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august 2014 • 1
BIRDLIFE SOUTH AFRICA
e-newsletterAugust 2014
cape vulture ALBERT FROnEmAn
Have you decided where you will Bird your ’Hood this year?
In celebration of BirdLife South Afri-ca’s 30th Birding Big Day, we are encouraging budding backyard birders and super school spotters to go out birding in your gardens, local parks or school grounds; as long as it is close enough to walk, cycle or hike to.
There is no entry fee. However, raise R250 or more in sponsorship for BirdLife South Africa’s important bird conservation work and you will receive a Birding Big Day cloth badge. You will also be entered into the lucky draw and stand a chance to win some fantastic prizes, including Chamberlain’s and Woolworths vouchers, weekends away, books and more.
For more information, contact Nikki McCartney on 083 636 1060, e-mail [email protected] or visit www.birdlife.org.za/events/birding-big-day Nikki McCartney, Events & Marketing Manager, [email protected]
cOntents
1 Birding Big Day 2014
2 Gardening for birds
3 not just hot air
4 new ecological educa-tion website
4 On the road with Ross
5 Expanding into South Korea
6 Getting to know the Tristan Albatross
6 Call for nominations
SATURDAy, 29 nOvEmBER
attention Birdlife south africa members: Please use your membership number as a payment reference when paying your membership fees.
Winners OF LUCKy DRAw
A lucky draw was done for all Bird-Life South Africa members who
renewed their membership in June 2014, and we congratulate the five members who will receive a copy of the beautifully illustrated Robins of Africa coffee-table book:
Trina McGregorWayne FegenMaggie MendelsohnMichael TraceyMerle Colling
We are sure you will enjoy the wonderful illustrations by Graeme Arnott and interesting accounts by Terry Oatley.
Thank you to all who renewed their membership with BirdLife South Africa.
birdingbig day2014
august 2014 • 2
Next month trees feature in the Arbor Day celebrations, so
I thought I’d talk about the trees selected as the 2014 Trees of the Year. Vepris lanceolata and the genus Heteropyxis are the chosen ones this time round.
Let’s begin with the Vepris, the White Iron-wood. This is a choice I thoroughly approve of, as it is a great bird gar-den tree, although it is too large for the small gardens so many of us have these days, and has the sad downside of separate sexes. But those blobs aside, the White Ironwood makes a most attractive shade tree with its elegant trifoliate leaves. When crushed, the leaves emit a delightful lemony scent. The tiny flowers are inconspicu-ous and pale yellow but they attract lots of little insects, which in turn attract all the small insect-eating birds. The female trees bear great bunches of black berries, which the fruit-eaters just love. This tree is also the host to the butterfly Papilio dardanus, another plus.
In the wild Vepris is a widespread species, grow-ing in coastal and mist-belt forest as well as in rocky thornveld. If conditions are good, with high rainfall, growth rate will be fairly fast, but as con-ditions toughen obviously the growth rate slows down. This tree does not enjoy harsh frost, as it is used to living in forest conditions, but it will cope with a sprinkling of frost. Here, where I live in Howick, we have just had a -5 °C whammy, and the Vepris trees are looking very sad, with burnt brown leaves, but I am hoping the actual trees will survive and soon start shooting again.
The wood is hard and almost white, giving the tree its common name. The scientific name is harder to understand as the Latin vepres translates as ‘a thorny shrub’. The best explanation is that the ge-nus is related to the genus Toddalia, which has prickles – a bit far fetched, but we’ll never really know!
The other chosen tree is Heteropyxis natalensis, along with its cousins H. canescens and H. deh-niae, the Lavender-trees. H. canescens, the Forest Lavender-tree, is a rare tree found in Swaziland and the adjoining part of Mpumalanga, while H. dehniae, the Large-leaved Lavender-tree is found mainly in Zimbabwe and just creeps across into South Africa in northern Limpopo. It is the Lavender-tree Heteropyxis natalensis that is of interest to us. Not a particularly birdy tree but a really lovely tree to plant in even the smallest garden. The bark is pale and flaky with interesting orange and whitish underbark, the leaves have a delicious smell when crushed (nothing like laven-der in my humble opinion – much nicer I think) and, being deciduous under most conditions, nev-er shades out surrounding plants. A little grove of these is a real delight, and a single one makes a pretty specimen. In colder areas the autumn leaves have tinges of red and yellow, and the new foliage are tinged red too, especially in drier areas. Like the White Ironwood, the Lavender-tree can take some frost, but not the killer kind. Try to find a spot in your garden for this dear little tree to celebrate Arbor Week (1 to 7 September).Sally Johnson, [email protected]
FOR BIRDSgardening
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A Black-bellied Starling eating Vepris lanceolata berries.
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FOLLOw US On faceBOOk, TwEET US On tWitter
august 2014 • 3
South Africa is the place to be when it comes to renewable energy. Our
Renewable Energy Independ-ent Power Producer Programme has received worldwide acclaim, but we shouldn’t overlook that Eskom is also investing in reduc-ing our carbon footprint.
