2 September 2009
Issue # 6

Dear hadeda enthusiasts,

With the worst of winter behind us we now face the cheerful scenario of warmer and sunnier days, at last! Although it has been a cold and rough winter, it has been a busy one for the hadeda team. In recent weeks we have visited up to four hadeda nests per week, earnestly ringing many nestlings! Since the distribution of our last newsletter (30 June) we have ringed 33 more nestlings - which brings our total ringed tally to 185 - which is fantastic! The most we've ringed in a season was 67 nestlings in 2007. Thus far, we are up to 47 this year, so only a few more to go until we've reached our record! We are also rapidly reaching the 200 mark, and hope to reach it by the end of next week.

Part of our success this season was due to an article published in the Cape Times on 16 July. For those of you who haven't read it, the article reported on the main objectives of the study and called for readers to report any active hadeda nests. The response to the article was overwhelming, and we were inundated with calls and emails regarding just about everything hadeda-related; from people's own hadeda studies to reasons why they are so loud! Once the dust had settled, we knew of 28 more active hadeda nests! So if you let us know about any hadeda nests etc. , we'd like to say a big thank you!

For the duration of this project Res has climbed many trees, whilst everyone else watches from the ground, feet firmly (and safely!) planted. It seems as though tree-climbing people are in the minority, and he's often being asked to reach high-lying nests for other people's projects. There's a couple of people in the hadeda team who are keen to put the harness on, however, so perhaps shortly you'll see them high up in the trees.

Photo: Doug Harebottle

Photo: Res Altwegg

Some nests are more 'user friendly', though, and access only requires a little bit of splashing! Here Doug is wading to a nest in Intaka Island, Century City.

We have also recently had some concerns by hadeda 'surrogate parents' on the effect of us ringing the nestlings. Bird ringing, or banding, is a common practice throughout the world, and used by (amongst others) ornithologists to study certain aspects of birds, such as survival or migration. In most countries a person wishing to ring birds would have to contact some sort of organisation that facilitates and regulates ringing within that country. In South Africa that organisation is called SAFRING (Southern African Bird Ringing Unit: http://safring.adu.org.za) initiated and run by the ADU (Animal Demography Unit) at UCT. To become a bird ringer in this country, one must undergo intensive training from a qualified ringer, and only once this person is satisfied by the trainee's progress may a ringing licence be issued. In South Africa about 70 000 birds are ringed annually. The rings used are made of aluminium or stainless steel (in the case of larger birds such as hadedas), and contribute very little to the weight of the bird. Rings confer no disadvantage to the ringed birds at all. For example, a Manx Shearwater that was ringed in 1953 in Ireland at age 5, was retrapped in 2003, making it 55 years old! A few of the birds we ringed two years ago have been seen recently, which clearly demonstrates that our ringing has no effect on the birds' survival.

There is also a misconception regarding touching the nestlings. As I was told when I was a child, and I'm sure many of you were, that touching a nestling will cause the parent to kick that particular bird out of the nest. Well, I think we've demonstrated without a doubt that that's just not true for hadedas! We've handled 185 nestlings and not one has been kicked out of the nest from us handling them. In fact, more often than not, we can see the parents coming back to feed their nestlings while we are still busy packing our things near the nest. Birds actually have a poorly developed sense of smell, and cannot readily pick up mammalian scents. Therefore, the parents would not notice any difference in the smell of their nestlings before and after we've ringed them. In this light, fears of parents kicking nestlings out of the nest due to us handling them seem unfounded. However, it should be noted that birds are much more likely to abandon nests during the early stages of development; for example nest building, incubation and hatching. That is why we only handle the birds just before they are about to fledge, when essential nest development is complete. As we've said previously; the welfare of the bird comes first. We hope that all of the above has laid rest your fears and concerns for the wellbeing of the hadeda chicks!

Hadeda "TP" being ringed on the 29th of July in Bergvliet. Here he's about 2-3 weeks old, and was very well behaved during ringing. Birds usually open their gapes when feeling distressed. "TP"s demeanour suggests he's not stressing out too much!	Photo: Mike and Cecile Lester-Olivier
Photo: Mike and Cecile Lester-Olivier	"TP" about 2 weeks later being fed by his parent. Notice how much larger he is now (No surprise because it looks like he's stealing all the food!). "TN", his sibling, looks on forlornly, waiting for his turn to eat!

Monday the 31 August 2009 marked the three year anniversary for the hadeda project! Our first ringed hadeda, AA, was ringed at Die Oog bird sanctuary on 31 August 2006. This nest is still active, in exactly the same spot, and the parents of AA are currently incubating another brood. Along with 185 nestlings, to date we know of 178 nests, 361 broods and 649 resights. So to everyone who has contributed, even in some small way, we say a very big thank you! On the topic of birthdays, wed like to say happy birthday to a hadeda who features quite prominently in our resightings hadeda JL. JL has been resighted 34 times 32 times by Jessie Blackshaw and turned one on the 27th of August. I managed to spot him on his birthday, and he was very easy to see, because he was the hadeda foraging with a birthday hat on!

So that's 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