Sunday on the Garcia Pass too.

Friday I surveyed out from Wildcliff, over the Langeberg via the Gysmanshoek Pass, as the road to Heidelberg was still cut off by risen waters of the Duiwenhoks River. I reached Swellendam again in lovely weather, and briefly popped into Bontebok National Park to see if I could complete my survey there by bicycle – and indeed one is able to explore Bontebok by bicycle. Meanwhile, the Canola Karnaval was enjoying a day of sunshine resulting in traffic havoc. Perhaps, like me, people had checked the weather report and realised that would be the only day to make the most of the stalls, shows and talent contests – as again Friday night the rain set in with strong winds, lasting most of Saturday. The Canola festival is held at this time of year as the fields of the Overberg are bright yellow with canola flowers.

I still ventured into Bontebok (not by bicycle) to brave swollen stream crossings, to complete a couple of points, which again were very productive as the birds were making the most of any break in the weather to snatch a meal – with much use of prolifically flowering Aloe ferox.   But my views of Agt-huurkop of Marloth Nature Reserve were of mist, snow and cascading streams. Since there are no Olympic medals on offer for daring attempts of dangerous mountains to count birds, there was no incentive to risk my life, so it looked like another route that would need to be postponed, as Grootvadersbos a few days earlier.

The reward for the day was my second sighting ever of a Caracal. Perhaps the poor thing was trying to avoid the inundations around us, or was out hunting after a washed out night. It trotted down the road for a while as I followed cautiously, but on attempting to close the gap for a closer view, the cat slunk off the road and vanished into the Renosterveld. Still – my first wild Caracal photo.

Despite a grey and cold start to the day, today turned out all right. I managed 2 survey lines near Bredasdorp and along the ‘Fynbos Road’ to Elim. This flat section of the Agulhas Plain was very inundated, and there were several flooded low bridges to cross. The birds were enjoying it, with Long-billed Lark calling until late in the afternoon, and many water birds enjoying the lakes, including a pan with perhaps 500 Greater Flamingo.

Thankfully, the next two days forecast look acceptable, but it looks like I’ll have to seek shelter again on Thursday if I wish to stay dry.

Three Blue Cranes in the Overberg

A view of Marloth Nature Reserve from Bontebok

Same view, with a Bontebok

Yay! My first Caracal photo. Poor wet moggy.

Sacred Ibis and Cattle Egrets were among the birds enjoying the flooded landscape.

A ray of sunshine lights up a Canola field and windmill, while rain clouds lurk behind.

A female Orange-breasted Sunbird feeds on Erica c coccinea at Wildcliff

Small mountain streams are now raging torrents - a bit dangerous for the surveys I have to hike.

Scenes from the winter survey so far

The last two weeks (concurrent with the heavy rains and bad weather) I have been on the road retracing the route I undertook by bicycle from February to May earlier this year. Due to a lack of sponsorship I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone by doing it all by bicycle a second time – so I’ve been cruising along in the Suzuki Jimney donated to the project by Chris Lee. This means road surveys have been completed quickly, and transit times are a matter of hours instead of days. In between toe-numbing temperatures during counts I’ve on occasion been able to get back into a nice warm cab. However, many sections of the survey can only be completed by bike and on foot.

I had a fun journey up and down Blesberg (northern Swartberg) by bicycle, from El Yolo, kindly supported by Willem Cilliers. Willem also suggested using whistles on wind-turbines to scare away birds – he uses dog-whistles on his car to scare off kudu.  Recently I hiked through snow on the Oom Stan se Liggies trail up the southern slopes of the Swartberg just north of Ladismith, and hiked half-way up Seweweekspoortberg and Sleeping Beauty in the last couple of days.

Matt Stritch joined me for some of the survey, taking care of some of the driving and packing up camp to move from one spot to the next. He has also been a star with the data entry, and thanks to Matt we are completely up to date with all sightings – I can’t spot birds fast enough for him to enter into the computer! He’s also braved some extreme weather – camping in the rain in Die Hel of all places, as well as camping in freezing temperatures at Seweweekspoortberg (he casually asked me if I’d also had icicles inside my tent on the one morning).

But, we’ve had shelter from cold and rain a couple of times – thanks to Di Turner in George, Tom Barry for letting us use the research facilities at Gamkaberg, and to the Landmark Foundation at the moment for letting us use facilities at Wildcliff Nature Reserve.

Overall, bird activity has not been too bad. Fynbos birds don’t seem to mind the cold, and this means I can survey all day long. They don’t like the wind though. Herewith a selection of my preferred shots.

