Outing to Silvermine Reserve.
13 March 2020 – by Sanjo Rose.
Visiting Silvermine Nature Reserve with Floreat.
On Friday 13 March 2020 we had a splendid bird club outing to Silvermine Nature Reserve. 49 learners from Floreat Primary School attended along with four teachers. Roughly half of the learners were first time ‘bird clubbers’ but are members of the Enviro Club at Floreat. The four teachers all run the Enviro Club.
Despite being relatively warm we enjoyed a lovely ramble towards the waterfall at Silvermine (gate 2). We discussed what the term ‘nature reserve’ means, pollination and various aspects of the ‘fynbos biome’ such as finding different examples of ericas, restios and proteas. Most of the proteas had cones rather than flowers which intrigued many of the learners. We spent a great deal of time discussing how to infer what pollinates a flower based on colour, shape and size.
Birding was slow but highlights included Cape Spurfowl, Jackal Buzzard, lots of swifts and swallows as well as a lovely Booted Eagle. A confiding Cape Skink caused a great deal of excitement for one group! All in all, our SABAP2 atlas card came to 15 species. Not bad for 2 hours birding with young children in the heat!
The learners had lots of fun and engaged well with asking insightful questions. A big thank you to Anne McLeod and Gillian Barnes for assisting us with the children.
Report by Sanjo Rose.
photographs by Kristi Rossouw.
