It’s time to resurrect a theme I last posted about a couple of years ago – the atlasing of bird species that lies at the heart of my birding activities as it has done for the last 10 years or more.

These tales record some of the more memorable experiences while atlasing – in this case during January 2023 while we were at our ‘other’ home in Mossel Bay. (which we now call our only home after moving permanently in October 2023)

Atlasing? 

It’s worth repeating: Atlasing is the regular mapping of bird species in a specific area called a “pentad”. Each pentad has a unique number, based on its geographical position according to a 5 minute x 5 minute grid of co-ordinates of latitude and longitude, which translates into a square of our planet roughly 8 x 8 kms in extent.

As a registered observer / Citizen scientist under the SABAP2 program (SA Bird Atlas Project 2), I record all of the species I see or hear in a particular pentad over a period which can be anything between 2 hours and 5 days, for submission to the project database at the ADU (Animal Demography Unit) based in Cape Town.

‘Home’ Pentad – Mossel Bay

Mossel Bay serves as my home pentad when we spend extended periods there and always produces a few notable sightings – this peak summer month was no different, coming up with several good sightings –

• Spotted Eagle-Owl – a regular on the Golf Estate, sometimes spending the day on a nearby garden wall as this one did

• Buff-spotted Flufftail, unlike obedient children, always heard but seldom seen
• Cory’s Shearwater, a regular summer visitor along the coast, seen several times at The Point, often in numbers, especially on the days when the south-easter is blowing strongly

• African Paradise Flycatcher along the nature trail
• Black Sparrowhawk over the nature trail
• Rock Kestrel over the fairways
• Cape Batis in dense bush along the nature trail
• And the easiest of the lot – this African Hoopoe perched on my neighbour’s roof for long enough to allow a few photos from our balcony

Rondevlei near Wilderness – 9 January

After dropping Gerda off for her 3rd chemo treatment in George and making sure she was well looked after, I had several hours of free time so bought a coffee and sandwich and headed to ‘Die Vleie’ just beyond the nearby town of Wilderness. Leaving the coffee shop, I spotted a raptor overhead which I was later able to ID as a Forest Buzzard from the hurried photos I took.

After turning off from the N2 beyond Wilderness onto the dusty access road to the vleis, I found the hot conditions were not ideal but occasional birds at the roadside got my pentad list going as I headed for the hide at Rondevlei.

I spent an hour at the hide, trying out my new Canon mirrorless camera – it still needed some tweaking of settings and getting familiar with the control buttons before I would feel comfortable with it, nevertheless I was happy with the nice sharp images it was already producing. A trio of Reed Cormorants and a handsome White-throated Swallow provided good practice

Out on the expansive waters of the vlei I could spot Great Crested Grebes among the hundreds of Coots and Cormorants, as well as a single Maccoa Duck – a first for my Western Cape list.

Closer to the hide a couple of Black-winged Stilts went about their feeding routine and as I was about to leave the hide a Black Crake emerged from the waterside reeds.

From Rondevlei I headed north to the Seven Passes Road and stopped at several ponds and dams, one of which held both White-faced and Yellow-billed Ducks.

Gouritsmond – 14 January

On my ‘day off’ from patient care I headed out along the N2 westwards then turned off towards Gouritsmond. Just after the turnoff the fallow fields were buzzing with birds and within 15 minutes I had logged 14 species, among them –

• White Storks

• Spur-winged Goose
• Kelp Gulls
• Sacred Ibis
• Blue Cranes

• Yellow-billed Ducks (in the field with no water nearby!)
• African Pipits displaying in the air before returning to their fence perch

• Agulhas Long-billed Lark calling

What a bonanza of birding!

Continuing along the road I soon added some of the other ‘field with short grass’ specials such as Cape Longclaw, Red-capped Lark and Capped Wheatear

After stretching my stay in the pentad to complete the minimum two hours for a ‘Full Protocol’ card I had a pleasing 40 species logged, so it was time to proceed to the next pentad, which includes Gouritsmond, a small town of mostly holiday homes and retirees which lies at the mouth of the Gourits River (the town’s name being the Afrikaans translation of Gourits Mouth of course).

The atlasing started in earnest once I turned off at the Boat Launch sign, along a dirt road which passes the town’s Wastewater treatment works on the way to the river edge. The treatment works attract a variety of waterbirds and in no time I had added 20 species to my pentad list, including –

• Yellow Canary

• Several ‘swimmers’ such as Cape Shoveler, Cape Teal, SA Shelduck, Red-billed Teal, Yellow-billed Duck

• Water Thick Knee

Then came the highlight of my day ….

Carrying on to the boat launch at the river, I parked near the jetty and was about to walk along the river edge when two gents approached to ask what I was doing (they had spotted my SABAP2 magnetic stickers which I attach to my car’s doors).

After giving them a short description of atlasing they invited me onto their small boat for a trip upriver where, they assured me, birds were plentiful. And so, off we went, three men in a boat, my fellow sailors introducing themselves as Chris Spies (as in Rice Krispies he said) and Johan van Rensburg.

It didn’t take long to get to where numbers of birds were resting on a sand bank and I was thrilled to spot Caspian Terns, Whimbrels – about 15 in number, Common Ringed Plover and Grey Plover, none of which I would otherwise have found.

On the way back a dead tree in the water was being used as a springboard by a pair of Pied Kingfishers, hovering above then diving into the water and returning to the perch with their catch

In conversation with Chris, it turned out we had met each other many years ago when he was an Honorary Ranger involved in Kruger Park Birding weekends, which I attended back in the 90’s – we swopped stories from those memorable weekends.

Once we were back at the jetty, I thanked Chris and Johan profusely and set off to complete the pentad along the coastal road heading west. It was less fruitful than usual, but I added African Oystercatcher, White-throated Canary and Rock Kestrel to take the card total to 41