This is a voluntary working relationship with the City of Cape Town and the Cape Bird Club since 1974.
We found a new parking area which saved us time and much effort getting to the area we are working now. The weather was sunny and a cool SE breeze was blowing and very high cloud cover making it slightly hazy. The first plants with blue flowers which caught our eyes were the Heliophia africa and they were spread over a wide area. Most of us have not seen it before and Robin the expert explained what it is.
We found plenty of copsed regrowth Port Jackson and Manatoka shrubs from the previous stems when they were cut down a few years ago. A Cape dwarf Chameleon was seen running up a stem of a Port Jackson branch as it was being cut down, so fortunately he could be relocated into a shrub nearby. There are plenty for us to cut down in this area. There is a very nice clump of shrubs which have formed a grove in isolation on the edge of the low laying wetland.
Not many flying and or crawling insects were present yet. We did see an unidentified butterfly. Saw the frogs in a Port Jackson tree as it was about to be chopped down. Robin also found one about 100 metres from these two. They have subsequently been identified as Painted Reed Frogs (Hyperolius marmoratus), which have been introduced to the area. It is the first time any of us have seen this species with this colouration, and also at Zandvlei.
The birds were not as prolific as last month. We saw 20 species.
See this link for the past reports of what we have done.
photographs by Gavin Lawson.
Gavin Lawson.
