The Cape Bird Club

Conservation – Raptor survey of the Table Mountain area

photograph by Ann Koeslag 

Black Sparrowhawk.

Report back on the August 2006 survey by Lucia Rodrigues

Thank you to the following people who volunteered their time to help with the August 2006 survey.

Ruedi Siegenthaler, Rob Simmons, Phoebe Barnard, Meidad Goren, Leighan Mossop, Laurie Hall, Kim Wright, Irene & Andy Vermeulen, George Smith, Sue Smith, Donald Fabian, Clive Moll, Clive Hoard, Bill Butler, Barry Watkins, Barry Schultz, Anthony van Zyl, Ann Koeslag, Andrew Jenkins, Peter Steyn, Geoff Dalglish, John Elton, Steven Stobart,  Sharon, Seamus, Belinda van den Berg.

You should all received the schedule, which I tried to keep as simple as possible, but nevertheless takes time to figure out. So here is my personal summary of the event and I welcome any additional comments and or corrections of the views I have expressed.

Crecilda van den Berg, took up station at the Silvermine Black Eagle nest, so that we could keep track of their movements while looking out for the Table Mountain pair. Results show quite clearly we have two pairs of Black Eagles on the Cape Peninsula mountain chain. The Silvermine pair have a chick about to fledge and from what has been reported, it seems unlikely the Table Mountain pair are breeding. This is not entirely unexpected because, as most of you know, the female of this pair disappeared in about July last year and a new female only appeared on the scene in about May this year. So hopefully we can look forward to both pairs breeding next year.
I specifically asked everyone to keep a lookout for dassies because I am plotting where they occur and hope to choose two or three locations for closer observation during 2007. Only George, Sue and Seamus reported dassies in the Kasteelspoort area.

I was surprised no one spotted any Jackal Buzzards. Although they generally do not seem to occur on Table Mountain, I have regularly been seeing a pair around Devil's Peak. Now is the time of year that they are paying attention to building or refurbishing nests and some may even have already laid their eggs. I personally don't know much about the habits of Jackal Buzzards, but get the impression that as soon as they get serious about breeding, their behaviour either becomes cryptic or they drop out of sight altogether! I have set myself a personal goal of finding three JB nests this season and so far only have one! (found by Anthony van Zyl) So I am not doing well at all. Anyone with information that will assist me, please contact me soonest!

From your reports it seems most, if not all, known breeding pairs of Peregrine Falcons were spotted, with perhaps an extra pair or two trying to find a vacant bit of cliff. Anthony and I will be meeting soon to plot the many Rock Kestrels spotted, with the intention of trying to find out where they will be breeding this season.

When we are on the mountain we always take note of where White-necked Ravens are seen and what they are up to. Not that much is known about them. Although not a raptor, they are such a regular occurance on our mountain chain and such clever and entertaining birds to watch, who undoubtably have an effect on the rest of our mountain raptors, that we include them on our list of species we welcome feedback on. I often find my Black Eagles by watching what the Ravens are up to! So as you can tell there is always a lot of work to be done. If anyone is keen to "adopt" a cliff to monitor for raptor activity, let me know.

A reminder, we will repeat this exercise in November 2006, which will be the middle of the breeding season for our smaller raptors.