Eskom’s 100-megawatt Sere Wind Farm is close to comple-tion. It is north-west of Vreden-dal in the Western Cape, about 300 kilometres from Cape Town. The wind farm will comprise 46 turbines, each with a capacity of 2.3 megawatts. It is expected to produce 298 000 megawatt hours per year and is anticipated to reduce carbon dioxide emis-sions by up to six million tonnes in its 20-year lifespan.
BirdLife South Africa was invit-ed to visit the rather windy con-struction site and discuss plans for monitoring potential impacts on birds. The environmental authorisation for the project was issued in 2008, before there was any guidance on assessing and monitoring the impacts of wind farms on birds specific to South Africa1. Unfortunately this meant that the avifaunal impact
assessment for Sere did not include surveys of bird move-ments, although construction-phase monitoring has been implemented. This work has not picked up any major issues, but it is concerning that the Olifants River Estuary Important Bird & Biodiversity Area (IBA) lies just 16 kilometres south of the wind farm.
The Olifants River Estuary IBA is one of only four perennial estuaries on the west coast of southern Africa and which regularly supports large num-bers of waterbirds. It is a vital staging point for both Palearctic migrants and flamingos that move between the Orange River mouth and the wetlands to the south and east. If these birds commute through the wind farm, they may face a risk of col-liding with the wind turbines. It is therefore critical that rigorous post-construction monitoring is undertaken to ensure than any impacts are identified. The good news is that Eskom has indi-cated its willingness to go above and beyond the rather limited requirements of the environ-mental authorisation and will be
consulting BirdLife South Africa and its partners to make sure monitoring is done properly.
BirdLife South Africa’s Birds and Renewable Energy work is made possible through support from Investec Corporate and Institutional Banking. Samantha Ralston, Birds and Renewable Energy Manager, [email protected]
nOT jUST
hot air
ABovE Kishaylin Chetty from Eskom’s Biodiversity Centre of Excellence inspects the inside of a wind turbine.
Top It is hard to comprehend the size of the turbines, until you get right up to them.
BIRDLIFE SOUTH AFRICA vISITS ESKOm’S SERE wInD FARm
1 BirdLife South Africa and the Endangered Wildlife Trust subsequently released Best Practice Guidelines for Avian Monitoring and Impact Mitigation at Proposed Wind Energy Development Sites in southern Africa, vastly improving the standard of impact assessments for wind farms.
august 2014 • 4
Order Zeiss prOducts and suppOrt cOnservatiOnLooking through a pair of Zeiss binoculars brings you closer to your quarry than you ever thought possible. Suddenly, no forest is too dense or dark to hide those elusive birds. you can purchase Zeiss binoculars directly through the BirdLife South Africa website and, by doing so, you will support bird conservation. visit www.birdlife.org.za/support-us/purchase-zeiss-products
After a relatively quiet first half of the year, my hectic travel schedule has returned with a vengeance. I currently
have four trips confirmed. I am just back from a week in Nairobi in Kenya, where I was plan-ning and assessing the progress of the Marine Programme, and integrating our activities more closely with the rest of the Africa Secretariat’s programmes, committees and activities. I’m seriously impressed with the team in Nairobi and the satellite office in Accra, Ghana. Young, energetic, competent and strong team players – I am infused with confidence that with this sort of team, the birds of Africa are on a good wicket! Julius Arinaitwe leads the team, and I interact
most with the hulking, affable and exceptionally committed Nigerian, Ademola Ajagbe.
Part of the visit included joining the team (well, technically I am part of the team, just a one-man satellite office in Cape Town) for their staff retreat to Lake Naivasha. This was a mix of fun, team-building and work. I had previously visited Naivasha more than 20 years ago, when I had been a birdwatcher for just two months. I do recall quite vividly scrambling around with borrowed binoculars and a pretty desultory field guidebook, and being quite bewildered and exhilarated with the birding. Our only morning was devoted to birding, with Kariuki Ndangan-ga, Ademola and Julius leading the charge. Our morning’s trundle around the camp site was a very gentle birding affair, with the exquisite and aptly named Superb Starlings a constant source of birding pleasure. Back in Nairobi, Julius kindly spent Saturday birding with me in the Nai-robi National Park, which yielded plenty more fabulous East African birds, including a few lifers for me and one for Julius, and a very productive discussion on how to build BirdLife in Africa. There are great things in store, for seabirds and non-seabirds alike!Dr Ross Wanless, Seabird programme Manager, [email protected]
on theroad
with ROSS
Lynn Hurry, experienced KwaZulu-Natal envi-ronmental educator (and lifelong member of
BirdLife South Africa), has just launched an excit-ing new website from which teachers (Geogra-phy, Natural Sciences and Life Sciences), lecturers in Education, students, trainers in the field of conservation and parents alike can download environmental ‘edutainment’ resources. The
site – containing illustrated stories, curriculum-linked learning materials (Primary and Secondary phases), ecological activity books, ecology studies, curriculum-based crossword and word search puzzles, and much, much more – will increase ecological understanding and get brains buzzing. Visit the website at www.ecology.co.za Dr Lynn Hurry, [email protected]
ECOLOGICAL EDUCATIOn wEBSITE
brand new!
