ANNUAL REPORT
2000
AVIAN DEMOGRAPHY UNIT

© W. Leeuwner Blue Crane nest; Blue Cranes are one of the 21 species monitored by the CAR project. 14 of the 21 species fall into various threat categories

The mission of the Avian Demography Unit is to contribute to the understanding of bird populations and their dynamics, and thus provide input into bird conservation. We achieve this through mass-participation projects, long-term monitoring, innovative statistical modelling and population-level interpretation of results. The emphasis is on the collection, curation, analysis, publication and dissemination of data.

This is a report on the main activities of the Avian Demography Unit (ADU) during 2000. The Avian Demography Unit is a research unit of the University of Cape Town, within the Department of Statistical Sciences.

© L.G. Underhill, 2000 A badly oiled African Penguin; the oil is dripping off the plumage

If 1999 was the year of intense publication activity in the Avian Demography Unit, 2000 was the year of the penguin. The Treasure sank between Robben Island and Dassen Island on 23 June 2000; within three days it was clear that this was going to impact more penguins than any previous incident. The ADU became involved for academic reasons. The projects of two postgraduate students deal with the follow-up of penguins oiled in the Apollo Sea spill of 1994, and we were tasked with making sure that the correct actions were taken to ensure that follow-up studies of this oil spill would be effective. The experience of staff involved with the Apollo Sea spill was invaluable in decision-taking for this spill, and for this reason Professor Les Underhill was invited to participate in the twice-daily (and later on daily) crisis management meetings that planned the overall response to the spill. PhD student Phil Whittington was seconded to become SANCCOB statistician, doing his best to keep track of numbers of incoming birds, and MSc student Anton Wolfaardt, in his official capacity of Manager of Dassen Island, bore the brunt of dealing with the emergency there. The ADU, through SAFRING, was charged with the responsibility of getting about 23 000 penguins ringed. This was an enormous logistic challenge. The role of the ADU through the spill was to keep asking the question: "How are we going to measure the long-term impacts of the emergency decisions which are being taken?" The ADU now has a contract with WWF-SA to undertake these follow-up studies.

The ADU website, updated daily, became a major source of factual information, especially in the early days of the spill. Once media attention focused on the three satellite-tagged penguins, the progress map on the ADU website received in excess of 100 000 "hits"; the website was featured on the weather forecasts on TV2 every morning. Staff of the ADU provided large numbers of radio and television interviews, and were regularly asked to supply information to journalists. Penguins became synonymous with science, and the campaigning for the UCT Science Students' Council elections was distinctly penguin-oriented, and even the UCT input to the 2001 Science Festival in Grahamstown has a penguin theme.

The "press clippings service" utilized by the UCT Department of Communications reported that approximately 800 press clippings mentioned "research" at UCT in 2000. At least 122 (15%) of these related to penguin tracking, and the penguin story received far more press coverage than any other event at UCT in 2000.

The final version of the April 1999 workshop, hosted by the ADU, on the Population and Habitat and Viability Assessment for the African Penguin was produced by Dr Susie Ellis of the IUCN Species Survival Commission just prior to the Treasure spill. It provided a useful and important resource.

Phil Whittington and Anton Wolfaardt attended the Fourth International Penguin Conference in Chile in September, and presented papers there. Phil's travel was part-sponsored by the Cape Bird Club.

Professor Les Underhill received a "Top Ten Conservationist of the Decade Award" from the Mazda Wildlife Fund, at the convention held in Pilanesberg in June to commemorate the first 10 years of existence of the fund. Effectively, this meant that the projects of the Avian Demography Unit were among the 10 best that the Mazda Wildlife Fund had supported.

The John FW Herschell Medal of the Royal Society of South Africa

The John FW Herschell Medal of the Royal Society of South Africa, awarded to the team of editors of The Atlas of Southern African Birds, was presented at a ceremony in August. This gold medal is awarded for "outstanding contributions to science in southern Africa, especially of a multidisciplinary scientific nature."

