{"id":7907,"date":"2020-03-19T07:47:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T05:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/?p=7907"},"modified":"2020-03-19T12:01:49","modified_gmt":"2020-03-19T10:01:49","slug":"birds-practical-weekend-25-to-27-oct-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/?p=7907","title":{"rendered":"Birds Practical Weekend \u2013 25 TO 27 OCT. 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The\nBirds Practical was held at Borakalalo over the weekend 25 to 27 October 2019.\nThe team started gathering at Fish Eagle from early afternoon on Friday and\nthere were only eleven students that were able to make it. As the others,\nsadly, had prior commitments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tents\nwere erected with ease after much practice over the past months. The fires were\nprepared and lit by Rodney with his normal efficiency and all, sitting around\nthe fire, enjoyed a very pleasant evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The camp started rising from about 04h00 on Saturday, as the first \u201cbird watchers\u201d walk was to begin at 05h00. Ulrich Oberprieler and Ian Wagstaff were to be our team leads and we were indeed privileged to have two such knowledgeable people to guide us. Ulrich gave us a short introduction of the events to follow and explained that we were \u201cbird watchers\u201d as we would not just tick off the birds that we identified, which is what \u201cbirder\u2019s\u201d do but we would study the birds in some detail to gain a better understanding  of the birds and their habits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Follow\nthe leader. (Is this a common bird behavior)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group was divided into two smaller teams and off we went on foot from the camp at 05h00<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A\nWalking we will go<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two\nteams returned to camp at about 09h30, hot and tired but having identified a\ngood number of birds as well as spoor and droppings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were then\nfree until 15h00 to do whatever we wanted to. Some people went to the entrance\ngate where Quartus was able to get a signal on his cell phone and watch the Rugby\nWorld Cup game between England and New Zealand. Others listened to the game\nbroadcast on Radio 2000 under the shade of a large acacia tree<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The afternoon activity consisted of a drive out to the Klipvoor Dam situated on the Moretele river, where we identified many water birds and had sundowners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Some dam\nBirds<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our\ndrive back to camp was largely uneventful other than Ulrich stopping the convoy\nto show us a Shepherd\u2019s Bush Tree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\narrived back in camp at sunset and after freshening up we again gathered around\nRodney\u2019s fire for drinks, chatting and braaing our meals. A wonderful day was\nhad by all and most people were early to bed to prepare for the Sunday morning walk,\nwhich again would start at 05h00<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday\nmorning had us all out walking at 05h00, which was nice and cool after the\nprevious day\u2019s intense heat. The team leads, Ulrich and Ian, swopped teams and\nonce more a most enjoyable time was had by all and many more birds were\nidentified. We returned at about 10h00<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ulrich\ncalled us to a closing meeting where we proceed to do a bird count audit under\nthe guidance of Ulrich. The two teams had identified a total of 91 birds, over\nthe weekend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nclosing, Ulrich said that we had three choices now that the Bushveld Mosaic\nCourse was reaching an end. One, we could have a general knowledge of all the aspects\n(Jack of all trades and master of none), two, specialize in a couple of areas\nand lastly, specialize in a few areas for a year or two and then select a few\nnew areas. The choice, clearly is ours<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once\nagain we all had a thoroughly enjoyable and informative weekend. A big thank\nyou to Bushveld Mosaic and all involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ed\u2019s\nNote<\/em><\/strong>: Thanks\nvery much to student Peter M for providing us with a succinct report on the\nactivities of our birds practical weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Birds Practical was held at Borakalalo over the weekend 25 to 27 October 2019. The team started gathering at Fish Eagle from early afternoon on Friday and there were only eleven students that were able to make it. As the others, sadly, had prior commitments. Tents were erected with ease after much practice overRead more ⟶<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-module-feedback"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7907"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7909,"href":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7907\/revisions\/7909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bushveld-mosaic.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}