Earthwatch 2004 Project: South African Penguins
Diary of Team 7
Day 1: September 6
Beautiful sunny day. All arrived early and found each other successfully, including our hosts! Reported an injured Cape fur seal to NSRI. Lovely lunch at Rootis, even though we had to wait while they caught the fish – mussel cracker. Guava and koeksisters were enjoyed by all.
Caught the 4:15 pm ferry across to Robben Island, enjoyed the view of Table Mountain and had the requisite pictures taken! Unloaded all our gear and food onto the dock and Michael Brooks backed up the bakkie for loading. Susan and Michael drove to the house and unloaded while the others walked. Saw penguins on the way! Realised that the island is not a barren windswept rock, but rather quite a pleasant place, accommodations also better than expected.
Fallow deer, pronking springbok, rabbits, feral cats, Guinea fowl and Cape turtledoves spotted. Kelp gulls dive-bombed Christiane on her run.
Settled in and realized the cheese, dinner for tonight and a few other provisions had not made it onto the ferry, they will arrive sometime soon we hope. Rooibos tea was enjoyed by the volunteers, coffee for the staff. Leshia Upfold gave us a good intro to what we can expect for the next two weeks. An easy dinner of sandwiches.
Day 2: September 7
Another beautiful day. A rather cold night. Were joined for the day by Cornelia, an oceanography student from Cape Town University. Out for a day of searching for nests and recording activities within them. Started in Kramat area and with aid of GPS found most nests. Mario is missed since he apparently is better than the GPS! Moved to Cornelia Road and North Perimeter Road, where the vegetation was particularly lush and thick which is pretty to see but becomes rather less pretty when scrambling through it looking for invisible red and yellow tags. Removed rubber bands when found on penguins and discovered efficiency of the penguins' four defense mechanisms. Recorded metal tag numbers for re-trapping purposes wherever possible. Split into two groups. One group carried out a stock take of young birds “ …” through binoculars.
Back for lunch and check of how many nests still needed to be found, which were quite a few, all hidden by heaps of thick vegetation including stinging nettles and thorny bushes.
Diet sampling as the last task for the day. This involved trapping unsuspecting penguins between two gates on their way 'home' after their day out fishing. A long tube was pushed down their throats to fill their stomachs with sea water to spill point, whereupon they were turned upside down to empty their stomach contents into a strainer. This often rather unappetizing mixture of squid, anchovies, sardines, red eye and other unidentifiable pieces was sampled into individual bags for later freezing (at the bottom of our freezer!) and analysis.
A lovely dinner of chicken, potatoes and veggies rounded off a nice day. Early night planned for early start tomorrow counting penguins at road crossings.
Day 3: September 8
Got up VERY early ( 5.00 am) to start counting penguins at the road crossings. Not light until 6.15. It was very cold (erg koud, sehr kalt) and windy. Nevertheless almost 1,000 penguins were counted at two crossings (373 and 488). Noticed penguin crossing behaviour: indecisiveness, standing in the middle of the road, tended to cross in groups, follow the leader and waiting for friends . Stopped counting at 9.00 am. After a short meal, we went to prison for free. Received an excellent guided tour from an ex prisoner. Hopped on the bus with fourteen years old to tour on the island to see the main tourist sites. E.g. light house, moule snake at the limestone quarry, old WW II gun, shipwreck and several animals.
After light lunch we spent the spare time with hiking on the island. Back to count more penguins and surprise, surprise it was still cold (see for the Dutch and German above). (411 and 339) Home for a excellent fish and potato dinner! At the end we had koeksisters and we are awaiting a BIG party to celebrate a ( no secret) 30th birthday (old day) tomorrow.
Day 4: September 9
Another bright, sunny day, not too windy. Dieter arrived soon in morning to band Cape weavers in a newly found colony. Team split up, some to do nest monitoring and some to help with the banding. Many nests were closed. Banding was very successful, despite the late start (for banders anyway!) 8 birds were caught, 7 of which were banded by Dieter and measurements taken (tail length, feather wear, weight etc), one was a retrap – very exciting for Dieter as it was a nestling he had banded last year.
Back for lunch and all off for more banding attempts, this time in someone's backyard, but no birds were caught. Beach clean up followed, “highlights” included: a sweater, several gloves, a gumboot, parts of shoes, towel, welcome mat, and a net with lead still attached. Penguins were stopped from returning to their nests by us.
Then off for a “sun downer” on the beach, including champagne and chocolate cake (complete with candles to celebrate the birthday.
Back for dinner and data entry. Another great day (and a fantastic birthday!)
Day 5: September 10
Started the day with a nice pancake breakfast. Went to area Z to do a nest count. Started all on one line and then moved forward to count nests with penguins. After counting the nest should be marked with a cross However due to miscommunication the move forward went wrong and good complete counting of the area failed.
Picked up Vincent.