august 2014 • 5
This year BirdLife South Africa’s seabird work will
receive a massive boost, with the establishment of a five-year project to take our Albatross Task Force approach to the high seas tuna fleets. Our work with South Korea has already deliv-ered significant benefits, and we will be working with a Korean consultant, Yuna Kim, to help us consoli-date our work there. Below is Yuna’s story.Ross Wanless, Seabird programme Manager, [email protected]
I was born on the Korean peninsula, which is rich
in marine wildlife and this forged my interest in ani-mals, particularly the move-ment of marine animals. I completed a Master’s Degree in Wildlife Conservation at Macquarie University in Sydney, which formed the foundation of my interest in seabirds. It also gave me a greater appreciation for the importance of seabird conser-vation as they are confronted with threats both on land and at sea. My PhD study species is Gould’s Petrel Pterodroma leucoptera, which has re-cently been downgraded from Endangered to Vulnerable in Australia due to successful conservation work at breeding
sites. My PhD research investi-gated the foraging ecology of Gould’s Petrel to contribute to the science base for identifying and mitigating threats at sea to small seabirds.
Since submitting my PhD thesis in June this year, I have started working with BirdLife South Africa, focusing on
mitigating seabird by-catch on Korean longline fishing boats. The Korean pelagic longline fleet targets big-eye, albacore and southern bluefin tunas in the southern Indian Ocean. This region is inhabited by several threatened seabird spe-cies. To mitigate the threats to seabirds, Bird-Life has initiated engage-
ment with fleets. BirdLife has held workshops in South Korea since 2012. In Novem-ber 2013 I assisted with one of those workshops. I will now be responsible for liais-ing between BirdLife South Africa and the South Korean government to assist in the implementation of seabird bycatch mitigation measures on Korean longliners.
In July 2014, I visited the Albatross Task Force in Cape Town and gained first-hand experience. This will be invaluable for me, because
part of my work will involve training Korean fisheries observers. A highlight was when I joined Bronwyn Maree on a hake trawler for a week to experience first-hand how mitigation measures are used. This has given me a practi-cal understanding of how bird-scaring lines work, and a greater appreciation of the constraints that fishing crew have. Yuna Kim, [email protected]
SOUTH KOREAexpanding into
Top Yuna Kim with a Gould’s Petrel chick.
ABovE ATF Instructor Bokomoso Lebepe explains longline fishing operations to Yuna Kim.
august 2014 • 6
Shireen Gould and Elaine Cherrington from Bird-Life South Africa’s Membership Division visited
two schools during July to promote awareness of the Tristan Albatross.
The first visit was to the Enviromental Club at Ky-alami Prep in Kyalami, Johannesburg. After a short PowerPoint presentation and video clip, followed by a question-and-answer session, the children played an enthusiastic game where they learnt about the threats and challenges faced by an albatross chick as it grows to adulthood.
The second school visit was to Cross Roads School in Linden, Johannesburg, where we ad-dressed their main assembly. Again there was a short video clip and presentation and the learn-ers were encouraged to recycle as much waste as possible and to promote recycling at home and at school.
The children at both schools enjoyed the visit and each received a Tristan Albatross pin badge and a back issue of African Birdlife, which included a poster of the Tristan Albatross as well as the Bird-Life South Africa Checklist of Birds in South Africa 2014. The children also had their photos taken with ‘Alba’ and ‘Tross’. Shireen Gould, Membership Manager, [email protected]
GILL mEmORIAL mEDAL AwARD 2015BirdLife South Africa’s most prestigious award is the Gill Memorial Medal, which is presented for outstanding lifetime contributions to ornithology in southern Africa.
AUSTIn ROBERTS mEmORIAL AwARD 2015This award has been established to honour peo-ple who have made a significant contribution to bird conservation in South Africa.
BirdLife South Africa is inviting nominations for consideration of the 2015 awards. For proce-dures and criteria information, please visit either
www.birdlife.org.za/about-us/our-organisation/gill-memorial-medal-award or www.birdlife.org.za/about-us/our-organisation/austin-roberts-memorial-award.
Nominations can only be made by members of BirdLife South Africa and should include an appropriate motivation, a short CV for the can-didate, and – for the Gill Memorial Medal Award – a list of the candidate’s relevant achievements (especially his/her publications).
Please send your nominations to Pamela Bar-rett at BirdLife South Africa, [email protected] by Friday 29 August 2014.pamela Barrett, [email protected]
CALL FOR nOminatiOns
reneW yOur memBership and stand a chance tO Win!Renew your membership in the month that it is due and stand a chance to win one of five copies of the beautifully illustrated Robins of Africa, a celebration of the African robin and its world in all its variety.
Please remember to use your membership number as the reference when making your payment.
Shireen Gould, Membership Manager, [email protected]
GETTInG TO KnOw THE tristan alBatrOssBird of the year 2014
Learners from the Environmental Club at Kyalami Prep.
puBlished By BIRDLIFE SOUTH AFRICA cOmpiled By nIKKI mcCARTnEy [email protected] editOr Joy ClaCk • desiGner BRyOny vAn wyK [email protected]
