To honour their commitment to the environment, some of the staff from Silverstar spent some time with the team from the Black Eagle Project at the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden, where they handed over a donation of R50 000.
“This R50 000 donation includes funds collected from the Silverstar fountains, which were then matched and topped up with funds from our CSI budget,” said Anneke Potgieter, Director of Operations and Complex General Manager at Silverstar.
The Black Eagle Project team has unofficially been monitoring the birds since 1988 and the project was formalised in 1992.
Gerald Draper, Chairperson of the Black Eagle Project Roodekrans said that the project is run by a group of approximately 30 volunteers with eight official committee members who monitor the eagles on public holidays and weekends.
“The objectives of the project are to take all necessary steps to conserve, protect and maintain the Black Eagles in the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden for future generations,” Draper said.
According to Draper, there have been a few generations of Black Eagles nesting in the Botanical Gardens since the 1940s.
Among them is the grand old lady, Emonyeni, who is believed to be more than 40 years old. The first sightings of Emonyeni occurred in the early 1970s with her first mate. Quatele was her second mate and she scoured the ridges searching for him when he disappeared in 1998.
Emonyeni patiently taught her third mate, Thulane, everything she knew when this small male barely in his first year of adulthood arrived. Sadly in 2016, Emonyeni disappeared.
According to Draper, the new female was approximately three to four years old but not a breeding adult yet back then.
In 2017, Makatsa built her own nest further back from the waterfall. She and Thulane raised their first chick, named Ayanda. Ayanda stayed until 23 December 2017, after which she left her parents’ territory.
In 2018, Makatsa revisited Emonyeni’s nest, closer to the waterfall, which has been there for almost 70 years.
The Black Eagle Project team has had the eagles under surveillance with an online camera. They could monitor their every move, from nest refurbishment, eggs being laid, incubation, hatching, meal times and fledging of the young birds. Unfortunately, while Makatsa was busy refurbishing the old nest for the new breeding season, it was washed away by the waterfall which was in flood due to the heavy rainfall we had in March. She then returned to the nest which she had built the previous year. Since the camera was too far away to monitor the new nest, the team has had to rely on the eagles’ behaviour. Based on this, they believe that Makatsa laid her first egg on 4 May. It hatched during the weekend of 16 and 17 June.
Draper concludes, “The R50 000 donation received from Silverstar will be used to move the camera to Makatsa’s nest. This will however only be done after a feasibility study and after breeding season, which is between December 2018 and February 2019.”
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