Rietvlei NR - Atlasing Function

On Sunday over 40 Gauteng based atlasers and a few from North West and Mpumalanga (and John Bunnon all the way from Liverpool in England!) attended an atlasing day and feedback session at Rietvlei NR. The activities of the day included:

• An atlasing experiment - atlasers did a normal atlas list for the pentad starting at different places, times and taking different routes. It is hoped that the data collected will assist those that analyse the SABAP2 data.
• A braai - many atlasers have never met each other and it was nice to add faces to email addresses; and
• A feedback session - Prof Les Underhill gave an entertaining talk about the fantastic progress achieved this far and how valuable our data is for analysing migrant arrival and departure dates, abundance of birds and even how our data will help to better the distribution maps that appear in future field guides. It is clear that all our hard work will be put to good use.

Feedback from atlasers attending the day is extremely positive and there is clearly a need for similar outings in future.

Rietvlei NR has fantastic facilities for these sort of occasions. This lapa is only a few meters from the auditorium that can host nearly 70 people with all the facilities you might need.

For some of us it was the first time we saw Geoff Lockwood after his ordeal with a Boomslang.

Birding wise it was also a fantastic day with some very interesting birds seen. The highlight for me was a Dark-capped Yellow Warbler in the vlei area - also later seen by Rynetta Coetzee. Temminck's Courser was reported earlier the week and luckily most of us saw them in the recently burnt areas of the reserve. Other interesting birds seen on the day, that I know of, was Grass Owl, Shikra, Peregrine and Lanner Falcon, Black-chested Snake-eagles (immature and adult) and Goliath Heron.

The other highlight of the day to me was when a falcon tried to take out a Crowned Lapwing in the air - unfortunately it happened all too quick for me to identify the bird with certainty, although I am 90% sure it was a Peregrine...but the rule...not 100% sure then do not add it to your list will unfortunately apply here :-).

Anteating Chat is usually a common species in the reserve, but I only saw them at one spot during the day.

African Wattled Lapwing was seen everywhere - this one like many others walked around in the recently burnt grassy areas.

African Stone-chat is a very common species in the reserve - males and females could be seen everywhere!!