"Peter" the penguin was one of Time magazines "winners of the week" in the issue of 31 July 2000 "for his gutsy swim from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town". The evacuation of penguins to Port Elizabeth to avoid their being oiled was rated one of the five most positive environmental stories of 2000 by the Time magazine issue of 18 December 2000.

CWAC (Coordinated Waterbird Counts)

CWAC monitors numbers of waterbirds at wetlands, through twice-yearly surveys. CWAC has formed South Africa's contribution to the African Waterfowl Census of Wetlands International since 1992, and helps South Africa discharge its commitments in terms of the Ramsar Convention. CWAC was sponsored in 2000 by WWF SA. WWF-SA undertook a review of the project, and confirmed its importance as a project for which sponsorship should continue. The Project Coordinator, Doug Harebottle, undertook a successful promotional tour of the bird clubs in the northern provinces in May. Participation and coverage of new sites has continued to grow – the number of registered CWAC sites now stands at 356, an increase of 32 since 1999. Doug is Coordinator for southern Africa of the African Waterbird Census; he participated in a meeting of the Steering Committee of the African Waterbird Census in Uganda in September, timed to coincide with the 10th Pan-African Ornithological Congress, at which he also presented a paper. Travel to Uganda was supported by Wetlands International. The volume of CWAC data is adequate to support postgraduate projects.

10th CWAC Annual Report.

© W. Leeuwner Donella Young (right) CAR coordinator

Since 1993, CAR has monitored populations of large terrestrial birds, mainly in agricultural habitats, through twice-yearly transect counts along fixed routes. Of the 21 bird species monitored, 14 are in various threat categories in the new Red Data Book. The total number of routes covered in the July 2000 survey was 324, covering 18 500 km, with similar figures for the January 2000 survey. The number of participants in vehicles during each survey was approximately 800. Coverage of most of the target area for CAR is now adequate, and further expansion will be directed into strategic gap areas. The project thrives under the dedicated leadership of Donella Young, the Project Coordinator in the ADU. During November, Donella, accompanied by Doug Harebottle, visited bird clubs and project participants along the south coast as far as Umtata promoting this project, and CWAC. Frequently, they had as many as three engagements per day. As has become the norm on these trips, enthusiasm and appreciation were enormous, especially on visits to remote areas.

All CAR counts made in 2000 were entered into the project database. All routes have been digitized into a geographical information system. Funding was secured from the Mazda Wildlife Fund for the production of a major report covering the first eight years of the project, the Mazda CAR Report. This report will be completed during 2001. The volume of CAR data has now reached the level where it can readily support several postgraduate projects.

BIRP compiles lists of bird species occurring in South Africa's protected areas. Les Underhill presented an analysis, first undertaken by James Harrison and Rene Navarro, of BIRP data to the British Ornithologists' Union/Joint Nature Conservation Committee conference Protected Bird Areas in Europe: Selection, Management and Protection in Leicester in April 2000. All presentations at this meeting were invited, and this was one of only two presentations from outside Europe. BIRP has gained international recognition through being the first project to gather statistically convincing evidence that larger species require larger protected areas to conserve them; although this is a simple and seeming self-obvious concept, it has never previously been demonstrated quantitatively.

The number of "protected areas" registered with BIRP is now 1344. The total number of checklists received to date is 16 700, with 3400 submitted in 2000, an increase of 51% compared with the number submitted in 1999. The ADU ran a "Spring Competition" in September, which successfully promoted BIRP and provided some financial support for the project.

© R.A. Navarro, 2000 Painted Reed Frog Hyperolius marmoratus

SAFAP aims to map the distributions of all species of frogs in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, on a quarter-degree grid scale. The highlight of 2000 was the exceptional summer rainfall which facilitated fieldwork, especially in the arid western parts of the country. Enormous progress was made in the field by the National Coordinator, Marius Burger (ADU), and by Harold Braack and Ché Weldon (operating from the University of the Orange Free State). The Mazda Wildlife Fund bakkie played an indispensable role in this effort. At present, more than75% of the 2000 grid cells within the three countries have been surveyed and the database has in excess of 23 000 records.

