the best way to tell how birds are faring is through standardised counts of birds at the same sites year after year. In South Africa, Coordinated Avifaunal Road (CAR) counts have shown steady decreases in some large terrestrial species such as Southern Black Korhaan, whereas others exhibit regionally distinct responses. For example, Blue Cranes have decreased in the grassland biome, increased in agricultural areas of the Western Cape and remained more or less constant in the eastern Karoo.
Counts of breeding seabirds and coastal birds also show substantial changes in many species’ numbers. The recent decreases in African Penguin, Cape Gannet and Cape and Bank cormorants have attracted widespread attention, with all four species now listed as Endangered. Numbers of coastal birds have remained relatively constant overall, but there has been a marked shift from migrant shorebirds to resident species such as ibises, Egyptian Goose, Blacksmith Lapwing and Cape Wagtail.
Inland, the numbers of waterbirds at wetlands are captured through Coordinated Waterbird Counts (CWAC), but they vary greatly in relation to site-specific changes in water quantity and quality, obscuring broader-scale patterns. The BIRDIE Project (birdie. sanbi.org.za) is developing indices of change across all wetlands, but this is a work in progress.
This story is from the September/October 2023 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
This story is from the September/October 2023 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
EXPLORING NEW HORIZONS
Keith Barnes, co-author of the new Field Guide to Birds of Greater Southern Africa, chats about the long-neglected birding regions just north of the Kunene and Zambezi, getting back to watching birds and the vulture that changed his life.
footloose IN FYNBOS
The Walker Bay Diversity Trail is a leisurely hike with a multitude of flowers, feathers and flavours along the way.
Living forwards
How photographing birds helps me face adversity
CAPE crusade
The Cape Bird Club/City of Cape Town Birding Big Year Challenge
water & WINGS
WATER IS LIFE. As wildlife photographer Greg du Toit knows better than most.
winter wanderer
as summer becomes a memory in the south, the skies are a little quieter as the migrants have returned to the warming north. But one bird endemic to the southern African region takes its own little winter journey.
when perfect isn't enough
Egg signatures and forgeries in the cuckoo-drongo arms race
Southern SIGHTINGS
The late summer period naturally started quietening down after the midsummer excitement, but there were still some classy rarities on offer for birders all over the subregion. As always, none of the records included here have been adjudicated by any of the subregion's Rarities Committees.
flood impact on wetland birds
One of the features of a warming planet is increasingly erratic rainfall; years of drought followed by devastating floods. Fortunately, many waterbirds are pre-adapted to cope with such extremes, especially in southern Africa where they have evolved to exploit episodic rainfall events in semi-arid and arid regions. But how do waterbirds respond to floods in areas where rainfall - and access to water - is more predictable? Peter Ryan explores the consequences of recent floods on the birds of the Western Cape's Olifants River valley.
a star is born
It’s every producer’s dream to plan a wildlife television series and pick the right characters before filming.
