30 June 2009
Issue # 5

Dear hadeda enthusiasts,

We hope this cold winter weather has not affected you too much however rainy and windy it may be. As bad as this weather seems to us (wellmost of us!) it seems great for the hadedas! It is around this time where there is a quickening in their activity, and one can readily observe them collecting twigs, rope, plastic or any other objects for the construction of their nests (even the mesh from orange bags!).

Typically, the hadeda parents will produce 2 nestlings per nest. The winter rainfall in the Western Cape means more available food within the soil which allows the hadedas to keep themselves and their nestlings warm and full enough during the cold winter months. That is why, come rain or shine, wind or still, hadedas can often been seen foraging away, taking advantage of the increased food source for themselves and their nestlings!

A hadeda parent with its two nestlings sitting in their nest. On the colder days, parents will often place themselves upon their nestlings to keep them warm. Keeping their nestlings warm enough, and full enough during the winter is testiment to what good parents hadedas are!	Photo: Bridget Pitt
Photo: Doug Harebottle	Nestling "CC" from Eversdal just after ringing. Note the mesh bags, rope and other materials used to construct the nest. Perhaps even the hadedas are feeling the recession and are using whatever they can get their claws on to construct nests!

At present we have 11 nests being built (that we know of), and 3 nests have just recently produced nestlings. Seems like the busy period is quickly upon us, and it wont be long now before we are ringing 2 to 3 nests a week! This period is a vital one for the project as we ring the most nestlings at this time. If you have a hadeda nest that has produced chicks, or are aware of any, please dont hesitate to contact us.

The summer months were a bit slow ringingwise for the hadeda project since our last newsletter (19th February) we ringed 9 nestlings, bringing our project tally of ringed birds to 152. Our number of ringed birds is steadily increasing, and theres a growing chance that youll be able to spot a ringed bird in a flock of hadedas. So please, next time you do see a flock have a look. You never know what youll see!

Since we have ringed a fair number of nestlings, and the summer months were a bit slow for ringing, we decided to concentrate on developing methods of ringing adult hadedas. Obviously, the adults are more difficult to ring because they can fly away if we get too close and so catching them presents our basic limitation. We've tried a few methods which have shown great promise, but unfortunately we haven't caught an adult yet! With a few tweaks and a bit more practice we are confident that our hard work is going to pay off soon.

Hadeda "SB" as a juvenile, foraging on a lawn near its nest in Claremont. "SB" was one of the 9 hadedas we ringed during the summer months. We have regular updates on "SB"s progress and it seems as though he is doing very well.	Photo: Sandy Wehrli
Photo: Magda Remisiewicz	Adult hadedas suspisciously eyeing out our trap in Kirstenbosch gardens. Something tells me they were on to us!

Weve had some interesting and exciting resightings recently; most notably a bird ringed in Somerset West has been repeatedly sighted in Constantia. Additionally, a bird that had not been seen once since ringing was resighted 15 months later. These valuable resights give us insight to their foraging, roosting and relocating behaviours. Thus, each resighting is valuable in itself, and so if you do see a ringed hadeda please report it.

So thats an update on the latest news of the hadeda project. Thank you all for your help and interest thus far, and we kindly ask you to please report any resightings. Also, could you please keep a special eye out for hadedas constructing nests, or tending to nests with nestlings. Additionally, please keep reporting active hadeda nests, or if you make any other interesting observations on hadedas

Regards

Greg Duckworth (Tel. 021 799 8861) Res Altwegg (Tel. 021 799 8809) and Doug Harebottle (Tel. 021 650 2330)

Project Coordinators