This is a voluntary working relationship with the City of Cape Town and the Cape Bird Club since 1974.
The preceeding days had been cold and wet during the week. Today the sky overhead was shrouding the top of Table Mountain and part of the penisula, which put us in the shade. The sky else where was clear and blue. The wind was strong from the SE and quite cool to cold.
Barry brought Florian with his chainsaw to help cut down the aliens. This kept him occupied for a short while then he wanted to go home and watch Shaun the Sheep. They did manage to cut down some Port Jacksons.
Bert carried on down at the riverside cutting the Brazilian Pepper trees and found a monster Black Wattle with a stem diameter of 50-60cm it over hangs the water and is about 4 metres high with a canopy of 10 metres. It is starting to produce hundreds of flowers. He ring bark it as best he could and we shall see the results next month. He has opened up a section and we are able to see the water surface covered in kariba weed at a concrete stormwater outlet. This section of the Keysers River is heavily impacted by the invasive vegetation and the reedbeds. This area has not been cleared for many years.
I carried on cutting down the copsed Port Jackson saplings and pulling seedlings.
The water has dried up in the flood plain so the Grysbok midden we found earlier in the year is exposed and being used again. His hoof prints are all over the general area. Porcupines have been busy digging up all the arum bulbs and left their tell-tale signs of poo droppings where they were busy. The Chasmanthas are starting to appear with some flowering already. I found a very large cocktail ant nest in the scurpis beds (see photo).
There were not many birds seen today probably due to the weather conditions, 15 species were seen. 4 White necked Ravens flying over returning from the landfill site in Muizenberg. They head towards Constantia Neck area.
See this link for the past reports of what we have done.
photographs by Gavin Lawson.
Gavin Lawson.