Athlone Bird Count April 2015

Peregrine Falcon over the Works today.

photograph by Doug Harebottle.

Incredible how this site keeps delivering! It was windy and cool, but it turned out to be a good count with 43 species altogether and several new sightings for this Athlone.

A Jackal Buzzard, a pair of Perigrine Falcons and a Lannar Falcon were new and together with the Black Sparrohawk made for four raptors today, not bad for an urban site! Also new were the Three-banded Plover and some Cape White-eyes. And where we expected to see an African Darter for a long time, one finally was spotted today.

High numbers as usual for Hartluab’s Gull (657), Yellow-billed Duck (154) and Blacksmith Lapwing (109). The number of Pied Avocet was well down from last time, as well as for Greater Flamingo, Cape Shoveler and Black-winged Stilts. But exactly that variation in species and numbers is one of the features that make bird counts at this sewage works so interesting. Birds come and birds go…

A final noteworthy mention is for the dozen or so Barn Swallows. One would expect them to have travelled north by now, so seeing them today may mean that these are over-wintering juveniles.
All in all 43 species were reported for MyBirdPatch and 1473 birds from 25 species for CWAC.
Many thanks to Gillian Ford, Delene van Dyke and Doug Harebottle for participating this time. Also thank you to Mr Kevin van Rooyen, Manager of Athlone Sewage Works, for permission to conduct bird surveys and to Mr. Enver Manual for his support during the count.

This data is submitted to the Animal Demography Unit’s CWAC and MyBirdpatch, projects.

Counts take place on the third Thursday of every month and start at 13:00.
Anyone wanting to assist should contact;
Dick Bos on 021 423 2546 or dick@bosfoto.nl alternative bosfoto@outlook.com