Crowned Eagle Research in KwaZulu-Natal: Happy Anniversary SA

April Settling in and one year on
On the night of the 11 th of April 2012, I stepped out into the arrival hall at King Shaka airport and shook hands with Bruce Padbury, a local falconer and raptor fundi that I’d met previously in 2010 while travelling South Africa and prospecting for research opportunities. On the drive through the city back to his home that night, Bruce pointed out into the darkness to unseen nesting sites of Crowned Eagles, three, all visible from the motorway in daylight. Today is the one year anniversary, and I feel at home. Reflecting on the year, I’ve chosen one particular topic per month. This is the 62nd blog post, having started with the Prologue back on the 2nd of April 2012. The blog has now received over 11,000 page views and the audience has a surprisingly global reach. I’m very grateful to all readers, and it motivates and challenges me to recall more events and keep thinking up interesting topics.

May First Research Report
The first few survey days were mostly just being chaperoned around the Durban suburbs and shown a dozen nest sites. This blew my mind. I didn’t expect so many, hoping maybe ten nests over two years would be a great sample for a valuable research project. Several juveniles fledged from the 2011 season were still around their home nests, and on the 15th of May, we caught and ringed our first eagle for the project, with my supervisor Dr. Mark Brown, and Natal Falconry Club committee members Bruce Padbury and Mark Wynn. Subsequently four more juveniles, one adult, and nine nestlings have been ringed.

During the following months, this particular eagle was on the receiving end of a lot of bad publicity, as it attacked several pets in the neighborhood I eventually discovered that a well-meaning resident of the reserve was feeding this young eagle. Remember everyone, with wild predators, fed = dead. DO NOT feed young eagles; it creates problems eagles that are not behaving ‘naturally’. And there are too many ignorant people out there who would shoot an overly trusting eagle given half a chance.

June SAFRING
Bird ringing is a valuable research activity, providing data on bird movements, migrations, and longevity among many other aspects. And its great fun!
I have been familiar with trapping, ringing and releasing birds of prey from previous years of research. But I was very excited with the prospect of ringing of small birds using mist nets, the diversity in South Africa is amazing. Meyrick Bowker, and more recently Dr. Mark Brown had been running a monthly ringing station at the PMB Darvil Treatment Works for many years, and it still continues today. I started my SAFRING training very soon after arriving last year, and have currently ringed over 550 birds from about 70 species. Including these and some of these too.

If you find a dead bird with a metal ring on it, or see a bird with a colour ring combination, or see a vulture with a wing tag, please note the date, location, and combination or number and then submit the data HERE. The public information on the website tells me that there are just 55 ringed crowned eagles out there. It’s a bold aim to double that number during my research.

July South African Falconry Association
Falconry is the art of taking quarry in its natural state and habitat by means of trained birds of prey, and can be traced to origins well over 3,000 years old in ancient Arabian and central Asian cultures. In December 2011 I attended the Annual General Meeting of the International Association of Falconry, which was held at the Third International Festival of Falconry in Al Ain. Thousands of people gathered from 78 countries in the largest gathering of falconers, raptor biologists, and artists the world has ever seen to celebrate the recognition by UNESCO of the art of falconry as an Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Despite a great desire to practice falconry, having dabbled here and there with rehabilitation of injured wild birds and training to release captive bred raptors, I’ve decided that my dedication currently rests with crowned eagle research; I could not do either justice if I divided my time between the two. South Africa should be especially proud of its highly esteemed falconry organisation, SAFA. The reason for me to visit South Africa in the first place, in July 2011, was to attend the 2011 field meet and see first-hand a well regulated apprenticeship scheme that New Zealand falconry could aspire to. Last year I attended both the Free State provincial meet and SAFA Field Meet, where during the AGM the committee agreed to part with a significant portion of their humble account balance to support my research.

August First Nest Camera Installed
The nest at Giba gorge was the earliest of the breeding birds last year, it provided a great lead-in to the nest camera studies. The first climb to install this camera had me very fearful of the aggression of the nesting eagles, and I kind of overdid the safety aspect with a motorbike helmet, and nearly hard-boiled my noggin. By the end of October a further four cameras were installed. Despite the fortnightly intrusion for camera maintenance visits, all five young eagles have successfully fledged. The result is the accumulation of about 20 months of data and 400,555 photos in daily time-lapse sequences, to analyse and report on diet. The last cameras were taken off the nest sites just a couple of days ago

September San Lameer Special
Nearing the half year checkpoint I was invited to the South Coast by Jacques Sellschop, who had spent many months last summer observing the San Lameer nest and raising their eaglet. Although the goal was to try and trap and ring the young eagle and observe the pair as they prepared their nest for the coming season (we subsequently returned and ringed the 2012 youngster in December). I recall it was a rather wet and grey time, and Minke and I spent much of the time supping rooibos tea, playing canasta, and staring out the rain dappled windows to a stormy sea over Marina Beach. In between rain fronts we’d almost caught the young eagle twice, but with her heightened caution and endless patience she evaded capture.

