Yesterday marked the launch of a new e-journal , Ornithological Observations - http://oo.adu.org.za/. This journal is published online, by BirdLife South Africa and the Animal Demography Unit at UCT and is of a semi-scientific nature. It is edited by Arnold van der Westhuizen, PhD student and ardent ADU/BLSA project participant.

Its main aim is for scientists and citizen scientists alike to submit interesting observations of bird related matters (behaviour, nesting activities, foraging behaviour, annotated checklists etc.) in a reader-friendly format that is accessible to the public and the scientific community. One regularly encounters interesting bird behaviours, or nesting habits, or movement patterns  and it is these anecdotal observations which often do not get into the broader scientific and popular literature. But by getting these observations published in a short, user-friendly format they contribute valuable information to our bird knowledge base that can be used in future editions of Roberts's Birds of southern Africa. 

Submissions for OO are encouraged from southern Africa but articles and short papers can be submitted from anywhere around the world. Getting the article from submission to publication is hoped to be a quick process as papers will not be peer-reviewed but the editorial committee will ensure that a high-standard is maintained. Templates have been provided to make the writing process as streamlined as possible. And even if you do not want to write anything you can visit the site frequently for interesting reads on our birdlife.

For more information please visit the OO website. There are already two articles that can be viewed and downloaded as pdf files. These will give you a nice feel for the style and format that is used for OO submissions.

We look forward to receiving your contributions and making OO a successful media platform for birders and scientists!

One of the most recent recoveries reported to SAFRING was a White-backed Vulture. This bird was found by Themba Nkuna who wrote: “I found a dead White backed Vulture outside our White Lion Boma today (11/08/2008). I am at Hoedspruit at the White Lion Trust farm coordinates. It seems the bird might have died from colliding with our diamond mesh fence two to three days ago after being scared by lions when stealing the meat. The bird had two Yellow tags code: A028 and 027216502621 at the back of the tag. The code on the ring which was on the right foot is G 26512.  Unfortunately I didn't have a tape measure to measure the bill, feet and wing span, I believe you have that.” This vulture was ringed by Andre Botha of the EWT Birds of Prey Working Group at Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre on 29 January 2007. The vulture moved at least 28 km and this movement may be viewed here.

Not only is this vulture one of the most recent recoveries, the first birds ringed in southern Africa were vultures. 31 Cape Vultures were ringed exactly 62 years previously in August 1948. 

Vulture ring G26512 was recovered less than a month before the International Vulture Awareness day on 4 September 2010. This awareness day will focus the attention on the dire plight of many of the world's vultures and highlight the awareness and regional activities of organisations who participate in vulture conservation. Details are available on the BirdLife SA web.

Kwazulu-Natal has become the third 'larger' province to reach the 1000 pentad milestone. Of the 1296 pentads at least one card has been submitted for 1000 of these grid cells which represents almost 78% coverage in the province.

This is a tremendous effort by Trish Strachan and her KZN atlasing team and anyone else who has contributed cards from this province. Although only 296 pentads remain they are not going to be easy to get to but I am sure that Trish will be thinking up a strategy or two to get to most of these!

We greatly appreciate all the commitment and enthusiasm from all atlasers. Keep up the great work. Everyone, however great or small, is making a very real contribution to biodiversity conservation!

The 13th Pan-African Ornithological Congress will take place in Jos, Nigeria, from 14–21 October 2012. Jos is right of the middle of Nigeria, in the central highlands of the country, on the Jos Plateau. The A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute (APLORI) is located on the outskirts of Jos, adjacent to the Amurum Forest, one of Nigeria's Important Bird Areas. Two range-restricted species occur in the forest: Jos Plateau Indigo bird Vidua maryae and its host the Rock Firefinch Lagonosticta sanguinodorsalis. The area has an impressive species list, and more than 260 species have been recorded breeding within the Amurum Forest. So save the dates. Further details to follow.

Google Maps streetview has recorded weaver colonies close to roads that they photographed. One example is of a Cape Weaver colony at Rondevlei, Cape Town. Find the colony here and zoom in at the marker until the streetview appears. You can view the colony from different angles. About 13 nests are visible, but unfortunately no date is available for this record. This particular colony has been monitored since 2006 and several times photos were taken. These photos may be viewed at the ADU Virtual Museum - click on "Projects" in the menu on the left, click on the project header "Photos of Weaver Nests", then enter 70 in the "Search" box at the top to see the first record of this colony - enter any number from 70 to 75 to see all the current records of this colony, spanning from 2006 to recently.

To take part in PHOWN while atlassing or birding, read here. 

Earlier this year we registered SABAP2 as a "success story" for the International Year of Biodiversity. I have today received this email:

Dear Mr. Underhill,

Thank you for your interest in the International Year of Biodiversity.

We have successfully been able to access your website and it is with great joy that we have added your story to our "Success Stories." You can view the posting at https://www.cbd.int/2010/stories/.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or if we can do anything else.

Best wishes from Montreal,

Sara-Ann Amaya

Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, Quebec H2Y 1N9 CANADA

"Biodiversity is life, Biodiversity is our life"

The 25th International Ornithological Congress (IOC) is currently taking place in Brazil, in the town of Campos do Jordão in the state of São Paulo. One of the most conspicuous birds flying around this town is the Maroon-bellied Parakeet Pyrrhura leucotis, pictured alongside.

The six-day conference has 1200 delegates, with a total of 20 from South Africa, of whom two, PhD student Yahkat Barshep and myself are from the ADU. This is the first time the IOC has been hosted in South America. Africa had its first turn in 1998, when it was held in Durban. The IOC is the world's oldest scientific conference; the first was held in Vienna, Austria, in 1884. IOCs take place every four years; the previous one in 2006 was in Germany and the next one, in 2014, will be in Japan.

I did my presentation yesterday – it was in a symposium on climate change. A symposium consists of five linked presentations on a theme, and at any one time there are seven symposia to choose from! My talk was about the timing of Barn Swallow migration, using year-by-year results from SABAP1 (1987–1991) and SABAP2 (2008–2010). With eight years of results on the timing of departure, five from SABAP1 and three from SABAP2, there appears to be no change in when Barn Swallows leave South Africa. There are seven years of arrival results (five from SABAP1 and 2008 and 2009 from SABAP2) – tentatively it looks as if arrival is about two weeks later now. But we will need a few more years of data before we can come to a statistically valid decision.

My audience was greatly impressed by what SABAP2 is achieving on a year-by-year basis. In other words they were impressed at the achievements of Team SABAP2, and this is why our autumn and spring projects, LAMP, WHAMB, PHEAT and the current PHESTIVAL are so important – nowhere else is anything on quite the same scale as SABAP2 being done, and nowhere else is able to present crisp results. Thank you, Team SABAP2, and please keep up the great fieldwork.

Recently John Carter raised the issue of Black-shouldered Kites becoming less common in the south-western Cape. He noted that during his atlasing in the Somerset West area and surrounds he and his atlasing companions had been encountering fewer and fewer kites in areas where they regularly recorded them in the past.  

This prompted us to have a look at the range-change map for the Black-shouldered Kite. It is quite alarming to note the lower overall SABAP2 reporting rates in the Western Cape and in large parts of the Eastern Cape, Kwazulu-Natal, North-West and Mpumalanga (orange cells), areas where they were largely abundant during SABAP1. This is indicative of an apparent reduction in abundance of kites in these regions. Its stronghold in the central grassland regions (i.e northern Free State, southern Gauteng and western Mpumalanga) seem to still be intact with higher reporting rates for SABAP2 (green cells) compared with SABAP1. However, the number of orange and red cells far outnumbers the green and blue cells and gives the overall impression of a species undergoing population changes. For a full explanation of the colours used in the range change map please consult the interpretation note

The Black-shouldered Kite favours the grassland and fynbos biomes where these open habitats make it quite conspicuous and where it is often seen perched on telephone poles or hovering in search of its favoured rodent prey. The SABAP1 text states that "cultivation of large areas of southern Africa has resulted in substantial population increases, both as a result of the planting of crops and removal of woodlands". So why then are we seeing a notable reduction in numbers? Its possible that, although agriculture has been beneficial for this species, the use of pesticides may be impacting on populations.

As more data comes in for SABAP2 it will be interesting to monitor the change in reporting rates, but nevertheless the preliminary picture presented here is cause for concern.

The ADU adds value to the data collected by our citizen scientists through a chain with a series of links. The first link is to collate all the individual data contributions into a queryable database. Currently, the ADU database contains 15 million biodiversity records. The next step is to summarize the raw data into information. This information gets into the scientific marketplace as presentations at conferences and publications in journals. Most academic research stops there. The ADU tries to add another link to the chain, to make the science accessible to a far wider audience. The booklet we launched yesterday is an example of this.

The Coordinated Avifaunal Roadcounts (CAR) project involves some 700 citizen scientists counting large terrestrial birds – cranes, bustards and korhaans, storks, ... – every January and June, and mainly in farmland. James Harrison (SABAP1 coordinator) and Donella Young have taken the accumulated data through all the links of the chain, and have distilled this into the practical lessons that will help improve the conservation status of these species on the agricultural estate. 80% of South Africa is managed by the farming community, so they have a critical role to play in biodiversity conservation in the country. "The farmer is the custodian and steward of our natural wealth and heritage, and we South Africans live in the country that is ranked as the world's third richest in wildlife!" James and Donella have summarized the key actions that farmers can take into 12 ideas, the "Desirable Dozen" things "that landowners can do to contribute meaningfully to the conservation of wildlife, including large terrestrial birds, on their lands." The booklet is available as a pdf on the ADU website (at "conservation resources" on the left hand side menu), both in English: Farming for the Future (2.5MB) and in Afrikaans: Boer vir die Toekoms (2.8 MB). The booklet unpacks the concepts of the "Desirable Dozen" into practical suggestions, and discusses some of the key bird species on farmland: Blue Crane, Denham's Bustard, Southern Black Korhaan, White Stork, ...

With the assistance of McDowell Trust for the Protection and Conservation of Flora and Fauna, JAH Environmental Consultancy, LandCare and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, we have been able to print several thousand copies of the booklet on paper in both languages, and these will be distributed by LandCare to farmers in the Overberg and Swartland. The species considered in the booklet have a Western Cape emphasis, but the concepts and actions embodied in the "Desirable Dozen" have global relevance.

In support of Kate Henderson's project on the Southern Bald Ibis, we'd like to ask everyone to participate in OSBI (=Observations of the Southern Bald Ibis).

In other words, we are putting the Southern Bald Ibis on "Special Watch", so that the exact positions and groups sizes of this "Vulnerable" species can be recorded. This was in fact one of the recommendations of the 2000 Eskom Red Data Book: "Priorities for conservation action include ... ongoing monitoring of its population size and breeding success." Once we know where the birds are breeding and feeding, we can motivate for the protection of foraging habitat and the cliffs that support the breeding colonies. The current SABAP2 distribution map for the Southern Bald Ibis is here.

If you see this species while you are birding, please go to "Special Watch" on the left hand side menu, and click on "Southern Bald Ibis". On the form that opens, there are spaces to fill in the information required. There is a GoogleMap that you can zoom in on to mark the exact spot where you saw the birds, and fields where you can describe the site and provide the details of what you saw.

Kate's research is part of the Ingula Partnership, between Eskom, BirdLife South Africa and the Middelpunt Wetland Trust.

Weaver colony sizes vary between species with solitary species having 1 or 2 nests and colonial species may have over 100 nests in one colony. Single-male colonies, like Southern Masked Weavers, typically have less than 10 nests but sometimes this may be larger especially if there are more males than the usual one. One result of PHOWN (Photos of weaver nests) is having a nest count per colony. To see minimum, average and maximum colony sizes for records submitted to PHOWN click here.

While atlassing, you can look out for weaver colonies and contribute photos with nest counts to the ADU Virtual Museum. As soon as your record is accepted, the average colony sizes will be automatically updated.

The "Special Watch" feature has been available near the top of left hand side menu of the SABAP2 website for a while, without being advertized. It has been set up so that it can be activated at the drop of a hat the next time we have an irruption (like the African Openbills last summer).

There are other uses for "Special Watch", and the first of them has been activated today. Louise Stafford, the Invasive Alien Species Coordinator for the City of Cape Town, leads the development of the national plan of action for Mallards. Mallards hybridize with indigenous ducks. In South Africa it hybridizes especially with Yellow-billed Ducks, and this compromises the genetic integrity of the species. To see the current extent of the "Mallard problem" have a look at the current range map for Mallards.

What Louise and her committee developing the action plan need at this point in time is detailed information on the occurrence of this alien species. This is where "Special Watch" finds a new application. Please report the exact localities and numbers of Mallards that you encounter while out birding (and not only when you are atlasing). This mini-project is called OMA, Operation Mallard Alert.

In time, we will set up a "Special Watch" for other bird species, where collecting detailed information on the exact locations and numbers is a special importance.

The ADU will be represented by PhD student Yahkat Barshep and myself at the 25th International Ornithological Congress next week. The conference takes place in Campos do Jordão, Brazil. Yakhat is presenting a poster Non-breeding biology of the Whinchat Saxicola rubetra in Nigeria based on fieldwork she undertook at the AP Leventis Ornithological Research Institute, University of Jos, Nigeria, where she did her MSc. I am presenting a paper in a symposium on Climate change and long-distance migrant landbirds. My co-authors are Res Altwegg, SANBI, and Kristin Broms, University of Seattle, Washington, who is a wildlife statistician doing her PhD developing models which will help us analyses SABAP2 data. Our paper is titled: Variability in the timing of migration of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica in South Africa revealed by two bird atlas projects.

ABSTRACT: The first Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP1) took place from 1987–1991, and the second (SABAP2) commenced in 2007. Both projects involved large-scale, year-round collection of presence-absence data by citizen scientists: SABAP1 collected seven million records and SABAP2 project is collecting about one million records annually. Within SABAP2, mini-projects have been conducted to target the collection of high-quality data to quantify the timing of arrival and departure. This facilitates fine-scale analysis of the phenology of migration, especially in relation to climate change. This presentation provides a case study on the timing of migration of the Barn Swallow. Arrival of the barn swallows in South Africa is characterised by a steady increase in abundance with reporting rates increasing in the north of the country approximately two weeks earlier than the south, over a distance of c. 1600 km. Arrival takes place mainly in October and November. In contrast, departure on northward migration is more abrupt, with the entire area being vacated in a period of about one month, mainly in April. The data quality is adequate to enable comparisons in the timing of migration between the two projects, enabling the impacts, if any, of earlier springs in Eurasia to be measured. Our results provisionally demonstrate that the timing of departure from South Africa is unchanged, but that arrival is October-November is delayed by about nine days.

This evening SABAP2 coverage reached 43%. The total number of pentads now visited at least once is 7446 out of the 17 318 in the SABAP2 region, South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. It has taken us 30 days to get from 42% to 43%, which is a little bit longer than the average length of time for a 1% increase, which is 25 days. But, let's give ourselves a break, it has been the depths of winter, the hardest time to go atlasing.

In order to reach 50in10, 50% coverage in 2010, we have 143 days left to 31 December to increase coverage by another 7%, or 1% in every 20 days. This seems a bit of a tall order! But if we aim for 50% by the end of January 2011, it is 1% each 25 days, which probably is a bit more realistic. The only way to achieve 20in10 is for a whole bunch of atlasers to coordinate special atlasing expeditions into the big gaps, like the one which Etienne Marais led to Vryburg at the beginning of June. Several of these have already been planned; for example, there is one being led by Trish Strachen to northern KwaZulu-Natal from 24–26 September.

The 4°G project being nurtured by Etienne Marais and Roger Fieldwick is making great strides. It was launched on 6 July, so it has been running for a few days more than a month. The aim of 4°G is to get at least four checklists in every one of the 576 pentads over the four degree squares which straddle Gauteng and which include parts of North West, Free State, Mpumalanga and Limpopo (degree squares 2527, 2528, 2627 and 2628 – see this map of the region. In other words, the target is to make this entire four-degree square area green (or better) on the coverage map.

At the start of 4°G, 335 pentads already had at least four checklists, and it was going to need 496 more checklists to reach the target. A month and a three days into the project, 108 checklists have contributed to the target, the number of pentads which have turned green is 54, so that 389 pentads have four checklists or more. The number of pentads needing attention has decreased from 241 to 187. The number of pentads without any coverage has decreased from 18 to 10. The number of checklists needed to reach the target is now 388.

If you live too far from this target area to participate, please try to make a block of pentads near you turn green. Already, across the entire atlas region an impressive 2035 pentads are green or darker. The is 11.8% of all pentads. Once a pentad has at least four pentads, it is deemed to be well enough covered to be mapped on the "species diversity map" – the diversity index we are using only stabilizes once a pentad gets to about 15 checklists! But four checklists per pentad is a great target. Go for green, green for go.

Join Hanneline Smit (BirdLife South Africa Conservation Manager) and Ernst Retief (BirdLife South Africa Regional Conservation Manager : Gauteng and North West) at Wakkerstroom on the weekend 16–17 October. They will provide an introduction to bird monitoring programmes to which you can contribute as a citizen scientist. The projects covered will be SABAP2 and CWAC, the Coordinated Waterbirds Counts. The full details about the workshop are available here.

Stan Madden has faithfully organized the waterbirds counts at Blesbokspruit since CWAC started. He reports on the most recent count: "The Blesbokspruit Winter CWAC count took place on the Sunday 25 July. The weather was good for this time of the year, a real mild winter morning with no ice or frost around. Participants gathered at the Marievale picnic area at 07h30 and counting commenced at about 08h00. Teams of counters turned out from the President Ridge and Cuckoo Bird Clubs, Ann de Jager and her band of birders at the Grootvaly on Blesbok Site, and also the many stalwart birders and helpers from the Springs-Nigel Branch of WESSA. The count was a great success and a good social occasion – particularly the 'Brunch Braai' after the count was over at 11h00. This year the hot soup, provided by Chris, was really enjoyed.

"A few details follow. We recorded 12 species of duck including 4 African Black Duck and 4 Cape Teal at Grootvaly on Blesbok, and 2 South African Shelduck at Marievale. 1451 Spur-winged Geese were counted most of these, 1223, were at Marievale. Flamingos: 64 Greater and 1 Lesser at Marievale and 15 Greater and 2 Lesser at the Anglo Site. We saw 3 African Marsh Harriers simultaneously at Grootvaly on Blesbok Site and another two further south at Marievale; one of those at Marievale was a juvenile. One African Jacana was recorded at Grootvaly on Blesbok Site, and 17 Pied Avocet and 16 Black-winged Stilt were counted at the Grootvaly Wetland Reserve. There were no Little Bitterns or Marsh Owls recorded. A total of 4179 birds were recorded which is a small increas on last winter's number of 3986."

