I am fortunate to live overlooking the beach at Muizenberg, so for the first three weeks of the lockdown I spent a fair amount of time scanning it for birds for my lockdown list. Then on 20 April I was given a permit to conduct beach litter surveys in the absence of beachgoers. As a result, I was able to see first-hand how birds adapted to the empty beaches through the end of April and in May, and how they reacted when people returned to the beach in June.
Kelp Gulls are the most abundant birds on Muizenberg beach, feeding mainly on clams at low tide. The absence of people saw many more gulls roosting on the beach throughout the day. One unexpected result of this was a massive increase in the number of gull pellets, many of which contained plastic bags and cling wrap from scavenging on the nearby Coastal Park dump site. By closing the beach, we exchanged human litter for gull litter!
With the effective opening of the beach on 1 June, the Kelp Gulls swiftly returned to their old habits. Numbers on the beach decreased and roosting was confined to the more remote areas of the beach towards Strandfontein. A small number of Caspian Terns regularly forage over the surf at Muizenberg, mainly targeting mullet. During lockdown, up to 11 Caspians roosted with the gulls on the beach. And like the gulls, they stopped doing so overnight when people returned to the beach.
This story is from the September - October 2020 edition of African Birdlife.
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This story is from the September - October 2020 edition of African Birdlife.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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