Typical winter survey attire - here on the Prince Alfred's Pass

Gymnogene with Alpine Swifts

Alpine Swift

Black Harrier - Robinson's Pass, Kouma Trail

Cape White-eyes, Seweweekspoort

Grey-winged Francolin, Rooiberg

Icicles, Liggie's hiking trail

Klipspringer, Die Hel. Wondering about the rain. 

Leopard tracks next to my bicycle tracks on the Botha's Hoek Hiking trail, Swartberg Pass

Female Cape Rock Thrush on Aloe ferox in the Seweweekspoort

Male Cape Rock Thrush

Female Orange-breasted Sunbird, sipping nectar from Paranomus centaurioedes, northern side of the Swartberg

Red dawn from the Rooiberg

Matt and survey vehicles on the Swartberg Pass

An Inconvenient Storm

Time is going too fast! There are too many stories happening that are accumulating and may never be told! Since my last post I have been on the road – trying to get as much done to compensate for time lost due to participation at the Fynbos Forum, and to put time aside for an upcoming wedding. As such, surveys have been conducted dawn to dusk where possible over the last two weeks. Or dealing with storm damage - here is the story of Saturday 14 July and the arrival of the cut-off low pressure system, the closest we here in the central Cape region will experience to a hurricane.

Phoebe Barnard, my postdoc supervisor, and Dale Wright, Western Cape Birdlife South Africa regional manager, had been planning to rendezvous for a trip to the Baviaanskloof to tie in with my survey, to see first-hand what I was doing, to help out, and to do an Important Bird Area (IBA) site assessment of the Baviaans-Kouga IBA. Due to busy schedules on the part of all three of us, it had taken weeks to organise, and it finally made sense to tie it all in on a trip to one of the most important regional conservation conferences – the Fynbos Forum.

However, dire weather had been predicted for the weekend of our planned reunion all week. But we live in hope. So Phoebe and Dale still made the trip up from Cape Town to Blue Hill on Thursday, while I was surveying Prince Alfred’s Pass. As predicted on Friday the weather was overcast and drizzly. Due to a booking error by ECPTA we had not been able to book Bergplaas in Baviaanskloof for the Friday night. Not wanting to camp at Rooihoek (the alternative accommodation on offer) in the rain, I said I would rather stay at Blue Hill and see how things panned out on the Saturday. Dale decided to head to Graaf Reinett to visit his girlfriend doing her ‘Zuma year’ (general practitioner practise year).

During the night the rain started to pick up and by Saturday morning it was as if the sun had decided not to rise again it was so dark. The wind from the south blew stronger and stronger, driving rain horizontally down the valley. Gusts would bend the cypress trees nearly double. The rain sometimes starred the windows as sleet. By 9am I decided to see if Phoebe needed rescuing as she was sleeping a cottage across the stream. I went outside to be greeted by the site of massive branches from our giant Belumbra tree lying on the ground, literally one inch from where the Hilux was parked.

Driving to the cottage the water was already up over the weir, but Phoebe was comfortable in the cottage with a fire, blanket, hot-water bottle and laptop. However, with rain still coming in so much it was running down the chimney, we decided it was time to evacuate. We lit the fires in the main house and settled down to work on laptops. Volunteer Matt had entered all the data he could, and started to update his photos. After lunch he then decided to bring in his camera trap, which was at the top paddock by the pine trees. He came back to report that the normally dry east-road stream was flowing. Sure enough, a dam had formed in the upper lucern field. Water was pouring down the road, and Chris and I were worried about it all flowing down the steep embankment and eroding away the road. So I got the Kubota and started to reinforce diversions. Some had to be done by spade due to all the water also pouring off the mountain. After Matt had finished taking photos of the main stream, now at the highest levels we have ever seen it, full of wood and debris like an Amazon river after a storm, he and Phoebe also helped pitch in making temporary water diversions. All of this in non-stop rain.  Matt documented the day at his blog: http://zoologistinafrica.blogspot.com/2012/07/blue-atlantis-escape.html

Water coming over the weir must have been raging across at about a meter deep – impossible to cross. Then as it crossed the area cleared of wattle was picking up a lot of branches. At the bridge just before our intersection with Pierre and Sonja’s road a massive tree trunk had been washed across the road. One by one we retired from the rain as wet and cold took its toll. That night we had a nice dinner at Chris’s house, while the rain abated. The rain gauge stood full at over 100mm – the biggest one day rainfall in our 4 years here. Our neighbours, who had been a bit more attentive about emptying their rain gauge, reported over 200mm. Rumours from the Langkloof, on the southern side of the Kougas where we are, were close to 400mm of rain. Our concern now was how long we were going to be trapped – the news told of people trapped on the N1 in the Karoo in snow, flooding in Port Elizabeth, and road closures all over. Perhaps surprisingly during all this there had been only one major powercut, which was fixed withing a matter of hours, and the telephones worked the whole time – so we were able to find out that Dale had managed to get out of Graaf Reinett to enjoy the snow, but that the route back south to us was still open.    