In July, the ADU hosted a Conservation Assessment and Management Plan workshop for South African frogs. Twenty leading herpetologists attended the three-day meeting, and Dr Susie Ellis, of the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, facilitated proceedings. The conservation status of selected frog species was deliberated, and priorities for conservation management were identified. At the annual meeting of the project steering committee, plans for the production of the frog atlas were taken forward. A manuscript will be produced during 2002. Mazda Wildlife Fund, WWF-SA, Total South Africa, and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism are the major sponsors of SAFAP.

SAFAP Annual Report.

One of the main objectives of the redesigned NERCS project is to enable breeding productivity rates to be estimated. 500 nest record cards were received in 2000. Of a total of 2500 redesigned nest record cards received, 2000 have been computerized. This has been achieved with the financial support of the BLSA Important Bird Areas Programme, which uses NERCS as its method of collecting breeding information. The South African Crane Working Group is planning to use the new nest record cards for its crane monitoring programme.

Two issues of Bird Numbers were produced in 2000, posted on schedule in June and December. This ADU newsletter is sent to all project participants as a way of indicating our appreciation for the enormous contribution made to the various ADU projects. Under the editorship of James Harrison, Bird Numbers is providing a valuable outlet for well-documented and interesting bird observations. Bird Numbers continues to report on ADU activities, but routine reporting is now the function of the newsletters of each project. James has successfully implemented the transition of Bird Numbers to a semi-formal scientific journal. Each issue of Bird Numbers is posted to 2500 people. Production costs are covered by the Tony and Lisette Lewis Foundation South Africa.

© L.G. Underhill Ringing workshop at Witsand Nature Reserve

SAFRING provides bird ringing services throughout southern Africa. Dieter Oschadleus, Ringing Coordinator, made further progress with the development of the SAFRING information systems. 66 000 birds were ringed in the 1999/2000 ringing year, a decrease of 14 000 from the record breaking previous year. The decrease can be attributed to the phasing out of subsidized rings for Redbilled Queleas. 19 300 queleas had been ringed with the support of the Department of Agriculture the previous ringing year, and only 2500 this year. The 1999 volume of Safring News was published, and the first of two numbers for 2000. Professor Steven Piper, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, chaired his first SAFRING Steering Committee Meeting.

The first ever SAFRING Ringers' Training Course took place in March 2000 at the Witsand Nature Reserve, between Kimberley and Upington, in the Northern Cape. A decision was taken to repeat the course at the BirdLife South Africa facility at Wakkerstroom in December. Both courses were fully subscribed. It is planned to continue running these courses until the demand for them is satisfied.

SAFRING was hugely impacted by the Treasure oil spill. 20 000 penguin flipper bands had to be sourced within a period of two weeks. Working under extremely tight time constraints, Schuurman Metal Pressings, a Cape Town engineering company, took on the challenge of developing all the technology required to produced individually numbered flipper bands in good time prior to the release of the first cleaned penguins. They undertook this project at cost.

SAFRING was supported during 2000 by the South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism, BirdLife South Africa and the Tygerberg Bird Club.

The Avian Demography Unit continued to support the Endangered Wildlife Trust's Mozambique Bird Atlas Project, which is spearheaded by an MSc graduate, Vincent Parker. The ADU's contribution is the production of checklists for the project and the curation and analysis of the resulting data. The project is planned in three phases, covering southern, central and northern Mozambique. The Portuguese translation of the results of the first phase of the project, The Atlas of the Birds of Sul do Save, Southern Mozambique, was published as O Atlas das Aves do Sul do Save, Mozambique. In 2000, fieldwork in central Mozambique continued, covering the Sofala, Manico and Tete Provinces, but was hindered by red tape and bureaucracy. The second phase of the project, of central Mozambique, commenced; by year end Vincent Parker had accumulated checklists totalling at least 20 species for 61% of the 315 grid cells in this section of the country and lists of more than 100 species for 19%. The overall plan is to publish an atlas for this region in about 2003, to move on to the third phase, northern Mozambique, and then to produce The Bird Atlas of Mozambique in about 2007, which will also incorporate additional data from southern and central Mozambique.

