This is a voluntary working relationship with the City of Cape Town and the Cape Bird Club since 1974.
A southerly wind was blowing today to help keep us cool on this hot sunny day. The sky was blue and there were some fast moving clouds above on the peaks of the Muizenberg mountain.
The estuary mouth was open and there seemed to be a good ingress of sea water as the water level appeared to be high by the colour depth. A scout yacht was using the fresh breeze to get around a circuit in the main waterbody of Zandvlei. Below us on the sports fields there were soccer games in progress all afternoon.
Bert continued on the very steep slopes above the traffic dept. buildings cutting the port jackson and there are manatoka trees which are quite big he reports. Earlier I had given the security guard a letter with contact details to pass on to the head of the dept. explaining who we are and what we are doing. Subsequently Bert did not have any interference this afternoon while he was working there.
Barry, Robin and I continued where we left off last month with port jackson saplings and seedlings. We all noticed that the soil is very dry and the grasses are slippery on the slopes and one has to be aware of ones footing when moving about, so as to not end up sliding down the slope.
There are very few flowering plants or shrubs this month as this is the 6th month of very little rainfall. The 10 day weather forecast indicates no rain for us. Last March 2023 we had about 130mm of rainfall as an example. This March there has been about 10mm spread over a few days, which soon dissipates when the sun and the wind are present. There were a variety of grasshoppers and garden locust seen. There were no butterflies or other flying insects seen. A few millipedes were seen.
We saw 8 species of birds today the highlight a Black Sparrowhawk patrolling over the bush tops in a southerly direction.
See this link for the past reports of what we have done.
photographs by Gavin Lawson.
Gavin Lawson.
