This is a voluntary working relationship with the City of Cape Town and the Cape Bird Club since 1978.
The sky was slightly hazy with lowish wispy clouds and a light N.W. breeze blowing. The estuary mouth was open and the water level was very low with very large sand banks evident between bends on and two from the Royal Road bridge.
We carried on working on the lower slopes of Old Boyes Drive Reserve working an area which is densely populated with a lot of regrowth and saplings and seedlings of Port Jackson. Cut down Manatoka as well and there are Lantana creepers spreading and flowering which are difficult work with their thorns. We were very surprised at the variety of indigenous species flowering as well which are not long lived. A few Morea species, Wahlenbergia and Albuca were flowering. This is a transition level at this elevation and has flat areas and mountain species and intermediate plant species, so is rich in diversity. There were not many insects evident yet. The odd Cabbage and Dotted border Butterflies were flying about. There were a few very small grass hoppers moving about in the low grassy areas.
We saw 12 species of birds today. Highlight being a male and female Grassbird bringing food to a nest in low growing shrubs. We saw Cape Sparrows bring plenty of material for nest building into a shrub near Verwood Road.
See this link for the past reports of what we have done.
photographs by Gavin Lawson and Robin Burnett.
Gavin Lawson.