On Sunday it was still drizzling but we headed out to inspect damage. A small dam on our river on our neighbours farm had been washed away. The water was still flowing strongly over the bridge we needed to cross to get out. Plus there were now two large tree trunks on it! Otherwise, there were no road collapses, so our efforts in the rain on Saturday may have helped. However, Chris had forgotten to collect in the camera trap he had placed in the normally dry stream bed - so that looks like it is gone (I couldn’t see it when I went to look and the water was flowing strongly still!). It was clear we would not be able to get out in any vehicle that day, leaving us to wonder how long we would be trapped, and if we would make it to the Fynbos Forum. Overall, I was thankful I had made the decision not to go to Baviaanskloof, knowing that there would be no way in our out for some days.

By Monday the water had subsided enough that it looked we could attempt a crossing out of back route in the Hilux – we were worried that a crossing in the little Suzuki would simply result in it being floated away down the river. We rendezvoused with Dale on the main road, having navigated our dirt Hartbeesrivier road carefully – it had withstood the storms well, considering. It was in the Langloof, which had borne the brunt of the storm, that we got to scenes of real devastation. The Kouga River was roaring like I have never seen it before. The Krom River, which flows down the Langkloof to St Francis Bay, and is normally a placid stream, had burst its banks and we could see that the previous day the entire valley would have been filled with water. It was truly impressive.

The Krom River - this is normally a nearly insignificant stream

At the Fynbos Forum we met Baviaanskloof staff who informed us that indeed people were trapped in the kloof. The manager showed us an impressive picture of someone’s vehicle buried in mud up the roof. So we felt lucky to be there!

By the end of the busy week at the forum, with much meeting of people and learning news things about Fynbos, we headed back to Blue Hill. We were surprised that water levels were still high, and water still seeping out of the hills, despite a sunny week. The water logged ground through up one surprise – a Common Mole-rat – a subterranean mammal not often encountered above ground!

Common (African) Mole-rat

However, with water continuing to flow from all sorts of places, there was also lots of drama, including managing to get the Toyota Landcruiser bogged in mud – no mean feat given this is the pride of our 4x4 fleet! And just this week a fountain emerged from behind the main house, and appears to have caused havoc with our electrics.  Again, Matt documented me digging the cruiser out on his blog: http://zoologistinafrica.blogspot.com/2012/08/stuck-in-mud.html

As I sit and write, more rain comes in waves across the mountains. What more fun are we in for I can only fear.

  

Hello Aloe

In South Africa, at least 73 bird species in 24 families have been recorded feeding on 14 Aloe species and 8 other flowering plants and trees, but this old list is far from exhaustive. Occasional nectar-feeding is very common and perhaps 1,600 bird species worldwide (nearly 1 in 6) feed on nectar to one degree or another. In southern Africa, many Aloe species flower during the dry winter season and offers copious dilute nectar to a variety of birds. Overall bird abundance can increase 2–3 fold at the peak of nectar availability. Nearly 50% of all birds recorded in Suikerbosrand were observed feeding on Aloe marlothii nectar. Only two species of sunbird were observed feeding on A. marlothii nectar, and both occurred in low abundance. This is because Aloes are one of the species of flower that rely on generalist nectarivores for pollination, which prefer glucose and fructose type sugars, while plants that rely on specialist nectarivores for pollination produce sucrose.  

All the following photos were taken in a few hours in the early afternoon at the Aloe stands at Meijersrus – a working stock farm with various accommodation options at the De Rust side of Meiringspoort. Aloe ferox is the large Aloe most common in the Klein Karoo. Photo quality varies tremendously due to the fast moving cloud which produced occasional rays of sunshine, but generally had me popping the flash up and down all the time. Most commonly observed were Cape Weavers and Streaky-headed Seedeaters. The later appeared to be eating immature ovaries – perhaps for developing seeds, although they may have been eating the nectaries too. They definitely destroy the flowers and can't be considered pollinators. In addition, the Cape Sparrows were present, but appeared to have built a couple of nests in the spiny succulent leaves – and were not observed feeding on the nectar. A photo of a Familiar Chat shows that species using a spiny leaf as convenient perch during its foraging activities.