The ADU salutes Stan for his huge contribution to maintaining these regular surveyus, and especial thanks to the big teams of counters who continue to make this occasion the success it is.

Donella Young reports. Thank you to all who participated in the CAR winter 2010 count last Saturday!

Thank you very much all CAR observers who took to the minor roads on Saturday to count all the big birds visible from 350 routes in agricultural areas. There are 110 CAR routes in the Free State, 65 in the Western Cape, 52 in the Eastern Cape, 48 in KwaZulu-Natal, 27 in Mpumalanga, 25 in Gauteng, 21 in the Northern Cape and now two in North West! For a while we had only one route near Barberspan that was initiated by a farmer and is now counted regularly by field rangers from Barberspan Bird Sanctuary. Nedick Bila, Ornithologist in North West, has initiated another route this last count near Mafikeng. This means that altogether birds along 19 000 km were counted on Saturday! We appreciate all the transport costs that these voluntary “citizen scientists” contribute in gathering this information which is so important for monitoring these species, many of which are threatened. Not to mention the time, skills and energetic enthusiasm of about 800 people out counting for four to six hours! The picture shows Winterton Primary educator, Libby Irons, with learners Tiya Balakisten, Mabahle Mabaso, Tina Mostert and Eduard Niewenhuis counting on route K 11 in KwaZulu-Natal.

This must have been one of the warmest winter counts ever. Thankfully there was no rain anywhere in the country, but there was a strong wind in parts of the Overberg. Here are a few highlights. Andy Nixon leads a route between Wolwefontein and Klipplaat in the Eastern Cape wrote about "Cranes, cranes and more cranes" counted by his team of four people. "Every Blue Crane in the Karoo seemed to be on our route. We counted 421 birds in 17 sightings. There were flocks of 130, 73, 55, 46 and 25. Also another hundred or so birds in dribs and drabs. In the flock of 130 birds we also saw a very out of range Grey Crowned Crane. This is the first record of this bird in the Karoo as far as I know. We also had 14 Ludwig's Bustards, sightings of eight Karoo Korhaans and saw/heard nine Southern Black Korhaans." Inés Cooke, who organises the Overberg counts in Western Cape reported that Keith and Michele Moodie, who cycled their route, counted 1355 Blue Cranes! John Carter, who also counts in the Overberg, wrote on Capebirdnet: "We had a good count yesterday with our second best count of cranes (298) in the last 13 years south and east of Stormsvlei." Mel Tripp also wrote on the capebirdnet about his count north and west of Moorreesburg in the Swartland region of Western Cape: "Two over wintering White Storks of course is interesting, however, what was exceptional, was that on checking the SABAP2 website White Storks have NEVER BEEN RECORDED IN THESE TWO PENTADS 3300_1830 (25 cards) and 3300_1835 (26 cards) EVEN IN SUMMER and these pentads are quite heavily atlased." In KwaZulu-Natal, Gayle Ellison saw 93 Grey-Crowned Cranes on her Underberg route, while Graham Kletz, who has been doing monthly counts of his route in the same precinct was surprised he didn't see any on Saturday. This highlights the importance of counting a number of routes in an area to gather as many "samples/transects" as possible as these birds do move.

Ronelle Visagie sent me this photo of the new powerline towards the end of her route in the Eastern Karoo. Large terrestrial birds are particularly vulnerable as they aren't able to take avoidance action in time, especially when visibility is poor.

Yvonne Craig, who coordinates the Humansdorp precinct wrote "Of grave concern is the number of wind farms that have been proposed for this area. We know of nine definite applications and some of them are right in crane and bustard territory. One will lie between two estuaries, on a route used by large terrestrial birds as well as flamingos and migrants." Later this month Doug Harebottle and I will be attending a workshop organized by Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and BirdLife South Africa in response to the "need to have greater input into the planning of wind farms in South Africa if we are to ensure that the wind energy industry is not developed to the detriment of our birds." So thank you so much for being the "eyes and ears" for conservation not only on the CAR day, but all through the year. Report all powerline collisions to EWT's Wildlife and Energy Programme and Eskom Strategic Partnership on 0860 111 535 or wep@ewt.org.za

Atlasing effort in the Western Cape has progressed quite steadily and at the start of this week 8000 cards had been submitted for the province. This is the most number of cards for any province; Kwazulu-Natal is in second place with just over 6250 cards but with fewer pentads it does have better overall coverage.

There are still some critical gap areas to cover in the Western Cape but the current coverage is testament to many local atlasers who have diligently been covering their local patches on a regular basis. Going 'deep' is as important as going 'wide' and the red, purple and pink spots on the map show just how well some areas have been covered. It is these areas that are going to reveal some fascinating trends as their coverage will provide an excellent baseline from which to measure any changes in species distribution and abundance. 

But there are also some patches that now have coverage for the first time and it is great to see some expansion taking place. Well done to everyone who has made a contribution to the Western Cape atlas map. This is a great effort and we can only encourage everyone to keep the momentum going!  

The migrants arrive slowly. Therefore, SABAP2's Spring PHESTIVAL is four months long, so the spring flowers need to be everlasting! PHESTIVAL is a gentle request to all the atlasers belonging to Team SABAP2 to Please Help Establish Spring Timing, and Increase the Value of your Atlasing Legacy.

One of the legacies of SABAP1 is the database of seven million records of bird distribution; the SABAP2 database already has two million records. Most of the SABAP1 data was collected in the period 1987–1991, but the database includes compatible data from regional atlas projects from 1980 to 1992. We are mining this legacy once again, doing detailed statistical analyses to see how the timing of migration has changed between SABAP1 and SABAP2. We are delighted to discover that both the old and the new databases are rich enough in data that we can quantify the timing of migration for many species for each of the five primary years of SABAP1 and for each the three years of SABAP2. The results of this analysis, for the Barn Swallow, will be presented at the International Ornithological Congress in Brazil in August.

No one, anywhere, is collecting data on quite the same scale and intensity as we are. The fact that we can make this presentation at an international forum is a tribute to the faithful and regular contributions of Team SABAP2 to our spring and autumn migration monitoring mini-projects. Well done, and thank you. Have a great PHESTIVAL this spring.

PHOWN (Photos of Weaver Nests; pronounced "phone") is a new ADU Virtual Museum project, where weaver nests or colonies may be photographed and submitted. To take part in this project, you need to register as an ADU participant. Then find weaver nests and take photos and count the nests. Read more details about how to take part by reading here. Any weaver species (Ploceidae family) may be photographed, including introduced populations that breed naturally in the wild.

You can also take part in the other ADU Virtual Museums, all designed by Rene Navarro.

You can view submissions (without being registered) by going here. There are different search possibilities - explore these yourself! There are already 23 records of a variety of southern African weavers. The first one submitted was by Les Underhill of Southern Masked Weavers breeding on a barbed wire fence.

GOALS (=GO Atlasing and Love Soccer) is the SABAP2 mini-project for midwinter, and ends on Saturday, 31 July. Tomorrow we will announce the name of the 2010 spring migration project, which will start on Sunday 1 August!

So the next two days are our final opportunity to push the GOALS statistics along. The GOALS log at the top right hand corner of this website currently says that 400 atlasers have been players in the GOALS team. They have played 2215 games on 1397 different fields. Impressively, they have played games of 422 fields which have never been played on before. A large fraction of these new fields were played on by SPAN14 and are in the district of Vryburg in North West Province. Collectively the team have already committed 104 033 fowls into the SABAP2 database, an average of 47 fowls per game.

SABAP2 aims to be more than just a programme that maps the distribution of the birds of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. The big ambition is to grow SABAP2 into a spatial monitoring programme – this is the grand idea behind these seasonal short-term mini-projects. To try to get as much coverage of the atlas region as possible, and as frequently as possible, so that we can track changes in bird distribution through time. We are enormously encouraged by the response of Team SABAP2 to these mini-projects, which also help us get the basic mapping task done.

SABCA, the butterfly atlas, has been running a photographic competition for contributions to the SABCA Virtual Museum. This is SABCA's second VM competition. Silvia Mecenero, SABCA coordinator, has announced the winners of competition. There were three categories: entries sent from the most diverse set of quarter degree grid cells (the winner visited 120); the largest number of butterfly species from one quarter degree grid cell (winning total 101), and the most biologically interesting or unusual butterfly record – this went to Justin and Yolande Bode, for their record of Acraea horta (Garden Acraea), which shows a great example of partial melanism, an occasional finding in Acraeas. Justin and Yolande's butterfly is illustrated here. They are also bird atlasers. Second prize in this category went to another bird atlaser, David Maphisa, BirdLife South Africa employee and ADU PhD student.

Silvia says: "Please go to this link to find all the winners. Congratulations to them and thanks to everyone who entered. Thanks also to Africa Geographic and to LepSoc for sponsoring prizes."

Hot on the heels of reaching our 2 million records, we can celebrate some personal milestones with some of our ardent atlasers. Dawie Kleynhans recently broke the 500 card barrier and joins nine other people who have submitted 500 or more cards: Johan vd Westhuizen tops the list with an amazing 754 cards, followed by Stefan Theron (618), Duncan Mackenzie (602), Tim Wood (588), Jaco Jansen van Vuuren (522), Dawie de Swardt (532), John Sewards (539), Iain Guthrie (526) and Arnold vd Westhuizen (513). 

The SABAP2 team congratulates all of these top ten atlasers for their exceptional contributions to the project. It takes an enormous amount of effort, dedication and resources to reach this level and we are indeed grateful and indebted to these folk for their massive inputs which have added a tremendous amount of information to the database.

Although we have these outstanding contributions, we do acknowledge that everyone's participation, whether great or small, is important and valuable. Cumulatively, all 772 active atlasers make up what we have in the database to date and it is indeed an impressive contribution.

So, thanks to everyone for your support and involvement. Keep going, and know that your contributions are making a real difference to biodiversity conservation in South Africa. 

The paper described here is the fruit of a workshop held immediately prior to the Pan-African Ornithological Congress two years ago. Conferences bring visitors from different places together. Dr Phoebe Barnard, SANBI, took the opportunity to assemble Brian Huntley, David Hole and Steve Willis from the University of Durham in the UK, Lynda Chambers from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Lesley Gibson from the Department of Environment and Conservation in Western Australia, and a bunch of locals. We talked about new ways to model how the distributions of species might evolve and respond to climate change. Such models are useful, because they can help us develop conservation strategies that will enhance species' opportunities to adapt to climate change. A new generation of robust predictive models is needed which will improve our understanding of how species and communities might steadily respond to climatic change, or might not be able to respond. These models need to take account of the dispersive abilities of the species that form the community.

This is one of the groups of scientists for whom SABAP2 is extremely important. This is because the most crucial ingredient for their models is the best possible information on current distributions of species. Our efforts as atlasers are recognised and valued by this community: "The data requirements of such models emphasise the vital contribution made by amateurs and the general public. It is often they who have provided most of the species' distribution and abundance data over extensive regions." Ultimately, the results of this modelling feeds into policy decisions, and helps the conservation management of the species.

The paper produced as a result of the workshop was published today in the journal Ecography: Huntley B, Barnard P, Altwegg R, Chambers L, Coetzee BWT, Gibson L, Hockey PAR, Hole DG, Midgley GF, Underhill LG, Willis SG 2010. Beyond bioclimatic envelopes: Dynamic species' range and abundance modelling in the context of climatic change. Ecography 33: 621–626. You can get the pdf of the paper from me.

Silvia Mecenero, who heads up the butterfly atlas project SABCA, has just produced the midyear edition of the project newsletter.

The newsletter provides feedback about SABCA, and especially reports that the Butterfly Atlas Virtual Museum contains 13 400 records and that the project's overall database contains 400 000 records. The photograph is from the Virtual Museum; it is a caterpillar of a butterfly called the False Chief by Michael Purves, who contributed 239 records to the VM over the past three months. Images for the VM are now uploaded onto the website, and no longer get sent to the project by email.

SABCA, which expands to the Southern African Butterfly Conservation Assessement, is a joint project of the ADU with LepSoc, the Lepidopterists' Association of Africa, and with SANBI, the South African National Biodiversity Institute.

Yesterday was yet another milestone day for SABAP2. We celebrated the arrival of the two millionth record in the database. It took one year and 19 days to achieve our second million records. In contrast, it took two years to get the first million records. So the project is making steady progress. Thanks to every member of Team SABAP2.

Here are some other sparkling statistics. 3539 pentads have a single checklist and are YELLOW on the coverage map. Slighter more than this, 3788 pentads, have two or more checklists, and are ORANGE or darker. 1967 pentads have four or more checklists, and are GREEN or darker. 183 pentads are RED (25–49 checklists), 63 are PURPLE (50–99 checklists) and 32 are PINK with 100 or more checklists.

We don't really mind where the third million records are made. All are valuable. We would like to get as many pentads as possible visited. We would like to get the overall impression of the coverage map to shades of GREEN, rather than YELLOW and ORANGE, and we want a good selection of pentads with very large samples of checklists to become RED, PURPLE and PINK. We want atlasers both to go WIDE, and fill the gaps in the coverage map with YELLOW. At the same time, we also really do want atlasers to go DEEP and to increase the number of checklists in every pentad, aiming to turn their pentads one colour darker.

Today the Eastern Cape reached 30% coverage - 668 of the 2254 pentads now have at least one checklist.

Together with the Northern Cape, this province has enormous challenges, particularly the area encompassed by the old Transkei, but as you can see by the coverage map, there are encouraging signs: nearly the entire length of the coastline has been covered and there are even splashes of coverage in the interior of the Transkei; carpets are growing in a north-westerly direction from East London and northwards from Kenton-on-Sea which will hopefully meet sometime in the not too distant future, and observers are going deep in the major built-up areas turing many pentads red, purple or pink.

Well done to all atlasers in the province, and in particular Phil Whittington, Jeff Curnick, Gerrie Horn, Arnold vd Westhuizen, Gertie Griffith, Shaun Peard, Roddy Furlong, Albert Schultz and Kate Webster, for putting in such a grand effort to get the coverage to 30%. With some dedicated trips to gaps areas in the pipeline, coverage should slowly gain momentum and perhaps by the end of the year 230 new pentads would have been covered to move the Eastern Cape to 40%.

Keep up the great work!

This is the range change map for the Barn Owl. It is a preliminary indication of how the distribution of the species has changed between SABAP1 and SABAP2. Full details of the colours used are contained in the interpretation note.

The Barn Owl has a huge range, distributed in Europe, North and South America, southern Asia, Australasia and Africa. The global population has been estimated at five million birds. Up to 46 subspecies have been recognized. It is classified as Least Concern by BirdLife International .

The range change map for the Barn Owl is dominated by RED and ORANGE quarter degree grid cells. In the RED cells, the species was recorded in SABAP1 but not SABAP2. In the ORANGE cells, the species was recorded in both SABAP1 and SABAP2, but the reporting rate has decreased between the projects. There is a minority of GREEN cells, where reporting rates have increased, and a sprinkling of BLUE cells, where the species is newly recorded in SABAP2.

The extent to which this range change map is a cause for concern is debatable. In common with most nocturnal species, the Barn Owl is undoubtedly a species that is under-recorded in atlas projects. It is also a species that shows considerable fluctuations in adundance, in response to fluctuating populations of its rodent prey. But the extent of the change between SABAP1 and SABAP2 has to raise questions. Atlasers should try to be especially alert for Barn Owls and other nocturnal species.

Overall SABAP2 coverage reached 42% during the past weekend. Right now 7294 of the 17318 pentads have been visited at least once by atlasers; that means there are 10024 pentads to go. Once we have done another 25 pentads, the number left to do will be down to a four-digit number, which will feel considerable better than being at more than 10 000.

In fact, it is now not beyond the bounds of possibility to achieve 50in10; ie to reach 50% coverage while it is still 2010. Or maybe to reach it over the next six months, and give ourselves until the end of the summer holidays in January 2011.

In addition, SABAP2 has recently passed a bunch of provincial milestones. Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal passed the milestone of 75% of their pentads covered. Western Cape passed 60%. North West passed 45%. Limpopo passed 40%. Eastern Cape is closing in on 30%. We have just reached the point at which we can say that we have at least some data for 75% of all quarter degree grid cells. And 54% of quarter degree grid cells have a third of their pentads covered. It is all mouthwateringly exciting progress.

4°G is a new SABAP2 mini-project which focuses on four degree squares centred on Gauteng, the area on the map between 25°S and 27°S and between 27°E and 29°E. The aim of 4°G is to get at least four atlas cards for each of the 576 pentads in these four degree squares and to turn this entire area "GREEN" on the SABAP2 coverage map. The mini-project aims to increase coverage over Gauteng, and parts of North West Province, Free-State, Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

SABAP1 showed that there is a major discontinuity in bird distributions roughly along latitude 26°S, which runs between Pretoria and Johannesburg. The reason for this is that the boundary between the "Savanna" and "Grassland" biomes follows this line fairly closely. Thus from a biological perspective, getting large volumes of high quality for this entire area is one of the many priorities identified for intensive SABAP2 data collection. It will help us determine the edges of the ranges of many species more accurately.

Another good reason for intensive (and ongoing intensive) atlasing fieldwork in this area is that it is a centre of development. Vast areas of contryside are undergoing intensive transformation, and measuring how birds respond to this transformation provides valuable insights. This is an area where the ranges of many species are changing. Getting lots of data for this area will help us to a deeper understanding of which species are placed at risk through the transformation of habitats.

Already there are more than 7000 checklists for these four degree squares as a whole, and we want to continue to encourage atlasers in this area to go "deep" and continue to atlas their regular pentads close to home. This is a fantastic achievement. But we also ask atlasers to aim to do pentads over the next few months in the poorly covered areas within the four degree squares on the map and to help to take the 4°G project forward.

At the start of the project in July 2010, we needed only 496 cards for 241 pentads to meet the target of this challenge, to turn this area green (and darker!).

We hope that 4°G will serve to ignite similar challenges around some of the other priority areas.

The second half of GOALS has just kicked off, where GOALS=GO Atlasing and Love Soccer! How did we do in the first half, from 1–30 June? The opening days of play were characterized by some inspired footwork, when a SPAN14 team of atlasers headed off down the N14 to Vryburg and scored a vast number of goals in the Vryburg district. They got the SPAN14 challenge underway, scoring 141 checklists in 117 pentads, 113 of which were new. The team collectively accumulated a total of 5964 "fowls" of 233 species. The team must have had a lot of fun, because the most frequently committed fowl was the Laughing Dove.

