Hacking Team at Zandvlei Nature Reserve – January 2022.

This is a voluntary working relationship with the City of Cape Town and the Cape Bird Club since 1974.

Joh! It was hot today about +35 degrees C, with no NW breeze where we were working. We must be getting older and feeling the heat. The breeze all day has been from the NW which usually brings rain, no luck today for that to happen, just blue skies with very high odd clouds drifting by.

Barry, Bert and myself continued where we left off last month cutting down the sapling forest of Port Jackson trees. We are making a dent into the first forest. There is another forest just behind this towards Military Road which we can see and what is behind that we are still to find out as it is very dense and about 4 – 5 metres tall.

We were keeping a lookout for any insect and animal life. There were a couple of butterflies flittering past and I found a smallish Cape Emerald cicada on a stem of a sapling.

The treated sewerage water pipeline to Steenberg and Westlake Golf Courses was repaired 2 weeks after I reported it to the Manager of the Zandvlei Nature Reserve. One cane see that there is a steel frame and rubber gasket around the damaged area. From the previous leaks the pipe has no soil support under it as this was washed away. The unsupported height is about 1.5 metres. From the managers feedback the Steenberg Golf Course are responsible for this pipework and they came to repair it. I find this very unusual that a private company is responsible for “its pipework” to the Strandfontein Sewerage Works, on City owned land. The ZPAAC members will ask more questions.

Bird species seen today were very few in the area alongside the Keysers River, total was 6. They were probably being sensible and not moving around in the heat of the day. This area falls in the northern Westlake Wetlands of MyBirdPatch designated for Zandvlei.

 

See this link for the past reports of what we have done.

photographs by Gavin Lawson.

Gavin Lawson.

 

 

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