This is a voluntary working relationship with the City of Cape Town and the Cape Bird Club since 1978.
A southerly moderate strength cool wind was blowing today with high summer cloud surrounding the upper parts of the Peninsula mountain chain. These clouds became overcast conditions for us, although it had been sunny initially when we had started work. The estuary mouth was closed and the water level was high after the full moon this week, also tying in with the annual peak 2,0 metre high tide this month. So plenty of sea water was trapped in the estuary as per the management proxy. The sand bar is visible, there were some boys playing on it when I passed by. The Naval cadets had a sailing boat out and were practising tacking across the direction of the prevailing wind.
Bert and I carried on where we left off last month cutting down the copsed Brazilian Pepper trees and shrubs. Barry joined us which was a pleasant addition of helping hands. Bert is holding up a rooted section of Brazilian Pepper to show how they send out under ground side shoots when the main tree or shrub is cut or damaged as a survival mechanism. We got all of the trees done and found some more shrubs in a northerly direction from where we started. We also met and Zandvlei patrol volunteer along the way and had a brief discussion with him about a person sleeping in the Reserve. There are still some patches with plenty of spring flowers to be seen. We found a Num-Num shrub in flower. I dont remember one being ever planted there, so it must have grown from bird dispersed seed. The shrub is about 1.5 metres tall in amongst other shrubs.
18 bird species were seen today with the Cape Bulbul’s being the dominant numbers. There were very few birds seen on the open water.
4 species of butterflies were seen and a caterpillar of the Garden Acrea Butterfly was present on the ground. No dragonflies, wasps or spiders were present. There were a few of the biting Horse flies in places with exposed sandy patches and the ever busy honey bees.
See this link for the past reports of what we have done.
Photographs by Gavin Lawson.
Gavin Lawson.