In the first half, Team SABAP2 as a whole scored 1179 checklists in 870 pentads of which 282 were new. They committed an incredible total of 54 141 fowls. All these numbers will increase considerably because lots of scoring continues to take place in injury time. In the second half, from 1–31 July, it would be great if Team SABAP2 scored even better than the first half.

I atlased the pentad which contains the Cape Town Stadium this morning. It was the 16th checklist for pentad 3350_1820 so it turns Dark Blue on the coverage map. The pentad is 90% sea, but includes the coastline from just outside the Waterfront to the Sea Point Pavilion and includes the parking area at the very end of the Signal Hill Road. I was awarded 32 fowls in three hours, of which one was new to the pentad, Levaillant's Cisticola. Of the 25 species with the largest reporting rates, I missed out on only one, the House Sparrow, whereas Cape Sparrows now crop up in many places in the pentad. The total list for the pentad after 16 checklists is a rather small 77 species. But it is only as we atlas the "coldspots" thoroughly that we get to appreciate how good the "hotspots" really are.

Keep alert for the unexpected, and keep your digital camera handy!

The latest issue of the journal Ostrich, the scientific journal of BirdLife South Africa, has a paper about sightings of a Cape Gannet in Patagania, in southern Argentina, South America. A gannet in a breeding colony of Imperial Cormorants in South America sticks out like a sore thumb, but you still need to tell whether it is a Northern Gannet, an Australasian Gannet or a Cape Gannet!

Cape Gannets breed only on six offshore islands in Namibia and South Africa, and disperse along the west coast of Africa about as far as Nigeria, and along the east coast about as far as Maputo in Mozambique. But they are seldom recorded far offshore, mostly within 50 km, and 200 km is about the absolute limit. But Cape Gannets have been recorded as vagrants in Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Amsterdam Island in the Southern Ocean, Australia and New Zealand.

The moral of the story is that birds have wings and can travel great distances. So we all need to be psyched up for the unexpected, and to be prepared and able to document what we see – a digital camera can often deliver decisive identification, even if the image of the bird is tiny.

There is another Argentinean story which holds lessons for us. In the early 1980s, Barn Swallows were found breeding near Buenos Aires (yes, the same species that breeds in Eurasia and migrates to Africa also breeds in North America and migrates to South America). The Barn Swallow nests in Argentina are under road bridges. So it is not totally crazy to go in search of breeding Barn Swallows in South Africa. It is not so long ago that Phil Whittington discovered Leach's Storm Petrels breeding on Dyer Island, near Cape Agulhas. He made the discovery because he was prepared to think the unthinkable.

The full reference to the gannet paper in Ostrich is Rebstock GA, Agüera ML, Boersma PD, Ebert LA, Gómas Laich A, Lisnizer N, Svagelj WS, Trivellini MM 2010. Repeated observations of a Cape Gannet Morus capensis on the coast of Patagonia, Argentina. Ostrich 81: 167–169. The co-authors work mainly on seabirds. Ginger Rebstock and Dee Boersma work especially penguins, and the key website for reading up about their research is www.penguinstudies.org – Professor Dee Boersma is leader of the penguin research team at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. Four of the Argentinean co-authors are affiliated to CENPAT (Centro Nacional Patagónico – CONICET). Three are PhD students: Nora Lisnizer's project is "Population dynamics of the Kelp Gull Larus dominicanus along the Patagonian Coast", Laura Agüero's is "Population size and distribution of the Chubut Steamer Duck Tachyeres leucocephalus in Patagonia, and Agustina Gómez Laich's is "Pelagic ecology and diving behaviour of the Imperial Cormorant Phalacrocorax atriceps through the use of high resolution remote sensing device." Post Doctoral fellow Walter Svagelj is looking at "The Seasonal decline in the breeding success of the Imperial Cormorant Phalacrocorax atriceps based on an ecological-experimental approach." Luis Ebert, Centro Universitário Leonardo Da Vinci, does research on seabird ecology in Brazil, especially the relationship between Kelp Gulls and fisheries along the Santa Catarina coast. Magdalena Trivellini is finishing her undergraduate studies at the Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco in Argentina. She is currently studying nest defence in the Imperial Cormorant from a life history perspective.

Today, 23 June 2010, it is 10 years since we were struck by the Treasure oil spill. We have left the ADU's website which dealt with these events intact, and we invite everyone to revisit the website, and to be reminded of the drama of that event. Some 18 000 penguins were oiled, and some 15 000 clean penguins were evacuated to Port Elizabeth. Three of them were fitted with satellite tracking devices. These three penguins were called Peter, Pamela and Percy, and you can follow their epic journey in the picture above.

This range change map is for the Blue Crane, and focuses on two regions where the species is known to be increasing, the Overberg and Swartland districts of the Western Cape. Each square is a quarter degree grid cell, as used for SABAP1. The number in the top of each square is the reporting rate from SABAP1. The lower number in each square is the SABAP2 reporting rate, calculated by pooling together all the checklists received so far for pentads in that quarter degree grid cell. The reporting is the ratio (number of checklists with the species)/(total number of checklists).

The dominant colour in this map is green. In these cells, the SABAP2 reporting rate is larger than the SABAP1 reporting rate. Often, it is far larger. In the Swartland, on the west coast, there are cells where the reporting rate has increased from below 5% to above 30%. In the cells coloured blue, the species was not recorded in SABAP1 but has been recorded in SABAP2. So the range has continued to expand. The ADU's CAR project, which is based on actual counts of Blue Cranes, shows large increases in the abundance of this species across the Swartland and Overberg, and it is pleasing that SABAP2, which is based only on records of the presence or absence of species in a checklist, is able to show the same patterns.

In the orange cells, the SABAP2 reporting rates are lower than the SABAP1 reporting rates. But in almost every case, the change is small. It is therefore unlikely that the abundance of Blue Cranes in these cells has really decreased. There are seven red cells in which Blue Cranes were reported in SABAP1, but not yet in SABAP2. In all except one, the SABAP1 reporting rate was less than 5%. The one with a reporting rate of 14.1% was quarter degree grid cell 3321CD (Sandkraal), and there were only seven SABAP1 checklists, with Blue Crane reported on one (and 1/7=14.1%). There are only three SABAP2 checklists for this cell so far, and all are for only one of the nine pentads within the cell. The bottom line is that, for these comparisons to be really strong, we need lots and lots more checklists for SABAP2 pentads!

Sadly, the overall picture for Blue Crane is not as good as it is in the Overberg and Swartland, and the reporting rates across the northern provinces of South Africa mainly show declines. We will put the range change map for the entire SABAP2 region onto the website soon.

SABAP2 observers equalled the record time of 13 days to get from 40% coverage to 41% coverage. The last time coverage increased by 1% in 13 days was in January 2009, when coverage increased from 18% to 19%. But in those days it was far easier to get a 1% increase in coverage, because there were lots of unatlased pentads within easy striking distance of almost any observer. The project's own success has meant that this has changed – for most atlasers, unatlased pentads are pretty remote.

The main reason why we did this 1% so fast is due to the amazing SPAN14 expedition to the Vryburg district. Getting a 1% increase in coverage requires that yet another 173 pentads get first-time visits. This time, 113 of these were done by the SPAN14 expedition. This expedition-style approach to expanding the SABAP2 coverage looks like it is set to make a decisive contribution to increasing the coverage statistic. The picture shows "Team Mahindra" at the Vryburg SPAN14 weekend. Anthony Paton is fastening his bike to the top of the vehicle after doing a "low carbon-footprint" pentad, while Ida Nel looks for a few more species for the checklist for different pentad.

This is the first range-change map for a migrant wader. Little Stints breed in the Eurasian Arctic, in a very narrow zone, called Arctic Tundra. The core of their distribution is in the Taimyr Peninsula in far northern Siberia, but it stretches as far west as Norway and as far east as Chukotsky in the extreme east of Russia. Most Little Stints migrate to Africa for the non-breeding season. The tundra in general, and Arctic Tundra in particular is a habitat threatened by climate change. If the impact of climate change is to reduce the breeding success and ultimately the size of the population of Little Stints, we would anticipate this to be detected soonest at the southern end of the migration range, ie in southern Africa. If the population of Little Stints is smaller, then, everything else remaining the same, the number of wetlands they need is reduced. If they fill the wetlands from the north to the south, then the wetlands that will tend to be left unoccupied will be the ones farthest south, in southern Africa.

Thus the range-change map for the Little Stint is an alarming one, because it shows a predominance of red quarter degree grid cells, where the species was recorded in SABAP1, but not yet in SABAP2. The map needs to interpreted with caution though; at least some of the red cells will be places which have only been visited in winter, when Little Stints are away breeding. This is an example of a species for which a more detailed seasonal analysis needs to be made before conclusions are drawn. And the wetland count data of the CWAC project needs to be consulted as well. The colours used in the range change map are explained in the interpretation note.

Here are the "before" and "after" coverage maps for North West Province where the SPAN14 expedition to Vryburg took place last weekend. The first map shows coverage last Thursday evening, 3 June 2010, and the second map shows the coverage at 09h00 today, Wednesday morning, six days later. Last Thursday evening, 548 pentads in North West had been visited, 36.9% of the 1485 pentads in the province. On Wednesday morning, this figure already stands at 637 pentads, 42.9%, and will increase to over 44% as the remaining checklists are submitted. Well done to the team of atlasers who worked so hard over the weekend for going the extra mile and getting the bulk of the data into the system so promptly.

The greater significance of this endeavour, and the reason why it is so biologically important, relates to an analysis made of the SABAP1 data by Francesca Little in her PhD. Francesca looked at the parts of southern Africa were species turnover was largest. One of the key areas identified is precisely the axis along which the N14 runs, the national road from Springbok to Pretoria – hence SPAN14, Springbok to Pretoria Atlas along the N14. In other words, of the species which occur along this axis, disproportionately many are coming to the ends/starts of their ranges. It is important to document the ends of these ranges now, to compare them with SABAP1 data, and to act as a baseline against which to measure future change.

Jeannie Hayward and Anita Meyer are leading the Boland project for The Cape Leopard Trust. They have camera traps scattered all over the Limietberg area in the mountains north and south of Bains Kloof between Wellington and Ceres. Last night they emailed me this picture, of a Jackal Buzzard – this bird took a picture of itself by passing in front of a camera trip in "Happy Valley" near the top of Bains Kloof, and its movement triggered the camera. This is an additional species for the pentad, and has been included in the SABAP2 database as an "incidental record" for pentad 3335_1905, a mountainous area with only three checklists and 44 species so far – so the traffic is in two-directions, not only are the atlasers on the lookout for leopard sightings for the Cape Leopard Trust, but they are also providing bird sightings for SABAP2.

Last year, 2009, World Oceans Day was celebrated officially for the first time. The opening paragraphs of the statement by the Secretary-General of the United Nations were as follows: "The first observance of World Oceans Day allows us to highlight the many ways in which oceans contribute to society. It is also an opportunity to recognize the considerable challenges we face in maintaining their capacity to regulate the global climate, supply essential ecosystem services and provide sustainable livelihoods and safe recreation.

"Human activities are taking a terrible toll on the world's oceans and seas. Vulnerable marine ecosystems, such as corals, and important fisheries are being damaged by over-exploitation, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, destructive fishing practices, invasive alien species and marine pollution, especially from land-based sources. Increased sea temperatures, sea-level rise and ocean acidification caused by climate change pose a further threat to marine life, coastal and island communities and national economies."

Fifteen species of seabirds breed in southern Africa. Seven of them are endemic to southern Africa as species – African Penguin, "Endangered", Cape Gannet "Vulnerable", Cape Cormorant "Vulnerable", Bank Cormorant "Endangered", Crowned Cormorant "Least concern", Hartlaub's Gull "Least concern" and Damara Tern "Near-threatened". Two are endemic to the region as subspecies – Kelp Gull and Swift Tern, both "Least concern". The populations in southern Africa of two of the other species are small and isolated – Leach's Storm Petrel and Roseate Tern, both "Regionally Endangered". The remaining four species are Great White Pelican and Caspian Tern, both "Near-threatened", and White-breasted Cormorant and Grey-headed Gull, both "Least concern". So nine of the 15 species are in threat categories, making seabirds one of the groups of birds most in need of conservation action. The most recent of the conservation status of the region's seabirds was made in 2007, and the pdf of the report can be downloaded.

At the BirdLife South Africa awards event last week, Ernst Retief (on the left) was the recipient of an Owl Award, presented by Peter Sullivan (on the right). Ernst has been a passionate supporter of SABAP2, and has borne the brunt of running workshops for the project up and down South Africa this year. Mark Anderson, Executive Director of BirdLife South Africa, says: "Ernst has been an avid supporter of BirdLife South Africa for many years, in various capacities on BirdLife Northern Gauteng's committee. During the past three years he has been actively involved in the SABAP2 project, not only as an atlaser, but also as an staunch advocate of the project, and as a member of its Steering Committee. He is a very knowledge bird-watcher; his intimate knowledge of birding in Gauteng has been documented in a number of Gauteng Birding Route texts. More recently, Ernst has become involved as a volunteer in BirdLife South Africa's Important Bird Area Programme. He has contributed to the prioritization process and to setting up webpages to make information about the IBA Programme accessible to bird-watchers and conservationists." Well done, Ernst, and well deserved.

With all the attention given to soccer in June and July, remember the SABAP2 mini-project for these two months this year called GOALS – GO Atlasing and Love Soccer!

After three years of training, SABAP2 can field a team of 751 players whose goal it is to contribute as many pentad checklists as possible so that we can document changes in bird species distribution and abundance since the first bird atlas (SABAP1), over 20 years ago. It's a great challenge but one which is exciting and has got team SABAP2 out and about in the back and beyond of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. Even these Pied Crows on the soccer field at Kgomo-Kgomo score for SABAP2.

GOALS is intended to be fun and relaxing but with a keen eye on sustaining our atlasing efforts during the soccer bonanza – we don't want to lose sight of our own goals!

So, with players ready, officials ready, here are the "MATCH RULES"

• The project KICKS OFF on 1 June and the FINAL WHISTLE will be blown on 31 July

• PASS some time in between matches to do some atlasing – get into the FIELD OF PLAY and don't get caught in NO MAN'S LAND,  there's no SUBSTITUTE for great birding on a perfect winters day! 

• Have a BALL making lots of lists and THROW IN a few incidentals here and there…

• Get a GAME PLAN together and think OUTSIDE THE BOX. Possibly go WIDE and HEAD for some virgin pentads where you can TACKLE these head on – it may be a LONG SHOT but you may just NET some new and interesting species. Remember though, you may get a RED CARD for an out-of-range species. Don’t panic, it doesn’t mean any PENALTIES but it will be the REFEREE's decision, so take notes and don't get SIDELINED!

• Take a SHOT at going DEEP in to your home pentad – who knows, it may just be on TARGET to reach a milestone.

• Be able to say I WAS THERE – in the forests, the wetlands, the karoo, the fynbos, the bushveld, the grasslands, and the mountains! You don't want to give yourself a FREE KICK! 

• Think about COACHING a fellow birder to become an atlaser and set out TACTICS to help them get going. 

• Continue to be avid SUPPORTERS – let’s CHEER everyone on to do one more new pentad.

• Remember every contribution SCORES a GOAL for SABAP2 and biodiversity conservation – everyone’s a WINNER with SABAP2. 

• Finally, become a FAN of TEAM biodiversity and fly the FLAG and blow the VUVUZELA for SABAP2!

As we have done for other mini-projects, we’ll keep the counter on the website going for GOALS from 1 June to 31 July to track our winter progress. So light those fires, get the blankets out, and fill up those flasks...there's going to be some good football to watch but most of all...enjoy the atlasing this winter!

Arnold van der Westhuizen led a SABAP2 workshop at Barkly East yesterday. He says: "Nine very enthusiastic birders attended. They told me that they had were long time birders, but that now their birding outings will have a new purpose – as citizen scientists they will make a direct contribution to conservation of birds and their habitat. Most of them are CAR participants as well and stern supporters of conservation and the work of the ADU.

"In the first session on the very cold morning we discussed the protocol and all the why's and how's of atlasing. For the second session we left in a Kombi and an X-Trail and atlased a pentad. We visited the dam where we were entertained by a display by a pair of African Fish-Eagles. Just after that we were stunned by 24 Grey Crowned Cranes flying past to settle in pasture amongst a herd of cattle. We recorded 41 species in the pentad. Late in the afternoon all the laptops were loaded with the necessary software.

"In the picture Grandpa Bob Mollentze is on the left – 79 yrs of age – and he will supervise the ongoing atlasing of the Barkly East team. Welcome aboard Barkly East!"

Thank you Arnold for leading the workshop, and we look forward to Team Barkly East claiming lots of territory for SABAP2 in the north-eastern part of the Eastern Cape.

Saturday, 5 June 2010. Niall Perrins reports on Day 2 of the Vryburg SPAN14 expedition being lead by Etienne Marais: "Here's a Tinkling Cisticola atlassed in pentad 2645_2400. We got off to an early start, teams heading off from about 05h20 onwards, depending on where their starting points were. Temperature in the early morning in Vryburg was not too bad, –1 degrees C. All teams were eager and attacked their chosen or allocated pentads with gusto, getting there to hear the dawn chorus and to start ticking away at the species. A flask of coffee didn't last too long, essential to keep warm. Etienne reports that there everyone got on and 'did their thing'. And did it really well, by all accounts – the day ended with 55 more pentads added to yesterday's 23, as well as 23 more quarter degree grid cells being covered for the first time.

"All teams were surprised at the higher totals per checklist than we had anticipated, especially as it is winter. Some of the species observed which are at the edges of their ranges in this are included Blue Waxbill and White-bellied Sunbirds. Other noteable species seen by the teams included Greater Painted Snipe at Stella, Namaqua and Burchell's Sandgrouse, three species of Courser, several sightings of Swallow-tailed Bee-eaters, including a large flock, Black Stork (a regional rarity) and Dusky, Marico and White-bellied Sunbirds all enjoying the same Aloe." With a slight hint of sarcasm, Niall notes: "There were NO INDIAN MYNAS in some pentads!!"

Etienne was hoping to add Red-billed Spurfowl to his South African list, and a few of the atlasers knew this. "One concerned atlaser dropped tools to let Etienne know that he had sighted one, in a tree – Etienne’s Mahindra grunted past him in a cloud of dust, thinking that the atlaser was some Telkom labourer. Still determined that Etienne must see the bird, Jannie dusted himself off and phoned Etienne, who a little red-faced returned, to see the spurfowl still waiting for him in its tree."

Niall finishes: "On Sunday the teams will try and cover further areas, or deepen coverage in poorly atlased quarter degree grid cells. Those of us who have other commitments on Monday will do some pentads closer or en route back to Pretoria or Jo’burg."