Mozambique Bird Atlas Report 2000.

The Avian Demography Unit continued to occupy one of BirdLife South Africa's eight pages in the popular bi-monthly magazine Africa – Birds & Birding. We are grateful both to BirdLife South Africa for access to the page, and to Eve Gracie, the editor, for her care with the layout. In addition, an interesting ring recovery is selected for each issue, and published under the heading SAFRING News in the Birding Briefs section of the magazine.

Two issues of this new series of publications were produced. The first number was entitled Wildlife of Robben Island, a 32-page A5 booklet in full colour. The second was Birds of the Maputo Special Reserve, Southern Mozambique. The series has three objectives: to provide accurate and relevant information on topics of interest to the public, especially ecotourists; to provide scientists with an opportunity to share their research insights with the broader community; and to generate some funding for the Avian Demography Unit.

Professional staff continued to undertake occasional contracts as a means of supplementing the ADU's income. These included a fifth year of bird monitoring at Blouvlei, Century City, a survey of mammals, reptiles and amphibians at the same locality, and the development of analysis techniques for processing migrant waterbird counts on the Waddensee for the Tripartite Waddensee Agreement, between Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

The Eskom Red Data Book of Birds of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland was finalised in the first few months of the year; desk top publishing was completed in the ADU by May, and the book published by BirdLife South Africa in June. The editor, Keith Barnes, is to be congratulated on producing a superb document.

In association with the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the Portuguese translation of the southern Mozambique bird atlas was completed.

The Bibliography of the African Quelea Species was completed for the FAO in Rome.

© L.G. Underhill White Stork Ciconia ciconia

In conjunction with the Vogelwarte Radolfzell, Max Planck Institute, Germany, we sought permission from the Western Cape Nature Conservation Board to put satellite-tracking devices on five fledgling White Storks in the Western Cape. This was done in early December. By year end, the birds were still at or near their nests. In early January, they started moving and one bird had reached northeastern Zambia by the end of the month. As happened with the penguins, the tracking map is updated daily on the Avian Demography Unit's website, and is generating a fair amount of media interest.

The Avian Demography Unit hosted the BirdLife International Seabird Conservation Programme for the third year in 2000, with support continuing from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds via BirdLife South Africa. The objective of this programme is a global reduction in the incidental mortality of seabirds by fisheries, especially in respect of longlining. John Cooper, the Programme's Coordinator, attended a number of international meetings in 2000, in Australia, Canada, Japan, Jordan, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States of America, receiving governmental support for nearly all of them.

He chaired workshops on seabird mortality from longlining in Hawaii and Cape Town, and gave an invited key-note address at an intergovernmental meeting to develop an Agreement for the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels in Hobart, Australia. To this end, John Cooper attended high-level meetings in an impressive array of countries. Approximately 50 articles, published in several languages in a broad spectrum of the printed media, were designed to increase worldwide awareness of the programme and its purpose.

A large number of popular articles was again published in a number of languages (including Norwegian, Portuguese and Spanish) publicising issues related to the conservation of seabirds.

The ADU's DTP team, Felicia Stoch and Marja Wren-Sargent, prepared in excess of 1600 pages of material in 2000. The ability to do high quality typesetting in house makes a huge contribution to the research output of the ADU, and the service is also used by others. The ADU is currently helping the Royal Society to get The Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa up to date. A major project in 2000, ongoing into 2001, was production of monograph on the Agulhas Current, by Professor Johann Lutjeharms of the UCT Department of Oceanography. The monograph is to be published by Springer Verlag.

© L.G. Underhill René Navarro, ADU's Web Master

A plan to expand the ADU's website was totally overtaken by the demands of the Treasure oil spill in June. SANCCOB lacked an effective website of its own, and the ADU, with SANCCOB's blessing, moved into the vacuum. Rene Navarro, the ADU webmaster, rapidly turned text and photographs into HTML files, and the UCT network proved superbly efficient in transferring information to the UCT webserver where the information was available to all. The three satellite-tracked penguins became instant media celebrities, and attracted more than 100 000 hits over a period of three weeks. The website was updated daily, including Saturdays and Sundays, throughout this period. The Treasure website has been left intact, as an "e-monument"; it still attracts large numbers of visitors, mainly from schoolchildren doing "penguin projects".

