Earthwatch 2002 Project: South African Penguins
Diary of Team 1
Thursday, 7 March 2002: Team One met at Two Oceans Aquarium at 12:00 noon. Not all arrived on time but no names will be mentioned. We had a conference lunch at a well-known water front restaurant. Then we proceeded to board the ferry but at a much later time than we had anticipated. We arrived at the island about 4:00 p.m. We were lucky to have a car waiting for us, loaded all of our food and supplies and headed to the house. We were surprised that the house was as comfortable as it is. After getting a bit organised we took a short walk up to the lighthouse and then along the south perimeter road back. We ate dinner and discussed the next day's activities and went to bed.
Friday, 8 March 2002: We got up to sunshine. We went to meet Mario Leshoro at his office, sent some emails and then we went off to look at the penguins for the first time. We walked behind the prison and down Cornelia Road to check existing tagged nests from last year. That took the morning. It was a very hot day and we headed back to the house for lunch and a break. The afternoon entailed learning a new skill; flushing the penguins to collect food samples. We set up the trap and waited in the brush until we had caught 12 penguins and then closed the trap. We collected the samples, feeling a bit guilty for depriving the penguins of their hard-earned efforts, and then let them go. We returned to home base to put the samples in the freezer, and then took a ride around the island before having dinner and retiring to bed.
Saturday, 9 March 2002: We met Mario at his office and headed to check nests along the waterfront. Today we combined nest hunting with the counting of moulting birds. There were not many active nests according to Bruce, so we had some difficulty in finding the kind of pairs that we are supposed to be tagging. The heat has some bearing on this. We walked up to Cornelia Road, where we had ended the day before, and then called it a day. We headed back to the house for lunch and some down time. Our afternoon project was to mark Bank Cormorant nests on a map for future reference. We headed out onto the breakwater of the harbour where the birds nest. Bruce drew a map for future monitoring. Afterwards we stopped at the store and looked at books and souvenirs. We returned home for a braai and then to bed.
Sunday, 10 March 2002: We met Mario and headed out to look at nests that we had marked on Saturday, looking for change-overs and trying to get our first unbanded pair, which we were happy to find. We continued tagging other nests as potential sites, which we will have to look at daily. It seems like this is going to be a long mission to accomplish since on day 3 we have only 1 nest identified and only 49 more to go. It was another hot day and we stopped by 12:30 and headed back to lunch. Afternoon was free time until 5:00 p.m. We got in the bakkie and headed out for antelope counting. We saw a total of 211 and 8 Ostrich. After we'd finished with counting we had dinner and went to bed.
Monday, 11 March 2002: At 8:00 we headed to the field for checking all the marked nests beside Cornelia Road. By each nest we reported the number of birds present, the ring number and how many eggs or chicks were in the nest. Mario helped us as he had done on the other days. At midday, we were glad to turn back to our nice, cool house because the sun was shining extremely strongly and we were hungry as well. On the way back we could check our emails at the Mario's office. We are really glad that Mario let us use his computer. Thanks a lot! After lunch and a short break we went back to work at 2:00. All we needed for the afternoon work was a pair of binoculars, a notebook and a pen. Our mission was to find as many banded penguins as possible and to write down the ring number and the contents of the nest. After 2 ½ hours number hunting we headed down to the penguin boardwalk, where we checked the nests we'd missed in the morning. Back at home, everybody did his or her own thing before we ate dinner together.
Tuesday, 12 March 2002: At about 8:20 Bruce and Kerrie went to the harbour to pick up Phil, who is going to join us for the rest of the project. Back at home things had to been organised and discussed before we went to the field. This morning, we checked all the nests that we had tagged during the previous days and looked for some other potential sites. We walked the whole area on the seaside of Cornelia Road and then went to lunch. We seem to be making some progress as we have identified almost 20 nests as either potential or definite sites.
In the afternoon, we set off in two groups to do a round-island count of shorebirds. That took us until sunset. Back at home we prepared our dinner, ate and then had the mission of washing the dishes with the low water pressure.
Wednesday, 13 March 2002: We had a late start because we picked up Les and Kathy at the harbour and dropped Bruce off, as he had to go back to the mainland. We also had to organise somebody to check the water tanks. At about 10:00, we were in the field. We showed Phil all the nests we had tagged and potential sites along the sea side of Cornelia Road. Then we went to lunch. In the late afternoon, Kerrie sat at the entrance to the harbour and counted the penguins crossing the road to the bushes on the southern side of the harbour. Phil and Marion used the telescope to read the band numbers of penguins along the shore. We worked until sunset and then came back to have dinner together with Les, Kathy and a visiting student.