Niall Perrins, our reporter in Vryburg over the weekend, travelled home today. "I am back in Jo'burg. Work calls. I departed from the Boereplaas resort where we had been based a little before 05h30 – it was another chilly morning. I planned to atlas two, perhaps three pentads en route home. I started out in quarter degree grid cell 2625AD, which so far had two checklists, totalling 43 species. My target pentads were different to the ones that had already been done, so I hoped to add to the species total as well as increasing coverage. The first pentad was highly productive, in spite of being short on waterbirds – I had started just before dawn at a small dam in the extreme south of the pentad. I recorded six species of lark, including the near threatened Short-clawed Lark (in the picture). My two hours stretched to three as the 'roads' were quite tricky to negotiate in some places, and ended a cool winter morning's atlas of the pentad at 68 species. The second pentad north of this yielded fewer species, partly because it was more populous than the first one. It did however produce a rather westward record of Red-billed Hornbill.

"I have just heard from Etienne that the total number of new pentads has passed the 100 mark, the number of new quarter degree grid cells is 24, and that there are 110 checklists, with Monday still to come. He says there was an incredible sighting this morning of 17 Burchell's Coursers in one of the more northerly pentads.

"All in all for me it was a great weekend, getting me to some far out spots I would not have spent too much time in was it not for atlasing."

Thanks, Niall, for keeping us abreast of developments. The 100 new pentads will take SABAP2 close to 41% coverage, and the 24 new quarter degree grid cells will mean that nearly 75% of the QDGCs in the SABAP2 area will have at least one pentad visited.

40%We reached 40% coverage of the SABAP2 region today, and this is what the coverage looks like. Pentads coloured red have been visited for the first time over the past two month and the blue ones from the start of the project until the end of March this year. The various "carpets" of atlased pentads are steadily starting to coalesce. There is already a good sprinkling of pentads along the axis of the N14 between Springbok and Pretoria. When the territorial gains from this weekend's attack on the region around Vryburg are on display, this important axis will start to look increasingly solid. Attacks on other gaps are strongly encouraged.

As of today, we have less than 100 000 records to go to reach two million full protocol SABAP2 records. The exact number right now is 98 258.

Niall Perrins is our reporter on duty among the atlasing troops on the Vryburg frontline. He report on the events of day one: "The Vryburg atlas weekend got off to a great start – some teams going South, some going North, and one mad individual going West. The 23 atlasers taking part have completed 23 pentads, including nine new quarter degree grid cells. It is only nine p.m., and the teams have mostly retired for the evening, eager to make an early start on the atlasing tomorrow morning."

Some interesting species seen already include two Curlew Sandpipers near Stella, a pair of Burchell's Coursers northwest of Vryburg, several sightings of Chat Flycatchers and Sociable Weavers, Rufous-eared Warbler (the picture is of one atlased in pentad 2640_2405), Tinkling Cisticola and Short-clawed Lark.

Thank you, Niall, for the update, and we hope that the technology will work for us again tomorrow evening!

This coming Saturday, 5 June, there is a SABAP2 workshop at Barkly East, in the north-eastern Eastern Cape. This is one of the most attractive areas in South Africa. Here is the steel bridge at Moshesh's Ford, a landmark between the towns of Barkly East and Rhodes, and an area where lots more atlasing needs to be done. The workshop will be presented by Arnold van der Westhuizen. Proceedings will start at 09h00 on Saturday, and the contact person in Barkly East is Kevin Meise at 082 929 1512. Arnold says: "It will be the theory in the morning, and we will do a pentad in the afternoon."

Charmaine and Derick Oosthuizen moved to Cape Town recently and are exploring their new surroundings. On the weekend of 14–15 May they visited the Cederberg, and spent the night at the Algeria camp site. Charmaine takes up the story: "On the morning of the 15th, we drove in a south-easterly direction from the camp to do some birding. The weather was cool after a week of rain in the area. Some 10 km from Algeria, at approximately 11h15, we noticed two Black Eagles soaring in the air. We stopped to look at them through our binoculars and heard them calling. We spent some more time watching them, since we thought the calling would be followed by an 'air show' like we had observed years ago in the Mountain Zebra Park near Cradock. My husband followed one of the eagles through his binoculars as it started to dive down, and the next moment he called out that he had noticed a leopard and that it was being 'dive bombed' by the eagle. The eagles continued harassing the leopard and gave my husband the opportunity to take some photographs – the distance unfortunately left us with photos that are not of a good quality, but the moment was captured. Very special for two lovers of birds and nature who only expect to see leopards in the Kruger National Park!"

What a magnificent experience. And thank you for sharing it with us so graphically. If you see a leopard anywhere in the Western Cape, please inform Anita Meyer and Jeannie Hayward of The Cape Leopard Trust. They coordinate The Cape Leopard Trust's Boland Project. Their phone number is 082 337 0964 and their email address is boland@capeleopard.org.za.

Last Saturday, 29 May, the Wits Bird Club organized an atlas day with a difference. Four atlasers in two vehicles set off in the direction of Rustenburg in North West Province, in search of the Yellow-throated Sandgrouse as a specific target species. Andy Featherstone, chair of WBC, reports: "Following directions received from Stuart Groom, who heads up the Regional Atlas Committee in North West, we arrived at the entrance to the Rasimone Mine and were treated to close views of seven Yellow-throated Sandgrouse drinking from small puddles of water. This spot was within the first pentad on our list of target pentads for the day. Thereafter we split into two parties and covered a further six pentads in addition to the initial one visited. Despite being unable to find the sandgrouse in any further pentads we got in a good day's birding with Black Stork, Pale Chanting-Goshawk, Violet-eared and Black-faced Waxbills, Jameson's and Red-billed Firefinch, Ashy Tit, Red-billed Buffalo-Weaver, Giant Kingfisher and Marico Flycatcher all added to the list."

From the "management side" of SABAP2, we are encouraging (and celebrating) all sorts of innovative atlasing events.

Territorial expansion is the unashamed aim of the expedition to Vryburg in North West Province this weekend. This expedition is part of the SPAN14 initiative: to atlas a broad band of pentads along the N14, which runs from Pretora to Springbok. So SPAN14 = Springbok to Pretoria Atlas along the N14. Etienne Marais says: "Our target this weekend is to get at least two pentads atlased in each of 21 new quarter degree grid cells (QDGCs) and then to cover a further 10 QDGCs which currently have only one or two checklists. After that the aim is to submit checklists for 100 new pentads."

22 people will travel about 400 km from Gauteng to Boereplaas Holiday Resort, 18 km north of Vryburg. Most will be taking longer routes to take in a blank pentad or two en route. Currently there are 10 vehicles/atlasing teams (and one bicycle).

Etienne says: "This trip to Vryburg gets more and more exciting. The latest development is that the Chairlady of the Vryburg Boerevereniging has offered to send sms's to all the farmers who are members of the Boerevereniging, to alert them that we'll be atlassing in the district. My own pentads stretch to 100 km from Vryburg and we'll be leaving an hour before sunrise each morning and probably get back well after dark. We will report on a big paper map which pentads have been done. I aim to do seven pentads on both Saturday and Sunday, two on the way there on Friday, and four on Monday – I plan to drop Anthony and his bike at a pentad boundary, we then do two separate pentads, and then meet up again after two hours."

The success of the expedition will be measured on the SPAN14 counter on the top right hand corner of the website. Don't expect any checklists to be submitted over the weekend, but hopefully the data will start pouring in next week. We wish all participants safety in travelling, and a wonderful experience atlasing together. We hope that you will exceed your targets in expanding the territory shaded as belong to SABAP2 on the coverage map.

This was the week in which the annual announcement by BirdLife International of changes to the IUCN Red Data status of birds in 2010 was made. The global status for Southern Ground-hornbill was upgraded to "Vulnerable", the status it has had within the South African Red Data Book since 2000. At the time of the SABAP1, the species text for the Southern Ground-hornbill said that the overall range of the species in South Africa had not changed much since the start of the 20th century, "however, within the range, its abundance had decreased sharply outside the protected areas." Since SABAP1, it is clear that the decreases in abundance have turned into alarming decreases in the overall range. This is clear from the range change map – there are large numbers of red quarter degree grid cells in the Eastern Cape, in parts of KwaZulu-Natal, in Swaziland, to the west of the Kruger National Park and along the Limpopo valley. The colours used in the range change map are fully explained in the Interpretation Note.

The BirdLife International factsheet for Southern Ground-hornbill justifies the new threat status: "Habitat destruction and persecution are estimated to have caused very rapid population declines in South Africa and there are anecdotal reports that they have caused declines in other range countries. There is a high probability that such threats and subsequent declines will continue into the future, and as such this species has been uplisted to Vulnerable." The Southern Ground-hornbill seems to have everything stacked against it: it occurs at low densities in huge territories, it has a long breeding cycle (40-day incubation period and 86-day fledging period), it produces at most one chick per breeding attempt and does not breed every year, it is vulnerable to human disturbance at breeding sites, its body parts are used in traditional medicines, and on top of all this it is sometimes persecuted because it makes itself unpopular by attacking its reflection in windows, sometimes breaking them. The conservation of this species outside of the large protected areas is going to require a mammoth effort.

The factsheet for African Penguin on the BirdLife International website now officially classifies this species as "Endangered." The justification is given in two sentences: "This species has been uplisted to Endangered because recent data has revealed that it is undergoing a very rapid population decline, probably as a result of commercial fisheries and shifts in prey populations. This trend currently shows no sign of reversing, and immediate conservation action is required to prevent further declines."

The ADU, along with many other institutions, has been involved in a long series of research projects which have documented some of the problems facing the African Penguin. The more research we do, the scarier the problems seem to become. Unless and until we understand these issues, we can make little progress with implementation of targeted conservation actions that are really going to make a difference. The horrendously frustrating reality is that there are no obvious answers. From studies using GPS data loggers, we know that penguins must find food for their chicks within a diameter of about 20 km around their breeding colony. But the fish on which they feed are continuously on the move, so closing the areas around colonies to commercial fishing is not obviously going to make a difference. The crucial problem is that there is now a serious mismatch between the area where the fish are currently concentrating, mainly east of Cape Agulhas, and the locations of all the penguin breeding colonies. The shift in fish concentrations might be a consequence of climate change (and therefore be permanent) or it might be one of the "regime shifts" which occurs in the oceans, and reverse itself after a bunch of years, a scary decade or longer.

The two pictures were taken by a "camera trap" set up on Robben Island. They show the identical scene, by day and by night. Somehow, the bunch of penguins by day, and the single penguin by night, are symbolical of the plight of the African Penguin.

Every issue of Africa – Birds & Birding has a page devoted to some aspect of the research of the Animal Demography Unit. With the focus on football over the next two months, we planned the report for the June-July issue with this in mind. We asked the question: "Which of the 31 visiting nations are represented in the SAFRING database?" The short answer to this question is contained in the title of this news item, and the longer answer is in the double page spread in the current issue of the magazine. We are grateful to Eve Gracie, editor of Africa – Birds & Birding for giving us permission to put this page on the website.

This coming Tuesday, 25 May, is Africa Day. The occasion provides an incentive to ask the question: "What bird atlas projects have taken place farther north than SABAP2?" The answer is amazing. Every country on the eastern side of Africa, from the Sudan to South Africa, has a published atlas – shaded yellow on the map – except for Tanzania – orange on the map – for which a bird atlas project far advanced. The authors, titles and publication details of the published atlases are available here. There is also a bird atlas project on the go in Rwanda, and an embryo project in Angola – these are not shown on the map but are adjacent to countries which already have bird atlases.

Somehow or other, it would be nice to put the datasets of all these projects into one big database, and produce the Bird atlas of the eastern side of Africa. Although there are many differences between the various projects, there is fortunately one thing they all have in common – the bird atlases of Africa have all used a compatible geographic grid based on latitude and longitude.

This is the range change map for a fairly rare species, the Pallid Harrier, and one that, apart from adult males, is not the easiest to identify. So this map needs to be treated with some caution. The Pallid Harrier is a migrant raptor, which breeds in the eastern half of Europe and the western part of Asia. The colours used in the range change map are fully explained in the Interpretation Note. There are roughly as many red quarter degree grid cells on the range change map as blue QDGCs. But the red QDGCs, where the species has not been seen in SABAP2, accumulated over many more years than the SABAP2-only blue QDGCs. Over the "southern Transvaal" and the "Orange Free State" SABAP1 data stretches back to 1982, so there was 10 years of data collection there. SABAP2 has only had three.

Globally it is classified as “Near-threatened”. The Pallid Harrier factsheet on the BirdLife International website says that the total population is in the range 9 000–15 000 pairs. The part of the population that breeds in Europe (Azerbaijan, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and western Russia) has decreased sharply in recent decades. A large majority of the population breed in Asia, where it is thought to be more or less stable, but this is a hard species to assess because breeding numbers fluctuate in response to the population cycles of small mammals such as voles. Reliable trends are hard to obtain because the species is rare, and it is not easy to identify. The birds that migrate to the SABAP2 region are likely to be mostly Asian breeders. So if we could monitor populations of Pallied Harriers in South Africa, even by the relative frequency of sightings, we could help provide information on trends of the Asian population, which is particularly difficult to assess.

Etienne Marais suggested that this species be considered for a range-change map on the website: "From personal experience, Pallid Harriers have increased in numbers over the last few years, but this could be related to dry years vs wet years, since they are more common in wet years than dry years. In the early 1990s it was classified as a national rarity, but it is no longer on the national rarities list – this is evidence that this is more than just a personal perception. When I was in Mozambique last year I was privileged to witness about 70 harriers in 25 minutes going to a roost somewhere on the Rio Savane Floodplain. They were at least 80% Montagu's vs Pallid, but my own sightings in wider Gauteng show a much more equal balance between 'monties' and 'pallids'."

2010 is the United Nations' International Year of Biodiversity. Every year the world celebrates International Biodiversity Day on 22 May. Today is International Biodiversity Day within the International Year of Biodiversity. So what is expected of us today. Our goal is to raise awareness of the importance of preserving the diversity of life on earth – healthy ecosystems and the biodiversity that goes with them are important for a whole bunch of things: water provision, climate stabilization, pollination for agriculture, tourism, coastal protection, nutrition, provision of genetic resources, water purification and carbon sequestration. In a nutshell, healthy biodiversity enhances the quality of life.

The Animal Demography Unit – mostly through its citizen scientists – tries to answer three questions in relation to biodiversity. Where does it occur? How much of it is out there? How is it changing? Unless we measure, biodiversity slips away unnoticed. If we do measure it, we can take action to preserve it. The ADU projects – two bird atlases (SABAP1 and SABAP2), SAFRING, CAR, CWAC, BIRP, SABCA, SARCA – have all played their role in providing the information that has assisted in the conservation of biodiversity.

Today is the day when all the citizen scientists who participate in the projects of the ADU should be specially aware of their responsibilities to be ambassadors for biodiversity.

Crows, in general, don't have a massive team of supporters, they mostly have detractors. So most people will probably be pretty indifferent to range contractions of crows. But this one seems a bit too large to be casual about. The small map shows the smoothed distribution of the Cape Crow from the SABAP1 data, supplemented with the data from Vincent Parker's atlases of southern and central Mozambique – the statistical methods to produce these smoothed maps were developed by Professor Francisca Little as part of her PhD. This is one of the most remarkable distributions of all species, occurring in a pretty bizarre pattern in both very dry and very wet habitats, and inexplicably skipping out some intermediate ones. For the purpose of this story notice how the distribution across North West Province is a key component of the continuity of the overall distribution in southern Africa.

The large map is the range change map for South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland between SABAP1 and SABAP2. It shows that, in general terms, the SABAP2 reporting rates are higher in KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape. Western Cape and Northern Cape than the SABAP1 reporting rates were. This area has a predominance of green quarter degree grid cells. But most of the SABAP1 range in North West, Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga is showing up red or orange, indicating that Cape Crows have seldom if ever been recorded in quarter degree grid cells in these provinces since SABAP2 started in July 2007. The range Cape Crow looks like it is shrinking into the three "Cape" provinces and KwaZulu-Natal.

The colours used in the range change maps are explained in the Interpretation Note.

This just a reminder to all CWACers that the winter counts will be coming up in July and with it being World Cup month please ensure that you count your sites timeously. Some sites (e.g. Langebaan Lagoon) may well get swamped with tourists during this period and may cause additional disturbance during normal count periods. If you suspect this to be the case at your site please move your count dates to just before or just after the World Cup period (11 June - 11 July).

A reminder that if you have not yet submitted your Summer 2010 counts to please get them in as soon as possible. Electronic forms can be emailed to Doug Harebottle, the interim CWAC coordinator, otherwise post your census forms to CWAC, Animal Demography Unit, Dept of Zoology, UCT, Rondebosch, 7701

Alan Lee, who recently registered as an atlaser, and his wife, Anja, manage and run Blue Hill Escape a 2300-ha mountain fynbos reserve in the Little Karoo. The reserve is located approximately 40 kms from Uniondale and close to the Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area. It falls into pentad 3335_2220 which is situated close to the Western Cape/Eastern Cape border.

Although a new observer to the project, Alan is keen to expand the atlasing efforts in the area as there are many un-atlased pentads in and around the reserve. To assist with this he is proposing to host an atlasing weekend at Blue Hills Escape from 8-10 October and to offer bona fide atlasers 50% off all accommodation during the weekend on a self-catering basis. Prices would range from about R100 p.p.p.n. for guest rooms with double or twin beds with communal bathroom and lounge, to R250 per night for a guest cottage with a double bed and en-suite bathroom. Dormitory and camping options are also available with prices available on request.

The weekend would specifically aim in trying to cover as many new pentads as possible with some repeat visits to those pentads with one or two checklists also included. In the map on the right you can see the gaps in the coverage in the region (Blue Hills is indicated by the red arrow) and one can certainly aim to get some Western Cape and Eastern Cape pentads covered while based at Blue Hills.

Ideally, such a weekend would suit atlasers who encompass the George-Oudtshoorn-Tsitsikamma-Knysna region but it is open to any atlaser who would like to participate in this 'grid-bashing' weekend. The bird clubs especially may want to make use of this special offer and get a group of atlasers together and plan a trip to Blue Hills in October. It will be a wonderful opportunity to meet fellow atlasers, plus explore and survey some new pentads in a beautiful part of our country.

If you are interested in taking part in this event please let Doug Harebottle know asap. Numbers are limited and bookings will be done on a first come first served basis. For more information on Blue Hills Escape please visit their website http://www.bluehillescape.co.za/ 

Our thanks to Alan and Anja for making Blue Hills available for this atlasing weekend and offering these subsidised rates.

