Avitourists get all twitchy about rare Cape visitors
• Strandfontein Birding Area a top South African birding site for number of species seen, drawing flocks of viewers
It’s official, The Telegraph in the UK pronounced in March — birding is the new hipster hobby. Almost a third of Britain’s 16- to 25year-olds have indulged in some feather spotting.
Not many goatees or tattoos are on display on a brisk Sunday at the Cape Flats Waste Water Treatment Works in Strandfontein. There are flocks of avid birders, most over 50.
They have impressive focus, as they train scopes, cameras and binoculars (“bins” in birder jargon) on a nondescript bird bobbing in mud like a dashboard toy. It is a lost but healthy Temminck’s stint, and some of its admirers have flown across the country to see it.
The Strandfontein sewage works, officially the Strandfontein Birding Area, is a top South African birding site — not only for the number of species recorded — at about 170 impressive for a tiny area — but also for the rarities that turn up on its mud flats and settling pans.
Birds’ navigation skills can go AWOL and deluded souls sometimes head deep south instead of north. Over the past summer special visitors with evocative names such as American golden plover and elegant tern have turned up in the Cape, luring birders and twitchers eager to add new species to their lists for the area.
“Behind the dunes, along Baden Powell Drive is an absolute waterbird haven,” says architect, avid twitcher and chairman of the BirdLife SA rarities committee Trevor Hardaker. The sewage works was built in 1922 and grew to 34 settling pans by 1976, covering 121ha. After chemical treatment was introduced, the pans were used less for sewage treatment and conservation of the wetlands became a priority.
“Wetland habitats are some of the most threatened and degraded in the world and many migratory birds are also increasingly threatened,” says Dale Wright, BirdLife SA’s Western Cape conservation manager. Strandfontein is a haven for many migrant waders including the curlew sandpiper, recently placed on the global threatenedspecies list.
The Strandfontein Birding Area enjoys formal protection as part of the False Bay Nature Reserve, which incorporates neighbouring Rondevlei and Zeekoevlei, and in 2015 was granted Ramsar status, giving it international importance.
It is a peaceful place, whiffy in patches, with a pleasing maze of gravel roads bisecting pans spotted with ducks and flamingoes. A vehicle can be used as a “mobile hide”, says Hardaker.
Birding tourism, or avitourism, is not to be sniffed at. In 2011, US birders were estimated to have spent $41bn on their hobby. In SA, the Department of Trade and Industry’s most recent study on the sector, in 2009, suggested that avitourists spent R927m-R1.7bn a year.
In the past 12 months, Hardaker, accompanied by his wife, Margaret, has flown from Cape Town to Kasane, Botswana, and crossed the border to Namibia to find a yellow-throated leaflove. He has also been to the Kruger National Park and Victoria Falls in search of wheatears (he did not see the bird in Zimbabwe).
“The adrenaline rush of the chase and the high after actually getting to see a particular bird is something only fellow twitchers will ever understand,” Hardaker says. “Many people won’t agree with our escapades, but … we are doing it purely for the enjoyment. It just adds a little extreme sports edge to our birding.”
The Department of Trade and Industry notes gloomily that decision-making by “fanatical” avitourists is difficult to influence, making them a “less attractive target segment” in the tourism industry. Casual birders are more likely to bird-watch as part of wider outdoor-based activities in nature.
Still, both kinds of tourist spend money. And a rare bird helps draw the crowds — Hardaker says that nearly 1,300 people visited Zeekoevlei specifically to find a rufoustailed scrub robin. More than 1,200 people went in search of the visiting Temminck’s stint.
Dr Chris Lotz of Birding Ecotours says Strandfontein is arguably one of Greater Cape Town’s top-five birding sites. While most of their clients are foreign and not as interested in lost vagrant birds, “we’ve had several folks from Pretoria and Johannesburg flying to Cape Town specifically to get these rarities. Sometimes, they even fly one of our Gauteng-based guides to the Cape if they already have a good working relationship with that person,” he says. Brian Vanderwalt of Brian’s Birding has also guided Joburgers who have flown to Cape Town for the day to find a rarity (his day tours cost locals about R2,000).
The sewage works are generally included in all his city tours, as the number of species that can be clocked up in a very short time “blows [tourists] out of the water”. Besides the rarities, “to see 1,000 flamingoes in the late afternoon light is spectacular”, he says.
The twitchers spend large sums on equipment. A toprange pair of binoculars can cost up to R40,000; a camera and lens up to R250,000.
“Most birders will probably have an average of R20,000 worth of equipment with them,” says Hardaker. “If 1,000 twitchers come to see a rarity, that’s R20m in equipment.”
Lotz says more Strandfontein residents are dropping by before
WETLAND HABITATS ARE SOME OF THE MOST THREATENED. MANY MIGRATORY BIRDS ARE ALSO THREATENED WE’VE HAD FOLKS FROM PRETORIA AND JOHANNESBURG FLYING TO CAPE TOWN TO GET THESE RARITIES
or after work. “It’s become pretty good for socialising with other birders and comparing notes,” he says.
The sewage works has a Facebook page with more than 790 members; regulars often post photos and alerts of avian visitors. The increased awareness is helping conservation efforts. BirdLife SA and the Cape Bird Club work with the City of Cape Town to build the False Bay Nature Reserve. BirdLife recently raised more than R35,000 from crowdsourcing linked to rarities popping up.
This will provide two additional staff members for the Strandfontein Birding Area who will help clear alien vegetation, cut reeds and control water levels. Water levels are vital, as the reserve’s former supervisor Erica Brink found while writing an MSc dissertation on enhancing the pans as a bird habitat. Brink found “retaining a constantly retreating water level and shallow depths of 10cm20cm in more than one pond over the course of the year could maximise wader numbers”.
Vanderwalt says it is hard to get the new generation to join bird clubs, but technology — apps, photography and “all the joys of digital” — has widened birding’s reach.