I was doubting my sanity before the day had even begun…
As my family turned off the television and headed for bed at 10.30 pm, I was getting up and preparing for the day ahead. The messages starting to come through on the Whatsapp group: “Everyone up? How much sleep did you get?” “2.5 hours. Not nearly enough.” “I haven’t slept at all…” It was clearly going to be a very long day for some of our team! You may have read my recent blog post about our Cape Big Day that we attempted just a few weeks ago. That was a challenge we set ourselves to beat the record of 216 birds in a day within the Western Cape, and we also used it to raise funds for Birdlife SA. This latest adventure was as part of the nationwide Birding Big Day (BBD), held annually on the last Saturday of November. The day entails teams across SA going head-to-head to try record the most species on the day, with the only restrictions being that you may not be more than four birders, you cannot move beyond 50 km of your chosen midpoint, and the majority of your team must agree on the identification for it to be included. The event is run by Birdlife SA, who in conjunction with the free-to-purchase app BirdLasser have for the last two years made a live feed available for people to keep up to date with their favourite teams’ progress. This has lent an added “race” feel to the day, which has helped to make this past BBD the most successful yet. Over 300 teams competed in 2016, making this a huge event on the SA birding calendar. Our team was made up of Garth Shaw, Nick Fordyce, Jess Suri, and me. Together we made up Team YAB #UCTsweesmustfall. The YAB stands for Youth Africa Birding, a movement to encourage youth birding which we were representing, and the hashtag being an obvious reference to the recent protests, substituting in swees (as in Swee Waxbill) for fees. We are all UCT students (Nick is a recent alum), so we added that in as an identifier of our student status and the region we were working. Garth and I had done the Cape Big Day together, while Nick and Jess had visited me in De Hoop for BBD in 2015. Our total last year was 151 species, which was a good total, however our level of intensity was nowhere near what we intended this year. The 2015 attempt was characterized by long stops enjoying the more interesting birds and fantastic landscapes we visited, and (probably one too many) drinks in the Klein Karoo with Ronnie himself at Ronnie’s Sex Shop (if you aren’t familiar with it, Google it before you judge us!). This year was to be more in the mould of the Cape Big Day – fast-paced, relentless, targeted birding. We hoped to beat our total of 191, but really we hoped to achieve what we had failed to do on that attempt – record 200 species in a day within the Western Cape. We were limited this time round by the restrictions on search area as part of the official BBD, but as a silver lining this meant more time spent focused on birding and less in the car. Any which way you look at it, we had a monumental challenge ahead of us… We began our day just after midnight in Simonstown with a sleepy African Penguin. This species unbelievably wasn’t recorded by any teams last year, so we served some restorative justice for this iconic South African bird by making sure it was not just our first tick for the day, but also the very first bird recorded for Birding Big Day 2016 overall!
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Among the thousands of vacationers and shoppers at the V&A Waterfront this week, there has been one visitor that has really stood out. The arrival of a Dwarf Sperm Whale inside the busy harbour presents a real once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see this enigmatic and almost mythical creature. The animal has been here for around a week, and there is no telling how long it will stay, so get down there now!
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AuthorI am a birder, biologist, and nature blogger. I post about my trips, informative tidbits, and things I think are interesting. Archives
July 2017
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