The Common Starling was introduced at Cape Town in 1897, 113 years ago. The birds brought to South Africa were trapped in Britain in winter, so they are likely to have been migrants from continental Europe. The Common Starling is on the list of the world's 100 most invasive species – it is a species almost always closely associated with people. But in comparison with the rate of range expansion in North America, the rate in South Africa has been pedestrian. The progressive colonization of town after town starting in the Western Cape was quite well-documented (e.g. first seen in Clanwilliam in 1954) until the 1970s. Adrian Craig provided a summary of the expansion process in the SABAP1 text for the "European Starling". Adrian commented: "Extermination rather than preservation would be favoured by most people, but there is no prospect of eliminating this resourceful bird."

SABAP1 provides a snapshot of the extent of the distribution up to 1991, and SABAP2 does this two decades later. The comparison map shows that the range expansion has continued, but quite slowly (the blue quarter degree grid cells on the map), with the new records coming mainly from the Free State, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Most of the long-established range along the coast is green on the map, indicating increased reporting rates between SABAP1 and SABAP2.

The colours used in the range change maps are explained in the Interpretation Note.

What is SPAN14 (you say "Span Veertien"!)? One of the priority ecological gradients for which it is going to be very important for SABAP2 to collect data runs along the N14, the national road that starts in Pretoria in Gauteng, passes the Barberspan Bird Sanctuary and on to Vryburg in North West, and then on through Kuruman and Pofadder, ending at Springbok in the Northern Cape. The route starts in Pretoria in the savanna biome, moves on into the northern edge of the grassland biome, through the Kalahari, and ends in the Nama Karoo in Springbok which is at the changeover to Succulent Karoo. There are lots of transitions. So, along this axis, interesting thing happen bird-wise. The distributions of many species start and others end. It is the positions of these edges that is predicted to be impacted by climate change – which is why it is so important that we document them in SABAP2. So the newest challenge is called SPAN14: Springbok to Pretoria Atlas along the N14. The challenge is to get a near-continuous broad band of pentads atlased all along this road, both to the north of it and to the south.

The Wits Bird Club, under the leadership of Andy Featherstone, set the ball rolling with a pioneering trip to Kuruman a few weeks ago. Now Etienne Marais, BirdLife Northern Gauteng (BLNG), is continuing the challenge and is inviting all atlasers to join the BLNG atlasing group on a weekend atlasing trip to the Vryburg area, from 4–7 June 2010. You can download the invitation which contains all the details.

Other initiatives, both by individuals and groups, towards meeting the SPAN14 challenge are strongly encouraged.

And, of course, we will also strongly encourage other groups of atlasers to set up similar challenges along more key axes. An obvious gap in coverage runs across the centre of the Northern Cape. We need someone to be the champion of the KNAR357 challenge: the Kimberly to Niewoudtville Atlas along the R357. The R357 runs through Niewoudtville, Loeriesfontein, Brandvlei, Vanwyksvlei, Prieska, Douglas and Kimberley. Now that is a mega-challenge!

Check out the new feature on the SABAP2 website – on the left hand side menu go to "Bird Lists" – go to "National Parks" on the submenu – click on your favourite National Park and you will get a list of species recorded for that park by SABAP2. Right now the species list for the Kruger National Park has 463 species from the 1794 checklists submitted from pentads which are in (or partly in) the park.

These bird lists are in Reporting Rate order. This is really useful information for birders, especially for beginner birders. Scientists might have problems interpreting Reporting Rates. Birders don't. For a birder, the Reporting Rate represents roughly the ordered likelihood in which you can anticipate seeing species. You can hope to see most of the species near the top of the bird list within the first few hours. The bird lists also show the Red Data Book threat status of the species.

These bird lists are compiled "on the fly" from the live SABAP2 database (so if you get a new bird list tomorrow, it might well be based on a few extra checklists). However, the database is very much a work in progress and still needs a second round of vetting, especially for the species which have recently been split. The top end of the list is OK. It is in the tail end of the bird list that you may pick up problems. The species with very low reporting rates are rare, skulking residents which are seldom seen or are vagrants or are simply howlers. If you find a species you believe is totally incorrect, please send an email to info@sabap2.org and let us know – we need as many eyes as possible perusing these lists.

These lists are based on the pentads which have part of their areas within the locality. So they might well include species that technically only occur outside of it.

The Bird Lists feature on the SABAP2 website will grow (there is also a submenu for the Important Bird Areas, so you can get a list for each IBA). It represents a mechanism to feed some of the results of SABAP2 back to the birding community. Please tell birders about this facility, and especially new birders.

The coverage shape files were updated yesterday. So, if you use Christine GIS or any other GIS software you can download these files and view the pentad coverage (up to 12 May) in your GIS package.

These files are updated every two weeks and can be downloaded from the software downloads page - from the left hand menu, click on 'Downloads' and then 'Software downloads' and then scroll down to the Christine GIS Shape files section 

There are currently two birding celebrations in the Eastern Cape.

First of all, 2010 marks the 60th anniversary of BirdLife Eastern Cape, and this branch of BirdLife South Africa had its week of celebrations last week.

Secondly, SABAP2 in the Eastern Cape has just passed the 600-pentad threshold. Atlasing in the Eastern Cape is growing faster than in any other province. Admittedly this is off a low base, but it is fantastic that well over a quarter of the pentads in the second largest province now have at least one checklist, and that this fraction is growing rapidly. Well done to Team SABAP2 Eastern Cape.

Recently we showed the comparison map between SABAP1 and SABAP2 for the Secretarybird which sent red lights flashing in terms of its status in South Africa. Raptorphiles and researchers across Africa were astounded at what was happening to this species across Africa (and particularly in South Africa) and soon a report to the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) will be submitted highlighting the plight of this species throughout Africa (the JNCC is equivalent to South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs). The report will stress the conservation threats faced by this species and why it should be upgraded on the CITES list in terms of persecution and trade, particularly in light of a recent request to import two Tanzanian-caught Secretarybirds into the United Kingdom.

African raptorphiles on the African Birding net are now keen to focus attention on one raptor species in Africa each month in order to highlight its status and any conservation needs. The Hooded Vulture has been selected for May. 

In South Africa, the Hooded Vulture is largely confined to the north-east, occurring in the Kruger National Park, adjacent private nature reserves and southwards into northern Swaziland where it is dependent on natural food supplies. In contrast, in other parts of its African range, it is highly commensal with man and often found in cities where it scavenges at rubbish dumps and landfill sites.  In South Africa, indiscriminate poisoning is its main threat - the Eskom Red Data Book of Birds of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, published in 2000, classifies it as Vulnerable and states: "The Hooded Vulture has probably suffered the usual fate of large raptors, being shot as vermin and poisoned at carcasses meant for livestock predators".

SABAP1 showed fairly high reporting rates for the Kruger National Park with lower reporting rates for the adjacent private reserves.  The range change map shows mostly ORANGE and RED cells for the Kruger National Park, while the adjacent private nature reserve network shows mainly GREEN cells suggesting that the species may now be rarer in the Kruger and more abundant in places like Timbavati and Sabi-Sands. Its status in Swaziland needs further investigation and increased SABAP2 coverage is needed in this country to find out if Hooded Vultures still occur in this part of its range. 

As far as SABAP2 is concerned, the Big Hole is no longer in Kimberley. It has been moved a few hundred kilometres to the west, and atlasers are encouraged to locate it somewhere near Kenhardt, or maybe Prieska, or Postmasburg. The Big Hole is now somewhere in the area coloured pink on the map. These are the half-degree grid cells for which SABAP2 as yet has no coverage at all. Even when the ad hoc checklists and the incidental records are taken into account, the centre of the Northern Cape still represents the biggest gap in SABAP2. If you are planning a trip to see the wild flowers in the Northern Cape this coming spring, please try to plan a stop in one of these areas, and help us to fill the Big Hole.

Two SABAP2 workshops were held on Saturday, one in Cape Town and one in De Aar. The one in Cape Town was held at the Tygerberg Nature Reserve, and was lead by Peter Nupen, SABAP2 coordinator for the Western Cape, and by Doug Harebottle. 40 people attended (most of whom are in the picture). Doug commented: "The great turnout at the Cape Town workshop provided a clear indication of the interest in learning more about contributing to SABAP2. Both existing and new atlasers definitely see the value in making their birding benefit biodiversity conservation." Melissa Demaio who attended the workshop wrote this on the wall of the SABAP2 group on Facebook: "Really nice workshop at Tygerberg on Saturday. Thanks Doug and Peter! Those of you who haven't been to a workshop – it's really worth it, even if you've done atlasing already. I actually learnt many things that will simplify my atlasing in the future."

Meanwhile the workshop in De Aar was attended by 18 people, many of whom had travelled long distances to attend, from places such as Middelburg (EC), Colesberg, Kimberley and Lohatla. Thanks to Ronelle Visagie for making all the arrangements for this workshop.

Donella Young introduced three ADU projects, CWAC and SABCA and CAR and Arnold van der Westhuizen presented the SABAP2 workshop. Arnold comments: "The participants asked many interesting questions demonstrating their deep sense of the importance of protecting biodiversity. The butterflies attracted quite a lot of attention – very few people knew about this project. Most of the people attending already participate in the regular counts of large terrestrial birds in the Karoo, so the feedback and appreciation which Donella gave to the participants in CAR were very valuable. It certainly motivates them to continue their participation for many years to come. The group realised that every little bit of data that citizen scientists contribute helps to paint the picture. Every hour spent in the veld to collect data is valuable to ensure the conservation of bird species and their habitat. They went home with the message: 'I can make a difference – not only now, but for generations to come.'"

This weekend, 8–9 May is "World Migratory Bird Day" in the annual calendar of environmental events.

In the past year SABAP2 has paid special attention to migrants through two mini-projects, WHAMB – Welcome All Migrant Birds, from August to November 2009, and currently through PHEAT – Please Help Establish Autumn Timing, which started in the middle of February, and is ongoing until the end of May.

The main focus of these mini-projects is to collect detailed information on the overall patterns of arrival and departure of migrants. By pooling the information collected by lots of atlasers we can describe the "shape" of the timing of migration in ways that cannot be done if only the earliest dates are used to describe arrival and the last dates to describe departure. These dates are easily biased by atypical individuals which arrive early or depart late.

Over the four-month WHAMB period last year, atlasers collected 350 000 records of bird distribution from 2398 pentads and contributed 6322 checklists. 314 pentads received five or more checklists, and 90 had 10 or more. These repeated checklists from a pentad are especially valuable, and even more so when we assemble all the repeat lists in a cluster of well-atlased pentads and use the pooled data to make statistically strong descriptions of the timing of migration in each region. So for example, we will be able to compare the timing of migration between the main centres of concentration of the atlas effort.

PHEAT is ongoing, and there is still lots of data to be submitted. But it is clear from the checklists submitted already that the pattern of departure for several species is a bit later than "average" this year, and we have seen the graphics for the Barn Swallow unfold on this website. The Red-backed Shrike is another species that seems to be leaving late this year. Even though the bulk of departure of the migrants from the SABAP2 region is now complete, the checklists gathered through to the end of the month help to describe the "tail" of the distribution, and to help to explain why merely recording the last dates on which a species is observed is so misleading in relation to the overall pattern.

This weekend, as participants in SABAP2, we are encouraged to be ambassadors for migratory birds and to help create awareness of migrants and the problems they face in relation to habitat loss and climate change. But our ongoing participation in SABAP2 will make a real difference to the "quality of life" for migrants. The information we gather is used to "make the case" on behalf of the birds in various contexts, from preventing the loss of an important site to negotiating global treaties relating to climate change.

This is the third in the series on new postgraduate students in the ADU in 2010.

Esther Mostert's MSc project will involve the development of bird monitoring systems for the South African National Parks. Her project will be supervised by Professor Melodie McGeoch, who heads up the Cape Research Centre of SANParks and myself. Her MSc studies are funded by SANParks.

Esther completed her undergraduate and honours degree in Zoology at Rhodes University in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape, her home province – she grew up in East London. One of her honours projects looked at the use of vocal mimicry in the Common Fiscal Lanius collaris on the Rhodes University campus. She enjoys being outdoors, and is currently honing her rock-climbing skills.

For her MSc, Esther will consider various possibilities for monitoring birds in the national parks. One of the options is to make extensive use the SABAP2 protocol – so we would like all atlasers to make lots of SABAP2 checklists in the pentads of the national parks.

This news item is part of the ADU's celebration of World Migratory Bird Day, this weekend 8–9 May.

The first histogram shows the reporting rate of Barn Swallows for the first 25 pentades of 2010. A "pentade" is defined as a five-day period, and pentade 25 started on 1 May and ended two days ago on 5 May. When we first looked at this histogram on 31 March at the end of pentade 16, the astonishing thing was that the reporting rate for Barn Swallows had not yet started to decrease. Now we have the data for nine more pentades, and we can see that the reporting rates of Barn Swallows have dropped to about 5%.

The second histogram shows the pattern of decrease of reporting rates for Barn Swallows last year, 2009. The histogram goes as far as pentade 26, 6–10 May, the first pentade in 2009 for which no swallows were recorded. Last year, reporting rates started decreasing from the end of pentade 13, at the beginning of March. This year, the first substantial decrease in reporting rate was in pentade 19 (1–5 April). If you make a careful comparison, the reporting rates were a bit higher in every pentade this year than they were last year. Last year the reporting rate dropped below 25% in pentade 22, this year the reporting rate dropped below 25% for the first time one pentade later. Even in the most recent period, pentade 25, the reporting rate is about double this year than last year.

The data for 2009 were collected by LAMP, the Long Autumn Migration Project. The 2010 data are being collected as part of PHEAT, Please Help Establish Autumn Timing. PHEAT continues until the end of May, and is our current mini-project for SABAP2. So far 459 atlasers have submitted 3323 checklists for 1769 different pentads for PHEAT, a total of 171 503 records. We encourage atlasers please to persist in atlasing their easily accessible pentads as often as they are able. Nowhere else in the world is the timing of migration being monitored in quite the way that we are doing it.

Pauline Leinberger passed away on Sunday. She had submitted her last SABAP2 checklist, her 40th, less than a month previously. For SABAP1, Pauline was one of the key people on the "Northern Transvaal Regional Atlas Committee"; this RAC was responsible for everything northwest of Pretoria. She had a long and dedicated association with atlasing in South Africa.

Etienne Marais reports: "The photo is of the house at Wolfhuiskraal Farm, which was one of her favourite spots. It is a place which will bring back many fond memories of Pauline and BirdLife Northern Gauteng "bosberade". It is especially appropriate because it was Pauline who originally made contact with Danie Opperman the farmer, and by so doing, opened Wolfhuiskraal up for birders and the bird club. Many of the people who knew Pauline well would have been there at least once with her. It lies at the heart of pentad 2505_2810, which has a respectable 50 checklists and 245 species. The quarter degree grid cell in which it lies – 2528AA – must be one of the richest in the region, with the incredible Kgomo-kgomo floodplain.

"There is a story about this quarter degree grid cell 2528AA. During SABAP1, it was one of the QDGCs in the Pretoria region which nobody seemed to get to. When the RAC was assessing which QDGCs needed attention, they could not get any volunteers to go out and do 2528AA. Eventually the RAC members decided to tackle it themselves and a group of them, including Pauline, took a drive out along the Zaagkuildrift road. Much to their surprise the birding was fantastic and apparently the card submitted had one of the bigger species totals for SABAP1."

Thanks, Etienne, for sharing these memories. Pauline touched many people's lives and influenced many birders in many ways. She will be greatly missed.

This item deserves its special place in the SABAP2 "Latest News" because it represents one of the first long-distance expeditions by a bird club into a priority area. We would love to encourage other atlasers to undertake similar ventures and for bird clubs to support them.

Andy Featherstone, chair of Wits Bird Club reports: "Five members from Wits Bird Club ventured forth from Johannesburg to Kuruman in the Northern Cape to spend four days atlasing in virgin territory over the period 24–27 April. Before we left on our expedition, we prepared a block map of the pentads in the area covering the 16 quarter degree squares surrounding Kuruman. This made interesting reading – only three of the 16 quarter degree grid cells had cards submitted and, of the 144 pentads in them, 137 had never been atlased! Splitting ourselves between two vehicles we managed to atlas 27 new pentads in 11 quarter degree grid cells that had previously been completely empty. The area includes Kalahari scrub, grasslands and mountains with small patches of woodland. Sightings included Temminck's, Double Banded and Burchell's Coursers, a flock of 50+ Namaqua Sandgrouse, Lanner Falcon, Short-toed Rockthrush and a family of four Southern Pale Chanting Goshawks teaching the youngsters to hunt Helmeted Guineafowl. The area is readily accessible and there are still lots of pentads to visit so we for one will go back later in the year to continue the work."

We continue our series of new postgraduate students in the ADU in 2010.

Arnold van der Westhuizen is registered for a PhD with the Department of Historical Studies at UCT. His supervisor there will be Professor Lance van Sittert, and I will cosupervise. Lance is an environmental historian – he is playing a major role in helping us understand the trajectory along which we arrived at the biodiversity of the present by "mining" the biodiversity information preserved in the rich archives of the Cape Colony and then the Cape Province, spanning the period roughly 1850–1950. Arnold's research project will tackle a shorter historical time frame, and focus on the history of the ADU and how biodiversity atlasing started from the first bird atlas projects in South Africa (eg SABAP1), and evolved into the current variety of projects within the ADU. One of the key features of the ADU is the role which citizen scientists play in the unit, and Arnold will evaluate the importance of this to the success of the ADU.

Arnold's formative years were in Moorreesburg in the Western Cape, and it was here that his interest in nature conservation in general and birds in particular were kindled. He has recently qualified as a bird ringer, he participates in CAR, and has submitted 475 checklists to SABAP2 so far, and has contributed checklists in every month since August 2007, right near the start of SABAP2. He is responsible for the extremely valuable cluster of well-atlased pentads along the border of the Free State and Eastern Cape, centred on Aliwal North. He maintains a birding blog, www.aliwalbirdblog.blogspot.com.

While atlaser Shaun Peard was hiking the Otter Trail in March – he made a checklist for pentad 3355_2335 – he encountered the spoor in the picture. He emailed early today and said: "I photographed these prints during the last day of the Otter Trail hike, about and hour from the André Hut. I would be interested to know to whom they belong."

Quinton Martins of the Cape Leopard Trust responds: "It looks like these prints belong to one Panthera pardus, aka leopard. Very cool! It's not easy to id prints from photos, but this looks likely to be leopard. One would certainly get them there. Caracal is also a possibility. Caracal tracks look slightly different to leopard, though a big male can be the same size as a female leopard track."

