Bird talk / presentation at Princessvlei 23 August 2013.

This is a working partnership with the CBC and the Princessvlei Forum.

 

23 August 2013 – The Princessvlei Forum (who were fighting to stop the proposed Mall development at Princessvlei) requested that CBC members help educate and inform the local children, from a number of schools, about the local birds of Princessvlei.
Anne Gray co-ordinated the event. Shaun Overmeyer (CBC Conservation Committee) gave a talk / presentation at the Jolly Carp Hall, Sassmeer, Retreat.

Bridget Pitt from the Friends of Princessvlei Forum asked Anne Gray via the CBC, if someone could give a talk on the birds of the vlei to about 150 school children from the Retreat and Grassy Park area.
Shaun agreed to do the presentation and talk. The initial plan was to do a walk around Princessvlei, with charts, which Shaun had made together with a competition. The competition would involve small groups going out and identifying as many birds correctly along with completing the short questionnaire. This could only happen if the weather was good.

Plan B – everyone would meet in the Jolly Carp Hall, Sassmeer Road, for a talk and presentation. There were more activities organised which the children had to participate in during the day. Plan B it was.

The idea was to give the children from Crestway, Grassy Park, Steenberg High were some of the schools represented more background information about the birds of Princessvlei. On 23 September they would be participating in a parade at Princessvlei with masks they will have made representing the birds seen there.

The comment from Shaun afterwards “It was a good opportunity to reach this new audience with birding information at Princessvlei”.
Shaun was approached after the talk by a few teachers from the different schools, requesting a similar talk at their school.
As the saying goes “Watch this space”.

There was a good turn out. Paul Hendricks from South Peninsula was driving the mask making project for the parade on the 23rd September.

Workshop packs were in evidence for the other activities later. Anne Gray made birding information available including Birds of Cape Town by Tarbotton – Z fold guides sponsored by BirdLife South Africa.

Thanks to Che Overmeyer for the photographs.

 

Gavin Lawson.