World without birds; oh no!

SOME of my best friends are … It’s a pretty hackneyed expression when you want to support a group, or body of people. But I want to add to that: Some of my best friends are birds and animals, and many of my friends are people who love birds and animals too. The world would be a desperately poorer and uglier place were there no birds or animals.

It was my parents who inculcated and educated me, by example, into the love of these creatures. I wasn’t given my name for nothing. “Why did you call me Robin?” I asked my dad one day when I was a little boy. His reply was simple. “Because I love birds,” he said and that was that. There was always a Roberts Birds of Southern Africa book on the coffee table and a pair of binoculars too.

Well, 10 days ago we joined 70 other members and friends of BirdLife Border at Merrifield school hall to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Highlight of a great evening was Birdlife SA CEO Mark Anderson’s talk on the organisation’s aims and achievements. It was fascinating stuff and we can all thank him and their supporters for what they do.

I don’t know about you, but if you are conscious of birds around you, it would be a bad, sad day if the time ever came when these beautiful and amazing creatures disappeared from our lives. It would happen if humankind had its way to invade and develop willy-nilly every forest, open space, grassland, draining of swamps, raping the ocean and so on without caring about the creatures that depend on these for their life.

Mark mentioned many of Birdlife SA’s successes which include helping rid Marion Island, in the south Atlantic, of cats introduced in 1949 to catch mice. The five originals exploded to 3 400 and preyed on breeding seabirds. Using various measures, the cats were finally exterminated and as expected rat and mouse populations increased once more. That, too, is now being dealt with. Our national bird, the blue crane, also came under threat from poisons and insecticides and a campaign to educate farmers is reaping rewards as the crane population increases.

One only has to see them all in wheatlands alongside the N2 to Cape Town to appreciate how the numbers of these beautiful birds are expanding.

Seabirds, too, are being saved in their thousands from clever ideas introduced on fishing trawlers and long-line boats to discourage petrels and albatrosses from becoming tangled in nets, or picking up baited hooks, and drowning.

Birdlife SA is doing a great job educating and lobbying and deserves every support it can get.

Have a look at its website www.birdlife.org.za .

One entry I liked was the 115 birdcall ringtones one can listen to and purchase if you wish. Many garden birds are there and I particularly enjoyed ones I often hear around the home including various robins (of course! Wish I could sing like that!) and more. Even the rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker hard at work; hadedas screeching (not my favourite, but it wouldn’t be the same without them); fish eagle, owls, shrikes, nightjar – there are lots, and children can learn bird calls from this too.

Anyway, today’s column is a bit of a ramble … Last week we discussed rainfall, drought and dam levels here. One point of discussion was that no rain was recorded at Chiselhurst in October, an unusual entry for East London, especially in a summer month.

Several readers commented they had rain. One was Colin Bellamy who lives in Cambridge less than a kilometre from Chiselhurst, and he recorded 44mm. Others in Selborne had similar amounts. Well, all I can say is that on enquiry, I learnt it was probably an error, but 0mm it will remain.

You may know that at official weather stations daily rainfall is measured at 8am for the previous 24 hours.

So if it rains on October 31, for example, the entry will be on November 1, and therefore becomes part of the November total. That’s just the way it is. –