This is a voluntary working relationship with the City of Cape Town and the Cape Bird Club since 1978.
To say the wind was pumping from the S.E would be an understatement. It was howling. It was sunny and blue with low sea spray from False Bay blowing inland, and SE clouds sailing over the mountain tops. The estuary mouth was closed and the level of water fairly high covering most of the sand bars between corners 1 and 2.
The vegetation has changed a lot since last month which had very little rain. There are no flowering ground plants left and a few shrubs flowering. There has been an increase in dumped nearby residential garden refuse in Verwood Road with a wheelbarrow trail to the slope where the compost heap is forming. The mass of nasturtiums is beside this growing heap. Very few insects were visible, only a sporadic small grasshopper here and there.
We all carried on cutting Port Jackson seedlings, saplings and trees. A few Manatoka trees were felled too. The Lantana creepers require careful systematic cutting and removal as the thorns on the stems are very unpleasant to handle as they easily break skin. Robin found a new species of Pelegonium to him for this area. I took photos of the 2 huge boulders which fell down the old quarry at the bottom of Old Boyes Drive. Also some tree stumps of large gum tree we cut down about 10 years ago, they are quite grey almost a white colour. It is always rewarding when reworking an area to see the difference we made. Peoples memories are very short these days with all the business in our lives. On our way back up the hill we saw a rain spider nest the first of this season for me.
The bird count was very low today, total 9, due to the weather conditions. The highlight was seeing the male Peacock, twice, with no camera in hand. He seems quite tame and not too skittish and was by himself without the Helmeted Guineafowl.
See this link for the past reports of what we have done.
photographs by Gavin Lawson.
Gavin Lawson.
