Bird ringing at Zandvlei Nature Reserve on 18 May 2002. photographs by Gavin Lawson.
Doug Harebottle started bird ringing at Zandvlei in 1999 soon after arriving to live in Cape Town.
Here are a sequence of photographs of some of the birds caught in the nets (some more than once during the same morning) and about to be released after processing the data capture information in the log book.
The nets are usually put up in the dark, before there is any bird movement or activity. So bird ringers are up early in the morning. The bird activity diminishes by about 11h00. The nets are put up in roughly the same position so that over time consistent data can be captured.
Below is Doug’s list and total number of birds ringed from September 1999 to 2004.
No. Species Total ringed
1 Cape White-eye 238
2 Cape Reed Warbler 211
3 Common Waxbill 136
4 Cape Bulbul 100
5 Southern Masked Weaver 70
6 Spotted Prinia 105
7 Levaillant’s Cisticola 82
8 Cape Weaver 47
9 African Marsh Warbler 49
10 Cape Robin 52
11 Lesser Doublecollared Sunbird 35
12 African Sedge Warbler 23
13 Malachite Kingfisher 16
14 Yellowrumped Widow 9
15 Blackwinged Stilt 2
16 Bully Canary 9
17 Water Dikkop 2
18 Whitebacked Mousebird 2
19 Barthroated Apalis 1
20 Cape Canary 1
21 Cape Turtle Dove 1
22 Longbilled Crombec 1
23 Yellow Canary 1
24 Whitethroated Swallow 1
25 European Starling 3
26 Southern Boubou 1
27 Spotted Dikkop 2
28 Pintailed Whydah 1
29 European Swallow 13
30 Brownthroated Martin 1
TOTAL 1226.
