A holiday - littorally

In recognizing that I had not had an opportunity to take a break as most do during Christmas and new year - such are the demands of a field biologist - I allowed myself to justify an 11 day respite. A holiday, even.

My co-supervisor Mark Brown, lured me to South Africa and to UKZN with an opportunity for Crowned Eagle research. I arrived in April last year, and it took all of about a month after my arrival to tell me he was to move down to Plettenberg, to start a new appointment managing the newly formed Natures Valley Trust.  Later in the year, having made great friends, I learned he would be taking with him a dear friend, Minke, starting an MSc research project on the Plettenberg Bay Kelp Gulls.

What better place to take a break. An opportunity to reconnect with Mark, to discuss my project, the progress made, and plans for the second year.  And spend quality time with Minke, to get to know her field site and to get a feel for the littoral life.

How to relax on a holiday?
Within six hours of arriving at Plett, I was to present my Crowned Eagle research to a group of 50 from the local Birdlife Club.  This was the first presentation with which to show the first results to come out of the year of research, and it was well received.
Of course, a raptor ringing trip was essential.  A 300km circuit inland and round the Garden Route National Park.  Despite over a dozen opportunities at roadside raptors, mostly of steppe, forest, and jackal buzzards, and a couple of black-shouldered kites, just one Jackal Buzzard was caught and ringed for the day. Another dawn was spent with Mark at his Natures Valley possie, ringing a few birds of the coastal fynbos.  Hello swee waxbill, a new species for me.
To know more of the demands of gull research, it was great to visit both colonies.  Robberg is the rocky headland on the south end of Plettenberg Bay, home to a sizeable seal colony, and the smaller gull colony.  And to the north of Plettenberg Bay is the Keurbooms colony, of some hundred pairs and spread across two sandspits on either side of the estuary mouth. The breeding season had all but come to an end, so no gulls were to be found that we could ring.
And most fortunately, there was an opportunity to go with the Centre for Dolphin Studies vessel, which will become some autumn work for Minke as the whale migration begins.  While no whales were spotted today, a large group of seals were found way out, feeding on sardines, and on the return trip along the surf zone a small family pod of bottlenose dolphins were spotted, surfing the waves on a remote stretch of beach.

Plettenberg Bay from Robberg

Robberg from Plettenberg Bay

Information sign at the Keurbooms gull colony

Kelp Gull at Robberg

Swee waxbill ringed at Natures Valley

the one jackal buzzard caught during our raptor ringing day

Ocean Safaris vessel

cape fur seal heading towards the sardines

The Teacher Within

This semester I have taken on a lab demonstrating role for the second year Vertebrate Biology course.  There will be a three hour practical lab every week until November, most of which, as expected for a vertebrate biology course, are dissections.  I recall that during my undergraduate year this was the one paper that I aced, and received a letter from the lecturer for that course suggesting I pursue postgraduate research in this field.  Well well well…

Our second prac held last week was the one fieldtrip for the semester.  The group of 70-something students went down to the uShaka Oceanarium for the afternoon.  I was well impressed with the facility there and they had spectacular tropical reef tanks, as well as covering a variety of marine communities.

Though I’d never seen a dolphin show before and didn’t know what to expect – sadly I could only find its analogy as the aquatic version of a chimpanzee tea-party.  Admittedly I wish I knew more about the needs required, and those fulfilled, in this environment before making such a bold statement.

It is as one of the fortunate few who has had the opportunity to interact with dolphins at various times (swimming with spinner and bottlenose dolphins in Mauritius, having Common dolphins just a fingertip away riding in the bow wave of our family boat in the Bay of Plenty, and seeing large pods of Dusky dolphins frolicking off the Kaikoura coast), that this form of entertainment is compared against.
Sadly, one naturally has a weaker emotive response looking into the eyes of an enormous ragged-toothed shark in a similar sized aquarium.

My group investigating the open ocean fishes

Pineapplefish Cleidopus gloriamaris

In the same week, I threw myself into the deep end in an attempt to assist with a school camp.  The Padbury family run the Wilderness Training Programme; adventure activities for schools and other groups such as Africa Quest.  This was the first camp run for this particular Kloof school, and for many of the school kids it was their first night.  So it’s not too surprising that keeping 83! Grade 4’s (9-10 year olds) on task and out of trouble was going to be a challenge. 

Arriving at Southport on the South Coast at midday, they started out as a most unruly bunch.  Though we kept the activities running until 9pm on the first night - finishing with 'stalk the lantern', which on a full-moon night was quite impossible for the wee grommets.

The next day we had them worked out, and it was great to end the camp with a good couple of hours on the beach.  Not common in New Zealand, but widespread here as far as I can tell, are these concrete splash pools in the upper tidal zone.  The morning was made most memorable by the two pods of (maybe) bottlenose dolphin’s cruising the surf zone, and out on the horizon one or two humpback whales performing spectacular full breaches.