Subsequent to the spill, the website has undergone refurbishment and expansion. Towards year end, the number of visits to the ADU home page was about 1500 per month.

Rene Navarro also translated the website of the BirdLife International Seabird Conservation Programme into Spanish.

© L.G. Underhill Mazda Wildlife bakkie and Marius Burger do fieldwork for the frog atlas

The Mazda Wildlife Fund bakkie allocated to the Avian Demography Unit continued to provide excellent service. It was the indispensable aid to a large amount of ADU travel. It undertook long fieldwork trips for the frog atlas project. Other long-distance trips were by Doug Harebottle to the northern provinces, by Les Underhill and Dieter Oschadleus to the Mazda Wildlife Fund convention in Pilanesberg, by five members staff to the Witsand Ringers' Training Course. The ADU deeply appreciates the ongoing support of the Mazda Wildlife Fund, and especially the interest taken by Mr Humphrey le Grice, who coordinates the fund, and Mr Colin Schmidt, at Porters Auto in Claremont, the Mazda dealership which oversees servicing of the vehicle and keeps it in excellent running order. Besides the vehicle, the Mazda Wildlife Fund sponsors travelling costs for fieldwork for the frog atlas, and is sponsoring the report on the CAR project.

© Helen Theron Monday Paper Josh Adams, Michelle Hester, Diana Humple and Hannahrose Nevis

Professor Dr Bruno Bruderer. Director and Head of Migration Department at Swiss Ornithological Institute, Sempach, Switzerland and Zoology Department, Basel University, Switzerland – Ornithology and biogeography; radar studies on bird migration.

Willem van den Bossche. International Coordinator BNVR-RNOB, Belgium – White Stork migration and satellite tracking studies.

Michael Kaatz and Rainer Herrman. Vogelwarte Radolfzell, Max Planck Institute, Germany – White Stork migration and satellite tracking studies.

Dr Susie Ellis. Senior Program Officer, Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, IUCN, USA – Facilitator for Frog CAMP.

Josh Adams, Michelle Hester, Diana Humple and Hannahrose Nevis. Point Reyes Bird Observatory, California, U.S.A. – specialist assistance with banding of oiled African Penguins following the Treasure oil spill in June 2000.

Dr Nicholas Davidson. Deputy Secretary General, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, Gland, Switzerland – wetland conservation.

Dr Peter Barham. Department of Physics, University of Bristol, UK – new materials for penguin flipper bands.

Dr Nigel Clark. British Trust for Ornithology, UK – contracts developments.

Dr Jacquie Clark. British Trust for Ornithology, UK – Manager, Ringing Office, British Trust for Ornithology, UK.

Erni, Birgit. Analysis of distribution maps from bird atlas data: dissimilarities between species, continuity within ranges and smoothing of distribution maps. MSc, graduated in June 2000. Birgit is now doing a PhD at the Swiss Ornithological Institute, modelling bird migration through Europe into Africa.

Hanslo, Monique. Biostatistical modelling. MSc

Little, Francesca. Modelling of bird atlas data. PhD.

Oschadleus, Dieter. Biology of the Masked Weaver. PhD (on leave of absence in 2000, due to work pressures in SAFRING).

Serra, Lorenzo. Hot summers vs long journeys: adaptations of primary moult and body mass in the Grey Plover. PhD.

Whittington, Phil. Survival and movement of rehabilitated African Penguin. PhD.

Wolfaardt, Anton. Breeding productivity of rehabilitated African penguins. MSc.

In addition, the ADU provided supervision for the dissertations of three students doing the MSc in Conservation Biology during 2000. For her honours project in statistics, Audrey Pentz undertook an analysis of the beached seabird data collected by Dr Graham Avery of the South Afrian Museum. A group of three students in the honours class in the Department of Computer Science used bird atlas data for a "visualisation" project, and required extensive guidance and advice.