October 13th Pan African Ornithological Congress
The particularly challenging aspect with urban wildlife research is the human element. There are such a variety of perspectives from people, attitudes towards the eagles, and perceptions on the value of my research. When meeting new people we all too often get off on the wrong foot when I start talking, and recognizing my accent [sic] they respond with “so which part of Australia are you from?” But the urban public can be immensely helpful and their participation is wonderful, so I try to spread the word. This includes presentations and talks at: Drummonds Walk on the Wild Side, Birdlife KZN Forum, Birdlife Midlands, Birdlife Port Natal, Birdlife Plettenberg Bay, Birdlife Midlands (again), and Vitoria Country Club, as well as quarterly meetings with the eThekwini Municipality to report on the research progress. Upcoming presentations include the AGM’s of Drummond Conservancy, and Kloof Conservancy.

While public and interest group talks are a useful way of getting the word out to locals, the national and international scientific community shares research at a variety of conferences and symposia. In October a keen group of UKZN students went to Arusha, Tanzania to present at the prominent PAOC 13. Upcoming conferences that I hope to attend include the South African Bird of Prey Working Group conference and the Zoological Society of Southern Africa conference, and the UKZN Research Day later in the year.

[ZSSA logo]

November Mkambati Cape Vultures
Early in April 2012, just a fortnight after arriving, I was to go to Mkambati Nature Reserve in the Transkei to help Morgan Pfeiffer with her vulture research. This was the first trip to the site, and each day in the earliest twilight of dawn we paddled across the river and hiked through community grasslands to a stunning view of a breeding colony on cliffs above the Msikaba river. And I caught a bought of tick bite fever there, so… that was fun. After the first trip Morgan continued to survey the vultures breeding success on a monthly basis throughout the year. By November the breeding season was complete. Morgan’s epic planning effort came together in the successful capture of ten vultures which were fitted with satellite transmitters and wing tags. My participation in her research culminated in February with an additional mass capture , this time with 25 vultures and two teams, with all 25 wing tagged and a few specially selected and fitted with additional satellite transmitters. Some surprising results are coming from the range data coming back from the nine vultures fitted with telemetry, presenting many overnight roosting sites, and ranging patterns that easily trek to Lesotho and back within just a few days. You will see new home range maps soon on Morgans blog.

December eBirding
During the first trip to SA back in 2011, over the course of ten weeks and 7,900 km by road across the country and through Kgalagadi, iMfulozi and Kruger National Parks, I had collected a respectable collection of 356 species. My South African Year List for 2012 added 77 ‘lifers’, and while being mostly sedentary in the KZN province still managed a fairly respectable 281 species. This year I have not been particular about keeping a year list, but I have added a further four new South African species. My interests have expanded somewhat and I am starting to get very interested in being able to identify the range of other wildlife, especially butterflies and snakes.

Jan Peak season reflections
In January I sat down and reflected on the month of December. The season culminated in accessing many trees to ring the nestlings, ringing 9 of the 13, the other four being in inaccessible trees. By the height of summer most adults were not near their nest sites for long, and it becomes too hot to safety capture birds si the telemetry units are on power saving mode until next season. In the meantime, the academic aspects; writing, researching, synthesizing and analyzing is the challenging grind work. It’s taken quite some convincing myself that somewhere a lot of personal growth and skill development is embedded within!

Feb Wash up, Wrap up, and Time Out
The long field season merged directly into some long office hours in January as I tried to keep the momentum going. But that didn’t last too long before I realized there was very little steam left in the engine. It is a delicate balance between hard work and burnout. So then, time to clean the climbing kit so that it may stay strong and support me into the future. And while scrubbing and washing I took time to be grateful for each thread of strength in the rope and that I avoided any injuries for the variety of * dangers that threaten to put a rapid end to it all. After cleaning up I was ready to head down country to get a fresh perspective. My supervisor Dr. Mark Brown has moved to Plettenberg Bay to serve as Program Director for the Natures Valley Trust, and good times were had catching up while out ringing buzzards on the road, and some pretty swee waxbills mistnetted at Natures Valley. Meanwhile much of the time was spent enjoying the beach life with Minke, visiting the Kelp Gull research sites, and generally relaxing into the easy pace of the Plettatoes lifestyle.

March Reflections of New Zealand
I’ve been told its quite commonplace for us students to hit the ‘first-year blues’. Indeed a good mate from back home brightened my mood by saying ‘dude its normal to have your supervisors return a draft looking like someone has bled all over it’. Joy. So this is normal life then. Have lately been missing family, and some misperceived memories that life is all fresh air, the ocean, the forest, and relaxed times back in NZ. Usually though it’s a very selective combination of holidays and weekends. The last months in NZ were spent in limbo, and I last saw my brother, his wife, and the three beautiful nieces in February 2012. So I reflect on great times in late summer Queenstown Lakes district a few photos which describe, in some tiny way, family life back in Kiwiland.