Thursday, 14 March 2002: When we got up this morning we realised that it had been raining during the night. After breakfast we went to join Mario, putting on our raincoats because the sky looked very grey and rainy. We had some problem with the water this morning; it was leaking through the roof but none was coming out of the taps! Consequently, we spent a long time at Mario's office sending emails and faxes. We went to a new area behind the prison and tagged 13 potential nest sites. For future location of the nest sites we used the GPS. Then we walked along Cornelia Road where we found hardly any nests. We came down the shore side to finish locating and checking sites we didn't look at on Wednesday. We found a lot of previously marked sites that turned out to be no good. We were able to use one of our sites to place the first rubber band on an adult penguin. That made Phil very happy J. Our opinion is that it would be quite difficult to read the numbers of the new rubber bands. We had a late lunch. Then in the afternoon, at about 4:30, Marion sat and counted penguins crossing the beach road going into area AA. Phil and Kerrie read band numbers of penguins along the shore. After dinner, Marion stayed up late entering all our accumulated information onto the computer.
Friday, 15 March 2002: This morning we had an excellent breakfast. Kerry made us some French toasts. Phil left at about 8:00. He went to Mario's office were he had to organise different things. In-between Kerrie and Marion brought the dairy up to date. At 9:00 everybody was at the office. After a short email session we started our daily work. We tagged all active nests in the areas D, E, F and T for future monitoring. When we went back to lunch we'd found about 20 sites and we'd banded our second penguin with a new rubber band. What a successful morning! After lunch, Kerrie and Marion went with the mountain bikes to the sandy beach for a swim before going back to work in the field. In the afternoon we continued with the work we'd started in the morning. At about 6:30 Marion went back to enter some more band numbers onto the computer while Kerrie and Phil recorded more numbers from banded birds at the shore in area D. After dinner and finishing the computer work we went to bed.
Saturday, 16 March 2002: The beginning of the day was about the same as the other days. At about 9:30 we were in the field. We checked the potential nests behind the prison we had marked on Thursday. We added some more potential nests, wrote on all the tags the GPS numbers and entered all information unto their nest record cards. Then we went to some other places for checking potential nests we had found the days before.
After lunch Marion packed and Phil took her to the ferry. Then Phil and Kerrie drove to the end of Cornelia Road and checked several nests. They read numbers on bands until 6:30 and went back for dinner a few drinks and a good night's sleep.
Sunday, 17 March 2002: Today was our day off. The only comment worth making is that everybody finally had a hot shower.
Monday, 18 March 2002: After breakfast our first job was to look at the Bank Cormorant nests on the inside of the jetty wall. Phil numbered the nests for future monitoring.. The rest of our morning work was to locate all or as many of the existing pegged sites and to GPS them. This ended to be almost a whole day project. We didn't eat till 3:30. After "lunch" we had time for a short swim and then we proceeded to do our second antelope count. We saw a total of 196 antelopes and 14 Ostriches. We arrived back at the house at dark, had dinner, Marion did some computer work and then off to bed.
Tuesday, 19 March 2002: This morning we split up with two different projects to work on. Kerrie, Phil and Mario checked all the nests we had tagged so far as potential sites for future monitoring and Marion counted all of the moulting penguins along the shoreline north of the harbour. After Marion finished the moult counting she continued with recording ring numbers along the coast. Unfortunately Kerrie, Phil, and Mario seemed to be eliminating some more of the potential sites. But they were able to band several birds with the new rubber bands. After lunch Marion sat at the arch and counted birds crossing the main road. Kerrie and Phil went to the penguin hide and recorded numbers until almost dark. After dinner Marion entered information onto the computer.
Wednesday, 20 March 2002: Kerry treated us to French toast and sausages! Our early start was not so early, thanks to the unpredictable and temperamental behaviour of the wonderful world of computers. We spent the morning monitoring all the nests in areas D, E, F and T. These are the nests that will be used to approximate the breeding productivity of penguins on the island. Twelve additional nests were located, bringing the total number of nests in these areas to 78. While monitoring the nests in the quarry, Mario and Phil disturbed a grey, tabby cat, while Kerry came across a large Mole Snake. Marion returned to the house to start entering the nest data onto computer, while Kerry, Mario and Phil marked the new nests onto a map. We managed to have lunch by 13.30 today. Kerry left on the 16.30 boat to meet a friend on the mainland. We shall miss his company, his sense of humour and the French toast! Marion and Phil then made a final visit to the nests in the bush behind the Kramat. Two of the nests turned out to have one banded and one unbanded partner and were therefore not suitable for use in the project. We were, however, able to put the new plastic bands onto two more penguins and found two nests where both partners had metal bands. Marion brought the data entry up to date while Phil cooked dinner. Our final night on Robben Island.
Thursday, 21 March 2002: Phil and Marion tidied up and went for one more walk around the island. They came off on the afternoon ferry and were sad that the time on Robben Island had come to an end.
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