A Malachite Sunbird appeared very territorial, spending a lot of time chasing away a female Greater Double-collared Sunbird. The male of the later species spent more time defending a patch of Tecoma capensis, perhaps not wishing to pick a fight with the green goblin. While activity seemed intense in the morning – I could not stick around to take photos as I was conducting a survey up Meiringspoort. Undoubtedly a dedicated photographer with more time at this spot will come up with even more species and better photos!

Male Cape Weaver

Cape Bunting, foraging on the ground around the Aloes

Male Cape House Sparrow - guarding his nest

Familiar Chat

Cape White-eye

Female Cape Weaver - not the apricot colored head from the Aloe pollen

Greater Double-collared Sunbird

Malachite Sunbird

Not at the Aloes - Victorin's Warbler from the Kammanassie

Red-billed Quelea (I think!)

Red-winged Starling

Streaky-headed Seedeater

Venus and Pleides over the Kammanassie by moonlight

Tour de Fynbos: A winter’s tale

A full moon guided me towards Uniondale, away from those still slumbering at Blue Hill. While the departure was late compared to summer – just past 6am, it was still dark and I had to drive cautiously to avoid panic stricken Cape and Scrub Hares along the Hartbeesrivier road. With frost most mornings in the mountains, and winter Fynbos weather likely to turn at any time, this follow up survey was not something anyone would want to do entirely by bike. Well, I might have considered if I had attracted major sponsor or some documentary deal, but there is no fool like one who suffers in silence. This is going to be hard enough as it is. As I type my breathe billows around me as I sit at the entrance of my tent waiting for a kettle to boil – for a hot water bottle to warm my aching toes. They are cold despite two pairs of socks, one of which is the most expensive Cape Union Mart has to offer rated for coldest conditions. With snow on the slopes around me, this night will test them even further.

On departing Uniondale this morning a grey and black wall of cloud and rain was looming along the N9 towards me, enveloping the mighty Kammanassie mountains like one might pull a blanket over a child. Clearly I was not going to get a survey done this morning. Weather reports for the rest of the day promised better weather, so instead of abandoning and heading home, I sought sanctuary with old friends in town until the rain abated. The lifting clouds revealed a Kammanassie transformed from bleak winter grey to winter’s bride with her veil of snow.

For the first time my little Suzuki Jimney (the smallest 4x4xfar) was faced with slippery muddy clay on the Kammanassie road. My first stop was Willie Woudberg, who’s land one traverses to get the Nature Reserve itself, and then onwards into the mountains. It has been 3 months since my last visit and a landscape more transformed from that time it is hard to imagine. The shapes of the valleys are still there, but  instead of Protea punctata feeding flocks of Orange-breasted Sunbird there are but black skeletal remains, with a veneer of green from sprouting grass and cautiously emerging geophytes waiting for the spring. While it is nice to dream that those sunbirds moved on to some better place, I am sure it was not one of this time and space – they need food daily and have limited dispersal capabilities. Perhaps I will catch a glimmer of their souls among the spring floral display.

Such bleak facts have come to me over the last month, where my absence from the blog world was due to much academic focus. I have been analysing data from ringed birds to get an idea of how and why they disperse. Generally not far in the case of the Cape Sugarbird and Orange-breasted Sunbird, especially not when compared to what the generalist nectarivores like Malachite and Southern Double-collared Sunbird are capable of. I have also learnt from information gathered from weather stations across the region that the Western Cape has had 25% less rain in the last 15 years compared to the previous 15 years. We are also now 0.5 degrees warmer. So it is getting drier faster than it is getting warmer.

Still, the change in conditions here in the mountains threw up one unexpected delight. As I was painfully crawling up the mountain, 4x4 engaged, dodging fallen rocks and snow drifts, a caught a glimpse of a bird scuttling along the road verge. A Victorin’s Warbler! With no dense vegetation to hide in, and obviously needing a meal after the dreadful start to the day, the little bird foraged its way along the bank looking in every nook and cranny for a slumbering bug. For me, this was the best sighting ever – including my best photos of this bird. And not long after, a second individual was also out and about. So, a glimmer of life on this mountain of ash and ice. 

  

Cape Siskin - Male

Victorin's Warbler with ice

Cape Sugarbird coming in to land

Cape Sugarbird female, with a winter sky

Southern Double-collared Sunbird showing off his pectoral tufts