Bird lovers work towards greener pastures

Members of the Barberton Bird Club enjoyed an informative presentation by guest speaker, Peter Lawson, at Lone Tree Moth Club on Monday evening.

The club meets on the first Monday of every month to learn about all the various kind of birds. Lawson’s presentation was about the Turning Kruger Green project.

This well-known endeavour is the first of its kind and one of the biggest projects to be complete in such a short space of time.

The project forms part of the South African Bird Atlas Project, in which SANParks aims to count all the birds in all its parks. Hundreds of species were listed during this three-year period.

According to Lawson, it was a very interesting project. “It was registered with SANParks and the University of Cape Town (CUT) and ended in November – it was supposed to end in December. It covered the entire area of the KNP and some areas outside the park, so that a comparison could be made between birds in protected areas and those in unprotected areas.

“Our finding was that there are some birds that hardly go out of the park because they are destroyed or poisoned. Birds such as vultures, eagles, and kori bustards prefer to stay inside. Outside, it is a different case. Most birds go into the park, it is rare to find birds that do not. Some go in, however, they do not stay,” Lawson explained.

CUT and SANParks discussed the idea of mapping the birds throughout the area.

This was when they approached Lawson to be lead.”I remember receiving a phone call from the university informing me about their plan. I was so excited and immediately said yes. I was sitting at home and had retired from my job as an operator with bird-watching tours.

“I worked with a team of scientists and we had the opportunity to go to all the areas to do our research,” Lawson happily concluded.

For information on the Barberton Bird Club, contact Andrew Lean on 082-491-2951.