For those of you who live in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, there is a Cape Leopard Trust presentation tomorrow evening at a meeting of the Friends of the Tygerberg Hills. Anita Meyer and Jeannie Hayward are presenting "Leopards of the Cape: Small Cats with Big Problems" on Tuesday, 4 May 2010, 19h00 for 19h30, at the Tygerberg Nature Reserve. Anita and Jeannie are leading the Boland Leopard Project. "Enigmatic and elusive, wild leopards still roam free in the mountains of the Western Cape. Sightings are extremely rare, and leopard ecology in this region has been largely misunderstood. How many of these apex predators are left? How do they survive and what does the future hold for these amazing cats? Learn more about these spotted felines, see incredible images captured by remote cameras, and find out how you can get involved in the Boland Leopard Project."

The web pages of the ADU's new postgraduate students are steadily appearing.

First onto the website is David Maphisa. David is starting a PhD supervised by Res Altwegg at SANBI and myself. Res is an Honorary Research Associate of the ADU. David is based at Eskom Ingula Pumped Storige Scheme currently under construction on the border between the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal, near Van Reenen. He is employed by BirdLife South Africa on the Ingula Partnership – a partnership between ESKOM, BirdLife South Africa and the Middelpunt Wetland Trust. He has an MSc in Conservation Biology from the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology. He is a regular contributor of checklists to SABAP2.

The formal title of his PhD project is Adaptive management of high altitude grasslands: Ingula as a case study. David comments: "My PhD work revolves around 'learning by doing', through the process of adaptive management. A number of rare and threatened biota occur at Ingula, sometimes with conflicting management options. In short, my PhD project seeks to develop a monitoring protocol and adaptive management programme that can be used to manage the Ingula property and similar habitat elsewhere. My research interests revolve around the biology of rarity within the grassland biome, and in particular within moist Highveld grassland, and how to combat local extinctions of species within this area." The photograph shows David and Res driving around the study site at Ingula. We look forward to hearing reports of this project from time to time.

Yesterday, 30 April, we reached 39% coverage of the 17318 pentads in the SABAP2 region. The map shows the 6756 pentads which have visited so far. The pentads shaded red are the ones that have been done since 1 April. Many of these are in the Northern Cape. This representation of coverage shows starkly our strengths and our weaknesses! What is encouraging is that the big carpets of atlased pentads are steadily being linked and are coalescing.

With another 171 pentads visited, we will get coverage to the really big milestone of 40%. And there are only 563 pentads to cover before we can say that the number of unatlased pentads gets to be less than 10000. 17318 pentads represents a huge challenge.

We continue our series of comparisons in ranges between SABAP1 and SABAP2 with the Red-backed Shrike. The breeding range of the Red-backed Shrike stretches across much of Europe and into Asia. The non-breeding range is far smaller, and most come to southern Africa. Have a look at the smoothed SABAP1 distribution map to see where the core of its non-breeding range lies and how small it is. Even in a country as far south in Africa as Zambia, it is described as "very numerous on passage" but "wintering in small numbers" (The Birds of Zambia: An Atlas and Handbook).

So it is encouraging that most quarter degree grid cells (QDGCs) in the range change map are green, suggesting that SABAP2 reporting rates are higher than SABAP1 rates. Many of the QDGCs which are red (present in SABAP1, but not yet recorded in SABAP2) would be places where Red-backed Shrikes were recorded as vagrants in SABAP1. At least some of these red QDGCs are places where SABAP2 fieldwork has not yet been done in summer, when the shrikes are present. Likewise most of the blue QDGCs (absent in SABAP1 but present in SABAP2) represent places where Red-backed Shrikes have been recorded as vagrants in the current atlas project. The pink QDGCs represent places where Red-backed Shrikes were recorded in SABAP1, but where no SABAP2 fieldwork has taken place yet. Much of this pink lies in Kalahari biome part at the western end of North West Province, part of the core of the range of this species, so here is another reason to atlas in this region next summer!

Interpretation note: The pentad data for SABAP2 have been amalgamated to quarter degree grid cells for easy comparison with SABAP1. The colours BLUE and GREEN denote quarter degree grid cells (QDGCs) where the species seems to be more abundant than in SABAP1. GREEN indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is greater than the SABAP1 reporting rate. BLUE indicates QDGCs where the species was not recorded in SABAP1 but has been recorded in SABAP2. RED and ORANGE indicate QDGCs where the species might be less abundant. ORANGE indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is smaller than the SABAP1 reporting rate, and YELLOW indicates that both reporting rates are equal. RED indicates that the species was recorded in SABAP1 but has not been recorded on SABAP2 checklists already received for the QDGC; the RED QDGCs are suggestive that the species might have disappeared from the area. Finally, PINK indicates QDGCs where the species occurred in SABAP1, but for which we do not yet have any SABAP2 data, and where we would dearly love atlasers to go and do fieldwork.

Silvia Mecenero, who coordinates SABCA, the butterfly conservation assessment project, reports: "South Africa's very first Butterfly Census Weekend (BCW) took place this past weekend. About 80 teams registered for this exciting event! Thank you to those of you who participated!! Teams have begun to submit their data - it seems that everyone had a great time. If any teams have fun census photos to share, please send us your best one for possible inclusion in the next SABCA newsletter. Please submit your data by 9 May. Even if you saw few of no butterflies, please still submit your data as this will help us to evaluate this BCW, so as to improve future BCWs. Here is the Data Submission Form.

Preliminary results will be made available on the SABCA website once data has been received.

In a record-breaking long weekend, we have added 78 new pentads to the SABAP2 coverage map. The big gains were in the Free State and the Northern Cape. There were 30 new pentads covered in the Free State, taking coverage there close to 60%. There were 20 new pentads in the Northern Cape, mostly in the Kuruman area where Andy Featherstone led a Wits Bird Club team doing an atlasing "bash". This takes coverage in the Northern Cape past 12%, so there are lots of SABAP2 challenges in store for us here. The other new pentads were distributed across North West Province, Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Western Cape. Total coverage is a shade under 39%, and we know that there are lots of checklists from the long weekend still to be submitted.

The main SABAP2 targets also moved forwards. Half-degree grid cells with at least four checklists increased to close on 82%. More than 71% of all quarter degree grid cells now have at least one visit and nearly 50% of all quarter degree grid cells have at least one-third of their pentads visited. And the total number of records still needed to reach two million SABAP2 full protocol records moved below 200 000 early in the long weekend, and is now 182 468! We reached our first million records on 30 June last year, so we are going to come very close to achieving our second million records within a year.

Crystelle Wilson from Durban traveled to the North West recently and on her way she tackled some un-atlased pentads in the north-eastern Free State. Her one survey was quite enlightening and she promptly sent us a short story about her adventures with a headman, rastaman and a dead SA Shelduck. You'll have to click here to get all the details...but suffice to say that, in true cricketing style, "this brings up the hundred"!

Over the past two and half years we have received a myriad of stories and tales, but all have been fascinating and really interesting to read. We've reached a hundred stories, but we'd like to get another hundred more, so please do send us your experiences and adventures. You'll never get another chance to tell it like it is!

Please send your contributions to Doug Harebottle

Tómas Grétar Gunnarsson is an ornithologist who is Director of the South Iceland Research Centre of the University of Iceland. This photograph of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano is taken from his backyard. Most of the Pink-footed Geese in the pasture are waiting for the thaw so that can get into the highlands of Iceland to breed. Some might also belong to the passage population of pink-feet which migrate through Iceland to breed in Greenland.

But Tómas's main interest is in waders, and particularly in two species which breed in this part of Iceland, the Black-tailed Godwit and the Whimbrel. The godwit is a medium-distance migrant to western Europe, but the Whimbrel is a long-distance migrant to west Africa (and maybe even as far south as South Africa). Both species have a mean laying date of 31 May, but godwits arrive well before the nesting stage, mostly over the period 20 April to 10 May, two weeks earlier than Whimbrels which arrive in early to mid May. Godwits have been advancing their arrival dates in Iceland by about 5.5 days/decade over the last two decades, probably as a consequence of changing climatic conditions. Whimbrels on the other hand still arrive at the same time as 20 years ago and take only half the time godwits use between arrival and breeding. For both species, the period when the chicks have the highest energy demand coincides with the peak in invertebrate abundance, in late July. Tómas suggests: "The difference in migration timing between the species may reflect a more pressured annual schedule in the Whimbrel, a long-distance migrant, while the godwits may be able to afford greater flexibility in the timing of migration. The tight schedule of the Whimbrels might result in them being less flexible in adapting their migration schedule to changing conditions."

But the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano might well impact the forthcoming breeding season. Tómas says: "The ash is falling quite a lot on some of our Whimbrel study sites. It will be interesting to follow their progress."

The SASOL Birds & Birding Fair takes place at the Johannesburg Zoo this weekend, 1–2 May 2010. The focus will be on the variety of birds associated with marine and fresh-water habitats. One of these wetland specialists, the Lesser Flamingo, is BirdLife South Africa’s Bird of the Year. Both days are jam-packed with activities – lectures, workshops and guided bird walks – a wide variety of exhibitors display their binoculars, camera gear, bird books, bird feeders and lots of other bird-related goods.

This year SABAP2 has a special event at the fair. At 09h00 on Sunday morning, 2 May, Ernst Retief will present a half day SABAP2 workshop: "Citizens giving back to science", in the Education Centre at the Zoo. This workshop represents a special opportunity for birders in and around Gauteng to discover more about the atlas project as well as participating in the fair.

Op Saterdag 8 Mei 2010 bied Donella Young van die Animal Demography Unit verbonde aan die Universiteit van Kaapstad en Arnold van der Westhuizen, van die Voëlatlasprojek (SABAP2) in Aliwal-Noord 'n inligtingsvergadering oor voëls en voëlprojekte op De Aar aan. Dit sal aangebied word in die kerksaal van die Hebron Gemeente in Voortrekkerstraat en sal om 09h00 begin. Alle belangstellendes word hartlik uitgenooi. Vertel asb. ook u bure en vriende van hierdie geleentheid.

Bring asseblief versnapperings of 'n piekniekmandjie. Daar is winkels en kafees in die nabyhied van die saal en u kan dus ook daar iets aanskaf.

Vir enige ander navrae en inligting kontak Ronelle Visagie gerus.

Program

09h00–09h15 – Watervoëltellings (CWAC projek) (Donella Young)

09h15–09h30 – Skoenlapperatlas (SABCA projek) – Watter skoenlappers is daar in Suid-Afrika en waar kom hulle voor? (Donella Young)

09h30–10h30 – Karoo Groot Grondlewende Voëls (KLTBS)/(CAR projek) en die bewaring van biodiversiteit (Donella Young)

10h30–11h00 – Teetyd

11h00–13h00 – Voëlatlas (SABAP2) – hoe om aan die belangrike projek deel te neem (Arnold van der Westhuizen)

13h00–14h00 – Etenstyd

14h00–15h00 – Demonstrasie van die SABAP2 sagteware (Arnold van der Westhuizen)

The Eskom Red Data Book of Birds of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, published in 2000, states: "A survey is urgently needed to determine the current conservation status of the Secretarybird, particularly regarding its relative density inside and outside conservation areas." In 2000 the Secretarybird was classified as "Near-threatened." In SABAP1, the Secretarybird species text says: "It is sensitive to habitat degradation due to overgrazing, bush encroachment, disturbance and loss of habitat to afforestation and crop cultivation" and "Its conservation status provides cause for concern." A decade later the comparison map between SABAP1 and SABAP2 sends some serious red lights flashing for this charismatic species, one of the icons of Africa. The range change map is mostly RED (where the species seems to have gone missing) and ORANGE (where the species is apparently rarer). Particularly alarming is the RED and ORANGE in the Kruger National Park.

Interpretation note: The pentad data for SABAP2 have been amalgamated to quarter degree grid cells for easy comparison with SABAP1. The colours BLUE and GREEN denote quarter degree grid cells (QDGCs) where the species seems to be more abundant than in SABAP1. GREEN indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is greater than the SABAP1 reporting rate. BLUE indicates QDGCs where the species was not recorded in SABAP1 but has been recorded in SABAP2. RED and ORANGE indicate QDGCs where the species might be less abundant. ORANGE indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is smaller than the SABAP1 reporting rate, and YELLOW indicates that both reporting rates are equal. RED indicates that the species was recorded in SABAP1 but has not been recorded on SABAP2 checklists already received for the QDGC; the RED QDGCs are suggestive that the species might have disappeared from the area. Finally, PINK indicates QDGCs where the species occurred in SABAP1, but for which we do not yet have any SABAP2 data, and where we would dearly love atlasers to go and do fieldwork.

SABAP2 has its second ALL RED quarter degree grid cell. Almost singlehandedly, Johan van der Westhuizen has worked consistently in each of the nine pentads in the Mooreesburg quarter degree grid cell (3318BA), in the Swartland north of Cape Town, and steadily got each one up to 25 checklists. The central pentad contains the village of Mooreesburg itself, and it is currently on 61 lists, so is PURPLE on the coverage map, creating a bit of a target effect. The total number of checklists for the quarter degree grid cell is 266. What makes this achievement special, and worth celebrating, is the evenness of the coverage. For atlasers who are not able to travel far from their home pentad, this is a model worth emulating.

Unatlased pentads are no longer within easy reach of Johan, so he plans to turn the next ring of pentads one shade darker than they currently are. The two unatlased pentads west of Mooreesburg are a bit of a blot on the landscape, but Johan says: "They have no public roads and are so sandy that they only accessible by tractor!"

The other ALL RED quarter degree grid cell is Somerset West (3418BB), where John Carter and his team at the Somerset West Bird Club are not resting on the laurels, but are steadily adding more checklists; there are 267 checklists for the quarter degree grid cell. The quarter degree grid cells with the most checklists of all (but unevenly spread over the pentads) are both in Gauteng: Roodepoort (2627BB) with 653, and Rietvleidam (2528CD) with 473. The value of these quarter degree grid cells with really DEEP coverage is that these volumes of data will enable us to measure even subtle changes in species composition. So if you are not able to go WIDE, and get to the unatlased pentads, please do not give up, consider the Johan van der Westhuizen model and go DEEP close to home!

Two new stories have been added to the stories webpage today. John Bannon shares with us his thoughts on landowner interactions during his atlas adventures and how these compare with his UK experiences, while Etienne Marais gives us the highs and lows of his recent easter atlasing ventures near Kei Mouth in the Eastern Cape. The Kei mouth area has been poorly covered and Etienne managed to cover some virgin territory to notch up an additional five new pentads. Well done Etienne!  Both stories are well worth a read!

Etienne's article brings to 99 the number of stories that have have been submitted to the project and represents just one of a diverse range of stories that atlasers are wanting to share. Often humorous, sometimes tragic, but filled with passion and lots of good birding, these stories exemplify just how much atlasers are enjoying their time out in the field. 

The 100th story lies in wait...so why not put pen to paper (aka fingers to the keyboard) and send us your story... 

The first histogram shows the reporting rate of Barn Swallows for the first 21 pentades of 2010. A "pentade" is defined as a five-day period, and pentade 21 started on 11 April and ended yesterday on 15 April. When we first looked at this histogram on 31 March at the end of pentade 16, the astonishing thing was that the reporting rate for Barn Swallows had not yet started to decrease. Now we have the data for five more pentades, and we can see that the reporting rates are at last starting to decrease as the Barn Swallows migrate and are recorded less frequently.

Now have a look at the second histogram, which shows the pattern of decrease of reporting rates for Barn Swallows last year, 2009. The histogram goes as far as pentade 26, 6–10 May, the first pentade in 2009 for which no swallows were recorded. Last year, reporting rates started decreasing from the end of pentade 13, at the beginning of March. This year, the first substantial decrease in reporting rate was in pentade 19 (1–5 April). At present, we have no explanations as to why the departure of the Barn Swallows is so late this year. But the critical thing is that as atlasers we are documenting something fascinating, and something which is probably important in relation to global climate change.

The data for 2009 were collected by LAMP, the Long Autumn Migration Project. 2009 is now water under the bridge, and we can't get any more data. But the migration of autumn 2010 is in progress, and we still have the opportunity to quantify it. The 2010 data are being collected as part of PHEAT, Please Help Establish Autumn Timing, our current mini-project for SABAP2, ongoing till the end of May. We encourage atlasers please to persist in atlasing their easily accessible pentads as often as they are able during the migration period. We are collecting remarkable data.

What is more, we have just heard that our paper on the timing of Barn Swallow migration has been accepted for oral presentation at the International Ornithological Congress in Brazil in August, so SABAP2 will get exposure to the world's top ornithologists.

The anticipated final date of Barn Swallow departure coincides pretty neatly with World Migratory Bird Day, on 8/9 May. In the northern hemisphere they will be celebrating the arrival of the migrants, many of which are currently leaving South Africa, and embarking on a journal of 10 000 km or longer powered only with their own wings, and hopefully a bit of help from the winds!

The next SABAP2 workshop will be in Kimberley on Saturday 24 April 2010. The Northern Cape is the top priority province for increased coverage, so we are really keen to recruit and train atlasers in this area. If you live within striking distance of Kimberley, this workshop is for you. You will learn both why the project is important and also how to go about doing the fieldwork, and then how to do data capture and submission afterwards.

The workshop will be held in the Conference Room at the Dronfield Nature Reserve. It will start at 08h00 and will end between 12h00 and 13h00. Please bring your laptop with you if you have one, and we will help you to load the latest SABAP2 software, etc, onto it.

The workshop will be conducted by Ernst Retief, who coordinates SABAP2 in Gauteng. Here is Ernst, setting up the data projector!

Coffee and tea, fruit juice and light snacks will be provided.

Please confirm you attendance as soon as possible by sending an email to Andrew Stainthorpe or phone him on 079 491 1366.

Following the Kimberley workshop, there will be another workshop in the Northern Cape, in De Aar, on Saturday 8 May. Also on 8 May, there will be a workshop in Cape Town, in the Christo Pienaar Environmental Centre at the Tygerberg Nature Reserve, from 09h00 to 13h00. The contact person is Peter Nupen, phone 021 930 4244.

The shape files that display the pentad coverage in Christine GIS (and other GIS packages) were updated today. To download the update files click here (then click on Run and then Unzip). These files are updated every two weeks and provide a neat way of showing overall coverage in Christine GIS while viewing your digital 1:50 000 maps at the same time.

A reminder that a full set of digital 1:50 000 maps for South Africa is available, to bona fide atlasers from the ADU at a cost of R60 (incl. P&P). The set comprises 6 DVDs. To order a set follow the instructions on the digital maps webpage, or if you have any queries please contact Doug Harebottle.