The failed count lead to a leisure morning, although Vincent set up to nets to catch birds. Other team members spent the time with reading, chatting or writing postcards. As well emails were pre pared on the stand on alone pc. To send them in the EW office took two hours….. due to speedy connections.
Excellent Hawaii toast for lunch. After a long break after the lunch went to check out the mole snake at the limestone quarry. Unfortunately no picture opportunity. Picked up some fire wood at the Robben island museum garage for the traditional South African braai. (BBQ)
Went on Game drive in the bakkie in excellent weather. (28o C) Highlights: Five ostriches and two elands. The elands were huge! And gave a excellent photo opportunity to the group.
Saturday will be a day off to spend on the main land.
Day 6: September 11
We left the PIs on the Island doing our washing and the moult count to have a nice day off on the mainland doing some touring. One team member decided to go on a wine tour and was lucky enough to spend some time, in between drinks, petting cheetah cubs. The other three went on a somewhat depressing tour of the townships. All met up at the base of Table Mountain for a cable car ride up and lunch on top. Three of us decided to hike down via Platteklip Gorge which, while quite hard on the legs, was worth it for the views of Cape Town and Robben Island. Much needed advice was given out to two foreign tourists who were attempting to start their climb up at 4pm, not realizing how long the hike was or that the last cable car down was at 6pm! Having been told to be back at the harbour for 5:40 to catch the 6pm ferry, we had time to pick up two huge take-away pizzas for dinner, we arrived at the harbour at 5:28 to find out that the ferry was actually supposed to leave at 5:30. Fortunately, we were saved by our intrepid PI who had come across to get some shopping and managed to convince the ferry that it wasn't leaving until 6:00 so we were in lots of time.
Day 7: September 12
We spent the morning looking for penguin nests at Kramat and Cornelia Road. A great number of the tags were removed thus closing the nest for the season. We then saw Leshia off at the pier and were sorry to see her leave because she has been so helpful to us. She prepared sausage rolls for us to have for lunch and they were delicious. She promises to return later in the week.
In the afternoon we all decided to do different things. There was one group who captured Hartlaub's gulls with Vincent (most successful with bait and a trap attracting many gulls, 5 of which were captured and ringed), another one who stayed at the house for awhile, another went to the beach to sit with the penguins. Then most of the group went to cut up and salvage rope and a buoy which had washed up on the beach.
Day 8: September 13
Morning wader count around the island with Vince as our fearless leader. Twenty species were found including over 5000 common terns (estimated by Vince), one South African Shelduck and a Yellowbilled Duck, a very nice hike around the island. Evening penguin road crossings were not nearly as cold as the first time, over 1400 penguins were counted at two crossings (504 and 901). One penguin lay down on the road for a while, making us think it might have died, but it managed to get up again and cross the road after one more rest.
Day 9: September 14
An early start at 6am to carry out our last penguin road crossing count, where we totalled over 1500 penguins in less than 3 hours. They seem to have lost their hesitation upon seeing us sitting by the roadside! A marvelous brunch with pancakes set us up for the final nest check, during which we closed all nests but kept the nest cards out for the ones which are meant to contain penguins with rubber bands still unrecovered. Les Underhill arrived in the afternoon to carry out his own African Black Oystercatcher census on the island in preparation for the evening's attempt to catch some of these birds. The Earthwatch team had a lazy afternoon preparing for the same, with some successful Hartlaub's gull ringing and watching penguins on the beach by others. An exciting time was had by all after sunset scrambling around the island with Les, his floodlight and net. No oystercatchers were caught, instead two juvenile blacksmith plovers, one crowned plover and a spotted thick-knee were netted, brought back to the house and ringed and measured there. Another curious observation was a number of fallow deer on the minigolf course. The evening was rounded off with Les's interesting presentation on the 2000 Treasure oil spill and the response to it to save the African penguins on Dassen and Robben Islands.
Day 10: September 15
The second attempt at counting nests in area Z was successful thanks to the GPS. A metal banded penguin was rescued from a branch where it had got stuck some days before. We transported it to the house where it was fed Darrows to rehydrate it. We are keeping the penguin in a penguin box until tomorrow when Leshia will take to SANCCOB for treatment. It already seems more lively having been given several doses of Darrows throughout the day. Another fairly lazy afternoon with visits to the beach to observe the penguins, more beach clean up, and attempts at Hartlaub's gull ringing (they are getting smart so none were caught today, although things were learned that will help to refine the capture technique). More bird ringing in the garden and trapping in the driveway, quite successful including a Cape Francolin and a Hartlaub's gull in the trap and several white eyes, a couple of red eyed doves and some sparrows in the nets.
Day 11: September 16
Leshia left on the 10 am ferry to take Penelope (our rescued penguin) to SANCCOB, she was still looking well this morning. The volunteers headed to the beach for the Bank Cormorant count and some more clean-up. Much needed showers followed! Relaxing afternoon followed by the game drive. Not much seen due to the approaching storm.
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