The Cape Bird Club’s 2022 Youth Education Programme kicked off the school year with an exciting opportunity for learners from Floreat Primary to get up close and personal with one of southern Africa’s most unique, charismatic and endangered birds.
On the 12th of March 2022, the Grade 5-7 learners and Cape Bird Club educators and volunteers embarked on an outing to the penguin colony at Boulders Beach, allowing the learners, equipped with binoculars, the chance to observe African Penguins in their natural habitat. This was a first-time experience for many of the learners, and they were entranced by the antics of the comical and charming birds, with their striking tuxedo markings and braying, donkey-like call – a call which, the learners were very amused to discover, previously earned them the name “jackass penguin.”
The learners were also excited to notice a few penguins brooding eggs, as well as youngsters of varying ages – from the fluffy, teddy bear-like chicks to the adolescent “baby blues”, named for their characteristic blue-grey plumage, to the patchy and moth-eaten-looking subadults in the process of shedding their juvenile fluff for adult feathers.
Cape Bird Club volunteers and Floreat Primary learners pose with the nesting African Penguin colony.
However, the penguins were far from the only attraction that Boulders had to offer, with the learners also getting the opportunity to see another charismatic and endangered bird, the African (or Black) Oystercatcher, in addition to dassies, gulls, cormorants, agamas and insects. The learners were also very excited and proud to identify the Cape Wagtails doing their characteristic tail-bobbing walk among the penguin nests.
Highlights of the Floreat Primary outing to Boulders Beach Penguin Colony
The day also provided ecological education, with the students learning about the unique biology of the African Penguin from the informational signs and pamphlets provided by Boulders, and learning about the many threats facing this endangered species – from the mass die-offs caused by commercial oil spills (and the heroic efforts by organisations such as SANCCOB to mitigate these effects), to the more insidious threats of habitat loss, guano harvesting and loss of the penguins’ prey base due to overfishing. While many of the learners were also excited to take home a piece of the beach in the form of a pebble or sea urchin shell, the learners were also taught about the importance of leaving natural habitats and natural heritage sites untouched and undamaged, with the instruction to “take nothing but photographs and leave nothing but footprints.”
In hosting outings of this kind, the Cape Bird Club hopes to kindle a passion for penguins and other seabirds among Cape Town learners, potentially inspiring the marine biologists and seabird conservationists of the future, as well as instilling awareness and concern for the many urgent conservation threats facing these fascinating animals and their marine ecosystems.
Special thanks to the volunteers for assisting with the Boulders outing, and to Kristi Rossouw for organising parental consent and transport for the outing and providing photographs.
photographs by Christie Munro.
Article by Michelle Vrettos.