Here is an invitation from the butterfly atlas to do something really different. Silvia Mecenero, Project Coordinator for the Southern African Butterfly Conservation Assessment (SABCA) announces that South Africa's very first Butterfly Census Weekend (BCW) will take place on the weekend of 24–25 April 2010, as part of the SABCA project. Anyone can participate – there will be Beginner and Expert categories. You will need to register your team and locality. It is hoped that this event will grow into a regular annual or bi-annual event, collecting important information which can be used to monitor our butterflies over time and to help us understand the impacts of land use and climate change. For more information and to register your team, please go to http://sabca.adu.org.za/bcw.php

Please join us for this exciting event!

The photo is a Yellow Pansy, by MD Galpin from the SABCA Virtual Museum

Richard Brooke, writing in the first bird atlas said that, in pristine times, the African Palm-Swift was confined in southern Africa to the palmveld of northern Namibia, northern Botswana and western Zimbabwe, and the major river systems, Zambezi, Save and Limpopo. So, at the start of the twentieth century, the only area in the SABAP2 region where African Palm-swift occurred was the Limpopo Valley. In the SABAP1 atlas text for the African Palm-Swift, he described the range expansions of this species southwards and westwards. This process started in about the 1930s. Clearly, range expansion has been ongoing since SABAP1, and the range now extends along the Orange River in the Northern Cape and just into the Western Cape.

Interpretation note: The pentad data for SABAP2 have been amalgamated to quarter degree grid cells for easy comparison with SABAP1. The colours BLUE and GREEN denote quarter degree grid cells (QDGCs) where the species seems to be more abundant than in SABAP1. GREEN indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is greater than the SABAP1 reporting rate. BLUE indicates QDGCs where the species was not recorded in SABAP1 but has been recorded in SABAP2. RED and ORANGE indicate QDGCs where the species might be less abundant. ORANGE indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is smaller than the SABAP1 reporting rate, and YELLOW indicates that both reporting rates are equal. RED indicates that the species was recorded in SABAP1 but has not been recorded on SABAP2 checklists already received for the QDGC; the RED QDGCs are suggestive that the species might have disappeared from the area. Finally, PINK indicates QDGCs where the species occurred in SABAP1, but for which we do not yet have any SABAP2 data, and where we would dearly love atlasers to go and do fieldwork.

The SASOL Birds & Birding Fair takes place at the Johannesburg Zoo on 1–2 May 2010. The focus will be on the variety of birds associated with marine and fresh-water habitats. One of these wetland specialists, the Lesser Flamingo, is BirdLife South Africa’s Bird of the Year. Both days are jam-packed with activities – lectures, workshops and guided bird walks – a wide variety of exhibitors display their binoculars, camera gear, bird books, bird feeders and lots of other bird-related goods.

This year SABAP2 has a special event at the fair. At 09h00 on Sunday morning, 2 May, Ernst Retief will present a half day SABAP2 workshop: "Citizens giving back to science", in the Education Centre at the Zoo. This workshop represents a special opportunity for birders in and around Gauteng to discover more about the atlas project as well as participating in the fair.

Get in step with the birds. This Wednesday evening, SABAP2 Project Manager Doug Harebottle will give a presentation at BirdLife Berg River entitled "Getting involved with SABAP".

The venue is the Franschhoek Travellers Lodge in Franschhoek in the Western Cape. For more information please contact the chair of the bird club, Robyn Kadis, or phone her on 072 999 8581.

Our hard work is bearing fruit. Today, coverage reached 38%. It has taken 26 days to get from 37% coverage to 38% coverage. Recently, the average number of days to increase coverage by 1% has been 25 days. As unatlased pentads get farther and farther away from most atlasers we are expecting this period to increase and each 1% to take longer. But this is happening very slowly, and if it is possible to continue to increase coverage by 1% every 25 days we would be at an incredible 48% at the end of the year.

What is also encouraging is that the percentage of grid cells which have been visited at least twice is approaching 20%. The percentage of pentads which are light green or darker on the coverage map (ie four or more checklists) has recently passed 10%, and the percentage which are dark green or darker (seven or more checklists) is close to 6%. So we are maintaining the balance between going WIDE and going DEEP. If unatlased pentads are out of reach of where you live, please go DEEP in those which are accessible, and try to get as many of these as you can to dark green (seven or more checklists). The 231 pentads which are red, purple or pink are also valuable, because it is in these pentads that we will have enough data to be able to track changes in species composition through time, and the more pentads with this depth of coverage the better.

Today, Wednesday 7 April, Dr Andrew Baxter from the Cape Leopard Trust will be speaking on the research done by the CLT in the mountains of Western Cape. The venue is Lecture Theatre 3 of the Kramer Building, and the time is 18h00–19h30.

ABSTRACT: Enigmatic and elusive, wild leopards still roam free in the mountains of the Western Cape. Sightings are rare and leopard ecology in this region has been largely misunderstood. Can you imagine how many of these apex predators are left? How do they survive and what does the future hold for these amazing cats? Dr Andrew Baxter will do an illustrated presentation on the work of the CLT. Come and grab the cat by the tail; see incredible pictures of leopards captured on camera traps (like the one shown here) and find out how you can get involved as a volunteer in the Boland Project of the CLT.

The Kramer Building is part of UCT's Middle Campus, the large building just below De Waal Drive (M3).

This is the comparison map for the Red-billed Oxpecker, highlighting differences between SABAP1 and SABAP2. The colour coding is the same as for previous comparison maps in this series, and is described again below.

From about the end of the 19th century, the dips used to control ticks on cattle were a death sentence for oxpeckers. By 1910 the Yellow-billed Oxpecker was considered extinct in South Africa as a breeding species. The range of the Red-billed Oxpecker shrunk to the north-eastern corner of South Africa. Then came the introduction of oxpecker-friendly dips. Gradually through natural recolonisation and a series of translocations, coordinated by the Wildlife Conflict Prevention Group of the EWT, the range has expanded. This is quantified by the BLUE and GREEN quarter degree grid cells on the comparison map. The ORANGE areas, mainly in the Kruger National Park, are not a concern – the decreases in reporting rates there are mostly small.

Interpretation note: The pentad data for SABAP2 have been amalgamated to form quarter degree grid cell distribution maps for easy comparison with SABAP1. The colours BLUE and GREEN denote quarter degree grid cells (QDGCs) where the species seems to be more abundant than in SABAP1. GREEN indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is greater than the SABAP1 reporting rate. BLUE indicates QDGCs where the species was not recorded in SABAP1 but has been recorded in SABAP2. RED and ORANGE indicate QDGCs where the species might be less abundant. ORANGE indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is smaller than the SABAP1 reporting rate, and YELLOW indicates that both reporting rates are equal. RED indicates that the species was recorded in SABAP1 but has not been recorded on SABAP2 checklists already received for the QDGC; the RED QDGCs are suggestive that the species might have disappeared from the area. Finally, PINK indicates QDGCs where the species occurred in SABAP1, but for which we do not yet have any SABAP2 data, and where we would dearly love atlasers to go and do fieldwork.

Hard on the heels of the SABAP2 workshop in Port Elizabeth last Saturday comes the great news that coverage of the Eastern Cape reached 25% this morning. Of all the provinces of South Africa, the Eastern Cape leads in the relative increase in the number of checklists over the past six months. The number of checklists for the Eastern Cape has increased by 62% compared with an overall average of 49%. So SABAP2 momentum in the Eastern Cape is on an upwards trajectory.

The Eastern Cape is the second largest province after the Northern Cape, and improved coverage here is critical for increasing the overall coverage statistic, which currently stands on 37.67%. Another 58 pentads will take us to 38% coverage. Hopefully, there are atlasers going out wide this long weekend, and we will edge a good bit closer to the next major coverage milestone of 40%.

Another milestone which is looming ever closer is 1.75 million records. Right now, we are 2500 records short of this, which is less than the number of records submitted to SABAP2 on an "average" day.

The next ADU Seminar takes place on Friday 9 April at 12h00 in Map Room in the ADU, Second Floor, PD Hahn Building, UCT.

Our speaker is Ruben Fijn from The Netherlands, Sector of Bird Ecology, Bureau Waardenburg Ltd, Consultants for Environment and Ecology. Ruben's talk is entitled: Birds and windturbines: consequences for birds and policy makers.

Ruben spent a month or so in the ADU a few years ago, while working on his MSc thesis on the Important Bird Area Programme in Antarctica. Ruben has been recently doing projects on effects of offshore windfarms on seabirds, and his talk will present his experience from this research.

The picture shows a few of the windturbines that will be discussed in the talk.

The top histogram shows the reporting rate of Barn Swallows for the first 18 pentades of 2010. A "pentade" is defined as a five-day period, and pentade 18 started on 27 March and ended today 31 March. The astonishing thing about the histogram is that the reporting rate for Barn Swallows has not yet started to decrease.

Now have a look at the bottom histogram, which shows the reporting rates for Barn Swallows for 2009. The histogram goes as far as pentade 26, 6–10 May, of last year, the first pentade for which no swallows were recorded. Last year, reporting rates started decreasing from the end of pentade 13, at the beginning of March. At present, we have no explanations. But the critical thing is that as atlasers we are documenting something fascinating, and probably important in relation to global climate change.

The data for 2009 were collected by LAMP, the Long Autumn Migration Project. 2009 is now water under the bridge. We cannot improve on the pattern in the picture (unless you still have unsubmitted data, and that is of course still welcome!). The 2010 data are being collected as part of PHEAT, Please Help Establish Autumn Timing, which is our current mini-project for SABAP2, ongoing till the end of May. We encourage atlasers please to persist in atlasing their easily accessible pentads as often as they are able during the migration period.

The Secretariats of the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) are pleased to announce the countdown for World Migratory Bird Day 2010. This two-day awareness raising campaign will take place globally for the fifth consecutive year from 8–9 May 2010.

World Migratory Bird Day aims to inspire people to take action for the conservation of migratory birds and encourages national authorities, non-governmental organizations, clubs and societies, universities, schools and individuals around the world to organize events and programmes, which help draw attention to migratory birds around a central theme each year.

This year's theme is "Save migratory birds in crisis – every species counts!" It is closely linked to the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) declared by the United Nations for 2010.

SABAP2 makes a valuable contribution to the conservation of migrants, by generating important information about their distributions. South Africa lies at the southern end of the migration flyways of the long-distance migrants from Eurasia, and the predictions are that the effects of global change will be observed here first – if numbers of migrants decrease, then smaller populations can be accommodated farther north in Africa. Currently, SABAP2 atlasers are busy with a mini-project within SABAP2 called PHEAT – Please Help Establish Autumn Timing. We are gathering data on the timing of the northward departure of migrants in this year, 2010. For two species, the SABAP2 data shows that most birds have already left: in the last few pentades (=five-day periods), the reportings rates of Yellow-billed Kites and Steppe Buzzards have dropped to small values

Today was the final day of the Biodiversity Expo at Kirstenbosch. Lots of people came by the ADU stand, and became aware of the "citizen science" projects which we run. The final event of the four day expo was a lecture on climate change by Dr Guy Midgley of SANBI. Guy is a leader in the field of climate change within South Africa and heads up the Climate Change and BioAdaptation Division at SANBI. He was a member of the South African delegation to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last December. In his lecture, he said that one of the key tasks which scientists need to do over the next two decades is to improve our understanding of the impacts of climate on biodiversity. He singled out SABAP2 as the leading example of a project which is helping to do exactly this. The message from Guy to all atlasers is that your contributions to this project are seen as incredibly important and hugely valuable.

A SABAP2 workshop took place in Port Elizabeth this morning. Twenty people attended, mostly from Port Elizabeth itself, but some had travelled a couple of hundred kilometres to attend. Ernst Retief, who coordinated the workshop, commented: "The participants were really enthusiastic, and there are now new atlasers trained for places like Plettenberg Bay, Jeffreys Bay and Uitenhage ... so we will see some new pentads being visited in the coming weeks ... and the pentad counter in the Eastern Cape will start ticking along more rapidly." Thanks to the team in Port Elizabeth for organizing the workshop, and thanks Ernst for travelling once again to do the presentation. The Eastern Cape is now only five pentads short of its next big milestone: 25% coverage. This is the second largest province after the Northern Cape, and each 1% increase in coverage requires 23 new pentads to be visited.

Upcoming workshops are in Kimberley on Saturday 24 April, and there are two on Saturday 8 May, one in De Aar and one in Cape Town. And Doug Harebottle is presenting at talk to BirdLife Berg River in Franschhoek on 14 April. Here are the details.

Within a few weeks of hatching on the tundra in the far north of Siberia, these Ruddy Turnstone chicks will be on migration southwards. They will travel many thousands of kilometres along the migratory flyways to reach their destinations. In South Africa, as in Australia, we live at the southern end of flyways which cross many states between ourselves and the breeding grounds. Over the past few decades, Australian wader researchers having diligently, through bird ringing projects and collaboration with a network of colleagues in south-eastern Asia, uncovered the routes taken by their waders to the breeding grounds, and grasped the importance of the Yellow Sea as the final refueling site before crossing central Asia to the breeding grounds. As quickly as these critical stepping stones are discovered, they seem to be impacted by vast-scale land reclamation projects.

An article in the Ethical Investor Tidal flats turned into fatal shores is summarised on the website of the Australasian Wader Studies Group:

"In China and the Republic of Korea, large-scale land reclamation projects have destroyed almost 50% of tidal flats in the Yellow Sea, mostly in the past 30 years. Sea walls and dykes are built around tidal flats and filled in to extend the coastline. The newly-made land is used for houses, factories and infrastructure, to develop industry, expand ports and create energy facilities, including wind farms.

"Land reclamation of tidal flats in the Yellow Sea continues. In the Republic of Korea, the Government forecasts that by 2011 approximately 75% of tidal flats will have been reclaimed. The situation in China is no better.

"The impact this has had on waders is immense. Of 54 migratory wader species that use the East-Asian Australasian Flyway regularly, about 30 are dependent on tidal flats at some time, of these, least nine species are in decline. Land reclamation destroys the habitat of migratory shorebirds."

The full article is an important read for all biodiversity ambassadors.

From a SABAP2 perspective, our responsibility and our contribution is to do our best to monitor the occurrence of migrants while they are with us. We can measure changes in distribution and also abundance through the annual midsummer mini-projects (such as DeJaVU), and we can measure changes in the timing of migration through our spring and autumn projects (such as WHAMB and PHEAT, our current mini-project).

The quest for renewable energy sources in South Africa has led to a flurry of recent proposals to build high-density commercial wind and solar farms. The first wind farm in South Africa was constructed near Darling on the west coast almost 2 years ago, the four turbines (seen in photo) feeding about 5 MW into the national electricity grid. To put this into perspective, Germany has about 18 000 wind turbines which generate an incredible 22 000 MW of electricity.

Keith Harrison, a citizen scientist and atlaser based in Vredenburg and West Coast Bird Club member, informed the ADU of no less than four proposed wind and solar farm developments in the Saldanha Bay/Vredenburg area and he is concerned that these will have major impacts on some important bird species. Keith has been doing some valuable monitoring of tern and cormorant roosts at some St Helena Bay and Berg River Estuary sites over the past few years and says that if these developments go ahead they will construct these 'wind-parks' (each consisting of about 40 wind-turbines) directly in the route that these (and potentially other) birds use to commute between these localities. His observations have confirmed that the birds use this flight path during the day and night.

These developments (building is due to commence in early 2011) could lead to a serious impact on the avifauna in the region and Keith is keen to try and assimilate as much bird information as possible as a tool to voice the bird club's concern. He is thus appealing to all Western Cape atlasers to try and assist in surveying the pentads in this region as regularly and thoroughly as possible. There are only three active atlasers in the region and they just cannot comprehensively cover all the pentads on their own.

The pentads in question are 3240_1755, 3245_1755, 3250_1800, 3255_1755, 3255_1800 and 3255_1805. Most have only been done once or twice and we will need a handful of additional surveys for each pentad to compile substantive lists for the area  (in the Google coverage map type in 'Vredenburg', hit search, and then zoom out to see the current coverage in the area). Additional information on flight paths or counts of individuals at roosts etc. would also be highly beneficial if noted during an atlas survey.

Here is your chance to make your atlasing count even more and potentially contribute to conservation action on the ground. If you can or would like to assist in this important initiative and would like more information on these wind farm developments please contact Keith Harrison. 

Our thanks to Keith for bringing this to our attention and suggesting to use SABAP2 to provide the data necessary to make informed decisions on the impacts these developments may have on birds in the region.

SABAP2 workshops are coming thick and fast! After the workshop this Saturday in Port Elizabeth the next workshop is in Kimberley on Saturday 24 April 2010. The Northern Cape is the top priority province for increased coverage, so we are really keen to recruit and train atlasers in this area. If you live within striking distance of Kimberley, this workshop is for you. You will learn both why the project is important and also how to go about doing the fieldwork, and then how to do data capture and submission afterwards.

The workshop will be held in the Conference Room at the Dronfield Nature Reserve. It will start at 08h00 and will end between 12h00 and 13h00. Please bring your laptop with you if you have one, and we will help you to load the latest SABAP2 software, etc, onto it.

The workshop will be conducted by Ernst Retief, who coordinates SABAP2 in Gauteng.

Coffee and tea, fruit juice and light snacks will be provided.

Please confirm you attendance as soon as possible by sending an email to Andrew Stainthorpe or phone him on 079 491 1366.

Following the Kimberley workshop, there will be yet another workshop in the Northern Cape, in De Aar, on Saturday 8 May, details to be announced. Also on 8 May, there will be a workshop in Cape Town, in the Christo Pienaar Environmental Centre at the Tygerberg Nature Reserve, from 09h00 to 13h00. The contact person is Peter Nupen, phone 021 930 4244.

The next SABAP2 workshop is in Port Elizabeth this coming Saturday 27 March 2010. At a shade below 25%, coverage of pentads in the Eastern Cape has lagged behind most of the other provinces, and we are really keen to recruit and train atlasers in this area. So, if you live anywhere close to Port Elizabeth, and want to find out more about the project please consider attending. You will learn both why the project is important and also how to go about fieldwork, and how to do data capture and submission.

The workshop will be held at the Walmer Library, Main Road, Walmer. The workshop will start at 08h30 and will end at the latest at 12h30. If you have a laptop, please bring it with you and we will help you to load the SABAP2 software, etc, onto it for you.

The workshop will be conducted by Ernst Retief, the regional coordinator for SABAP2 in Gauteng. Here he is, setting up the data projector!

Coffee/tea will be provided free of charge.

Please confirm you attendance as soon as possible by sending an email to Gerrie Horn at gerriehorn@gmail.com or phone him on 0824438834 or 0413740373

A few days ago, US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar released a Department of the Interior report, The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change, detailing the extent to which US bird populations are seriously threatened by global warming. The report stated that climate change is poised to seriously alter critical habitats and food supplies, pushing many species toward extinction. The report was conducted by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and experts from the nation's leading conservation organizations. In particular the report found oceanic birds to be at highest risk due to the low number of chicks hatched each year, a quickly changing marine ecosystem, and critical roosting sites that could be engulfed by rising seas.

"Just as they did in 1962 when Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, our migratory birds are sending us a message about the health of our planet," Salazar said. "That is why – for the first time ever – the Department of the Interior has deployed a coordinated strategy to plan for and respond to the impacts of climate change on the resources we manage."

You can you a look at the report at http://www.stateofthebirds.org

SABAP2 plays a critical role in gathering similar data for determining the status of resident birds within South Africa and also for the migrants, which fall into two broad categories. Those species that use the migratory flyway between Eurasia and Africa, and those that migrate within Africa, the "intra-African" migrants. Our position at the tip of Africa, at the southern end of both flyways is strategic. So the data collected by PHEAT, Please Help Establish Autumn Timing, is of real importance to, first of all, alerting conservation policy makers to the extent of the problems which migrants in particular face. This is the first step towards putting mitigation measures in place to help reduce and then reverse declines.

Like this endemic dwarf chameleon, SABAP2 in the Western Cape is looking up. This evening the Western Cape joined the Free State as the second province to reach 1000 pentads visited at least once. (Since reaching this milestone exactly two weeks ago, the Free State has powered along to 1040 pentads visited.) These 1000 pentads in the Western Cape represent 54.5% coverage of the 1836 pentads in the province. 641 of the 1000 pentads have had at least two checklists, and an impressive 239 pentads have at least seven checklists. So SABAP2 is going pretty deep in the Western Cape.

Coverage in the Western Cape shows five centres of excellence: the Greater Cape Town area, stretching from the Cape Peninsula across the Cape Flats to Grabouw and Hermanus, the Swellendam district, the Garden Route, the Beaufort West district and the Mooreesburg district. The biggest challenges going "wide" lie in northern part of the province, in the mountain ranges, and in the western half of the Karoo. One of the challenges going "deep" currently lies in the Agulhas Plain and eastwards towards Mossel Bay, where a large area of pentads have a single checklist. The long-term challenge is to turn the entire province into a single atlasing centre of excellence.

A SABAP2 report-back session was held in the hall of the Dutch Reformed Church in Wakkerstroom today, as an item on the programme of the BirdLife South African AGM wseekend. I presented an overview of progress to date. For example, coverage increased from 709 pentads in January 2008, which was six months into the project, to 3379 one year later, and to 5981 at the start of this year. Last Saturday, this had grown to 6283 and in the past week to 6451, which is 37.25% of the 17318 pentads in the atlas area. Doug Harebottle led a discussion with those attending. Valuable feedback was obtained.

Geoff Lockwood, who is a member of the SABAP2 Steering Committee, attended: "It was great to share the success and the progress of the project to date. It was also fascinating to see the emerging results and the applications to which the data has already been put. It is exciting that the fruits of the project are becoming available. I am impressed that we are seeing these things so relatively early in the project. The range change maps we saw today are going to make a meaningful input into conservation decision making in the future."

PHEAT shows that most Yellow-billed Kites have left the SABAP2 atlas region. The histogram shows the overall reporting rate across the entire region was around 30% until the fifth pentade of the year, the five-day period from 21–25 January. Since then, the reporting rate has been tending to move lower, until in Pentade 15 (12–16 March) which ended yesterday, the reporting rate has dropped to around 5% – only one checklist in 20 recorded the species.

The pattern of the timing of emigration this autumn looks fairly similar to the pattern we recorded last year. You can see this at the Yellow-billed Kite page on the SABAP2 website – the histogram you get from this link will be up to date, based on the current version of the database

PHEAT is Please Help Establish Autumn Timing, a mini project running from mid-February until the end of May, as atlasers track the gradual departure of migrants from the region. The PHEAT website has all the details about the project, up to date statistics, and a map of pentads which have been visited so far in PHEAT. During the autumn and spring migration periods, atlasers are encouraged to go "DEEP" in the pentads most accessible to them, even producing a checklist every five days. PHEAT is the only chance we will ever have to track the timing of departure of migrants this autumn.

This morning, Mpumalanga atlaser, Duncan McKenzie submitted two cards to take his personal tally to 500 full protocol cards. He becomes the third atlaser to reach this milestone, Johan van der Westhuizen and Stefan Theron have each submitted 590 and 570 cards respectively. The SABAP2 team would like to congratulate Duncan, Johan and Stefan on achieving this amazing milestone. All three have put in an amazing amount of effort to have contributed just over 5% of all cards submitted to the project.

If we look at the ratio of cards to pentads, both Johan (1:0.28) and Stefan (1:0.3) have tended to gone 'deeper' rather than 'wider', i.e. for every three cards submitted one is for a new pentad, whereas Duncan (1:0.57) has managed to cover more pentads - out of his 500 cards he has covered 288 individual pentads, or for every two cards he submits one is (at least) for a new pentad. Duncan is in the fortunate position that, as an environmental consultant, his job often takes him to really remote areas and we are grateful that he is able to complete atlas cards during his field trips.

No matter how you atlas, what is important to remember, is that your contributions will make a difference to environmental and conservation policy. Your repeated visits to the same set of pentads helps establish a really good baseline against which future monitoring can be compared and in today's times of rapid environmental change this is going to become more and more important, particularly for migrant species. If, however, you prefer venturing far and wide to get to new pentads, then you too play an extremely valuable role as this all helps document any changes in the known distribution of many species.

We are all steadily fitting pieces of South Africa's bio-diversity puzzle together, a puzzle that needs as much information as possible in order for it to reveal, as clearly as possible, the changes in and to our environment. As citizen-scientists you are all puzzle-builders and ultimately we all work-together to achieve maximum benefit.

Keep up the great work! 

37% coverage today. It is only 21 days since we celebrated 36% coverage. Since reaching 30%, each 1% of extra coverage (173 new pentads) has taken an average of 27 days, so progress from 36% to 37% has been exceptionally rapid. Projecting this average into the future gets SABAP2 to 40% coverage early in June.

Data for 17 new pentads were submitted today, taking the total from 6403 yesterday evening to 6420 today. Six of today's new pentads were in the Free State, three in KwaZulu-Natal, and four in the Western Cape, bringing the total here to 991, within striking distance of joining the Free State as the second province with 1000 pentads covered.

The total number of SABAP2 full protocol records passed the 1.7 million mark today. At the present rate, we are more or less on track to reaching two million records sometime in July.

This is what 70% coverage of the 1296 pentads in KwaZulu-Natal looks like. Great outcome, Team KwaZulu-Natal, and to all the visiting atlasers to the province. This coming weekend is the BirdLife South Africa AGM at Wakkerstroom, on the border between KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga (which is just a ahead of KwaZulu-Natal with 71.6% of its 1088 pentads visted at least once). There is a meeting of atlasers during the AGM weekend next Saturday afternoon. We are hoping that atlasers who are attending the AGM will try to fit in a pentad while they are en route to Wakkerstroom, and we plan to visit as many pentads as we are able during the course of the weekend, and to boost coverage a bit in both provinces.

Over the coming weekend, there will be a daily report on the 2010 SAFRING Ringers' Conference on the SAFRING website. The first report is already there.

This conference represents the biggest gathering of people at Barberspan Bird Sanctuary for many years. This site was once one of the world's most renowned centres of excellence in waterbird research. Sadly, about 20 years ago it fell into disuse. Currently, the North West Parks and Tourism Board, aided by the ADU, is working hard to restore Barberspan to its former glory. The 2010 SAFRING Ringers' Conference is part of the rebuilding process.

Next week, on the days between the Ringers' Conference in Barberspan and the BLSA AGM in Wakkerstroom, ADU staff and students will be doing several presentations:

• Tuesday, 16 March – BirdLife Vaaldam, Deneysville Aquatic Club, Deneysville: Dieter Oschadleus – "Unmasking the Southern Masked Weaver"
• Tuesday, 16 March – BirdLife Inkwazi Bird Club, Bryanston Country Club, 19h30: Les Underhill – "You can make a difference – being a citizen scientist with SABAP2"
• Wednesday, 17 March – Newcastle Bird Club, Newcastle Club, corner of Scott and Bird Streets, Newcastle: 18h20 for 18h30: Dieter Oschadleus – "Africa's feathered locust: the Red-billed Quelea"
• Thursday, 18 March – Wits Bird Club, Delta Park Environmental Centre, 19h30: Yahkat Barshep – "Birding and bird studies in Nigeria" and Magda Remisiewicz – "Wader migrations link Europe and Africa"

ADU representatives at the BLSA AGM will be Dieter Oschadleus (who will be doing ringing demonstrations), Doug Harebottle (who will talking about atlasing), Les Underhill (who will also be talking about atlasing) and Yahkat Barshep (PhD student in the ADU, who is from Nigeria, and who did her MSc on the Rock Firefinch, a species first described in 1998, the species in the photo above).

The ADU will have a stand at the SANBI 2010 Biodiversity Expo, Thursday 25–Sunday 28 March, 09h00–16h00, at Kirstenbosch; take a look at the full details. Besides the ADU, there will at least another 30 conservation organisations exhibiting on various biodiversity issues ranging from threatened species to calculating your carbon footprint.

The ADU stand will have staff/students on duty all the time. Come and meet us there and have a natter with us. The Expo is in the Old Mutual Conference Centre at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, and entry is free. On the Sunday, Dr Guy Midgley, one of South Africa's leading experts on climate change will be doing a presentation. Guy was one of the driving forces behind the Environmental Change Booklet we produced at the end of last year for the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, and he was part of the South African delegation.

This is the comparison map for the Southern Grey-headed Sparrow, highlighting differences between SABAP1 and SABAP2. The pentad data for SABAP2 have been amalgamated to form quarter degree grid cell distribution maps for easy comparison with SABAP1. The colours BLUE and GREEN denote quarter degree grid cells (QDGCs) where the species seems to be more abundant than in SABAP1. GREEN indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is greater than the SABAP1 reporting rate. BLUE indicates QDGCs where the species was not recorded in SABAP1 but has been recorded in SABAP2. RED and ORANGE indicate QDGCs where the species might be less abundant. ORANGE indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is smaller than the SABAP1 reporting rate, and YELLOW indicates that both reporting rates are equal. RED indicates that the species was recorded in SABAP1 but has not been recorded on SABAP2 checklists already received for the QDGC; the RED QDGCs are suggestive that the species might have disappeared from the area. Finally, PINK indicates QDGCs where the species occurred in SABAP1, but for which we do not yet have any SABAP2 data, and where we would dearly love atlasers to go and do fieldwork.

Over the eastern half of the atlas region, the overwhelming dominance of GREEN suggests that the Southern Grey-headed Sparrow has become more abundant in the areas in which it occurred at the time of SABAP1. It has also expanded its range westward, along the Garden Route and the Overberg into the Cape Peninusula.

The next SABAP2 workshop is in Port Elizabeth on Saturday 27 March 2010. The coverage of pentads in the Eastern Cape has lagged behind most of the other provinces, and we are really keen to recruit and train atlasers in this area. So, if you live anywhere close to Port Elizabeth, and want to find out more about the project please consider attending. You will learn both why the project is important and also how to go about fieldwork, and how to do data capture and submission.

The workshop will be held at the Walmer Library, Main Road, Walmer. The workshop will start at 08h30 and will end at the latest at 12h30. If you have a laptop, please bring it with you and we will help you to load the SABAP2 software, etc, onto it for you.

The workshop will be conducted by Ernst Retief, the regional coordinator for SABAP2 in Gauteng.

Coffee/tea will be provided free of charge.

Please confirm you attendance as soon as possible by sending an email to Gerrie Horn at gerriehorn@gmail.com or phone him on 0824438834 or 0413740373

Magda Remisiewicz and Joel Avni have been at Barberspan Nature Reserve for a week already doing fieldwork and getting everything ready for the SAFRING Ringers' Conference this coming weekend. They have with them Sara Lipshutz, currently a semester abroad student at UCT, coming from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

They asked  Sara to describe her experiences: "Things here at Barberspan are going great. So far, we’ve ringed 136 individuals of 18 different species. Fortunately for Magda and me, the most common species are our targets – Little Stint and Kittlitz’s Plover. We got some really amazing catches – a juvenile Greater Flamingo [see the picture], a Cattle Egret, and a White-breasted Cormorant. Magda and Joel are busy working with the field rangers to prepare for the conference, and I’m getting to know a LOT more about birds – different species, their habitats, behaviors, calls, etc. I’ve seen 99 different species so far, and can’t wait to keep on birding!"

There is now only camping available for the Ringers' Conference. See the SAFRING website.

Today, the Free State became the first province to get the number of pentads visited to a four-digit number. This is a remarkable achievement, because the bird clubs in the Free State are relatively small, and there is not a large number of birders to call upon to become atlasers. Well done to the atlasers of the Free State, both resident and visiting, who have worked really hard to push the Free State along to this milestone. Rick Nuttall, Director of the National Museum in Bloemfontein, deserves special mention for his coordination and leadership of Team Free State.

There are 1862 pentads in total in the Free State – it is the third largest province – the 1003 pentads covered represent 54% of the pentads in the province – the map shows which pentads have been covered. Although today represents a great milestone, and a time to pause for a celebration, lots of work remains to be done, filling in the gaps, and getting second, third, ... , checklists for as many pentads as possible.

For those atlasers who use GPSs to navigate from one pentad to the next, Ernst Retief has developed some files that you can download and install on your GPS device allowing you to see where the pentad boundaries are in relation to your current position. 

The files come in three versions: for Garmin (.gdb) , for Ozzi Explorer (.plt) and for General Exchange (.gpx). Note that these files may only be compatible with later model GPSs. 

The files are accessible from the 'Resources' link on the left-hand menu - click on 'Pentad GPS tracks'. If you would like more information or have any queries please contact Ernst directly.

Annemarie Rohrs from Kwazulu-Natal became the 700th observer to contribute to the project. She submitted a card this afternoon from pentad 3015_3035 - this is the pentad in which Vernon Crookes Nature Reserve falls. Thanks Annemarie for your contribution and becoming part of a growing atlas network. Your participation and contribution all helps to piece together the puzzle of species distributions in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, and assist us in finding out how these have changed since the first atlas over 20 years ago.

It has taken just over 7 months to get from 600 observers to 700 observers. This equates to an average of 14 new active participants per month. Our ongoing atlas workshops have possibly accelerated this growth over this period as more and more people get to know about the project and want to get involved.

If you would like to get involved with the project please contact Doug Harebottle

Here is an invitation from the butterfly atlas to do something really different. Silvia Mecenero, Project Coordinator for the Southern African Butterfly Conservation Assessment (SABCA) announces that South Africa's very first Butterfly Census Weekend (BCW) will take place on the weekend of 24–25 April 2010, as part of the SABCA project. Anyone can participate – there will be Beginner and Expert categories. You will need to register your team and locality. It is hoped that this event will grow into a regular annual or bi-annual event, collecting important information which can be used to monitor our butterflies over time and to help us understand the impacts of land use and climate change. For more information and to register your team, please go to http://sabca.adu.org.za/bcw.php

Please join us for this exciting event!

The photo is a Yellow Pansy, by MD Galpin from the SABCA Virtual Museum

This is the comparison map for the Orange-breasted Waxbill, highlighting differences between SABAP1 and SABAP2. The pentad data for SABAP2 have been amalgamated to form quarter degree grid cell distribution maps for easy comparison with SABAP1. The colours BLUE and GREEN denote quarter degree grid cells (QDGCs) where the species seems to be more abundant than in SABAP1. GREEN indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is greater than the SABAP1 reporting rate. BLUE indicates QDGCs where the species was not recorded in SABAP1 but has been recorded in SABAP2. RED and ORANGE indicate QDGCs where the species might be less abundant. ORANGE indicates that the SABAP2 reporting rate is smaller than the SABAP1 reporting rate, and YELLOW indicates that both reporting rates are equal. RED indicates that the species was recorded in SABAP1 but has not been recorded on SABAP2 checklists already received for the QDGC; the RED QDGCs are suggestive that the species might have disappeared from the area. Finally, PINK indicates QDGCs where the species occurred in SABAP1, but for which we do not yet have any SABAP2 data, and where we would dearly love atlasers to go and do fieldwork.

The overwhelming prodominance of RED and ORANGE for this species has to be worrying. Is this a species that is quietly slipping away unnoticed? It is SABAP2 that draws our attention sharply to this possibility. It is maps like these that testify to the value of SABAP2, and justify all the time, money and effort spent on fieldwork. Once we know which species to be concerned about, we can try to find and understand the causes of their declines, and try to take conservation actions which make a difference.

Please note that during the BLSA AGM from 19–21 March at Wakkerstroom there will be SABAP2 report back session. This meeting will include

• A report from Les Underhill about the SABAP2 Project (including some interesting maps showing comparisons between SABAP1 and SABAP2 data).
• A session chaired by Doug Harebottle, where you will be able to ask questions, provide feedback, raise issues etc.

It will be held on the Saturday afternoon from 14h30–16h00. We will finish in time to attend the BLSA Annual General Meeting. The venue still needs to be confirmed. Please note this meeting is open to everybody – not only atlasers.

So if you have not booked to attend the AGM why not consider doing so. Wakkerstroom is in relative easy reach of atlasers in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Free State. It would be really great to see you all there. For more information about the AGM is on the BLSA website

If you are planning to attend the atlas feedback session please email Ernst Retief because it will assist us in doing the necessary planning.

There must be a bunch of open pentads between wherever you live and Wakkerstroom, so on your way take a break while driving and atlas some of them. Gauteng based atlasers can for instance have a look at all the open pentads around Amersfoort!

We are also planning do lots of atlasing during the weekend and it would be great if we can submit lists for most of the pentads in the quarter degrees square around Wakkerstroom (and even further) during the weekend. We will have some pentad maps available and we will try to co-ordinate the atlasing effort during the weekend.

There is final opportunity until the end of February to provide comments on proposals to make changes to the Red List status of a set of species currently under consideration. There is a list of draft decisions in a spread sheet  at proposed changes in Africa.

Species occurring in southern Africa which are affected by the proposals are

African Penguin: change from Vulnerable to Endangered

Ludwig's Bustard: change from Least Concern to Vulnerable

Southern Ground Hornbill: change from Near-threatened to Vulnerable

Corncrake: change from Near-threatened to Least Concern

The ordering of threat categories is Least Concern, Near-threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered. Thus three species are moving into categories of greater threat and one, Corncrake, is now reclassified as Least Concern.