My work with the Southern Bald Ibis has included spending hours driving – mostly alone – through spectacularly scenic landscapes of South Africa and Lesotho to monitor breeding colonies. I’ve learnt how to keep my cool when driving a 4×4 over mountains in Lesotho where there’s barely even a cattle path, the Ford Ranger tilting at a sharp angle, with sheer drops on either side of the mountain. When there isn’t the option to stop or reverse, you just keep going forward.
I’ve hiked through the freezing Senqu River barefoot to reach a colony on the opposite side, and monitored cliffs on a rocking boat on the Katse Dam. I’ve met extremely interesting landowners (who are always very surprised to hear that this locally abundant species is of conservation concern) and passionate birders all willing to go the extra mile to monitor colonies. None of the successes we’ve seen with the Southern Bald Ibis project, including stabilising population numbers, would have been possible without these landowners, birders and volunteers helping us each step of the way. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes many more to save a threatened species!
Southern Bald Ibises breed against cliffs, so vantage points are often too far from the cliff to see a small chick in a nest. Very few colonies enable observers to see into the nest, except in a few special cases. The Ingula Nature Reserve is home to the first artificial breeding site for the Southern Bald Ibis, built to accommodate an existing breeding colony that was to be inundated when the Bedford Dam was filled in 2016.
I joined the team too late to see the relocation of the original colony, but have since seen how the birds started using the ledges and constructed potholes. Here, I’ve had the opportunity to visit the nesting site weekly to see the growth and development of the chicks – from tiny, almost featherless, few-hours-old creatures through to the little black fluff-ball stage where they try their best to hide themselves, head tucked behind the straw in the nest or behind their nest-sibling, if there is one. Then comes the awkward stage when they start looking at you suspiciously and contemplate jumping into the deep waters below to get away.
I had one juvenile thinking its flight was strong enough to get it to the other side of the water, only to come up more than a metre short before becoming a duck: he swam perfectly to the edge and climbed out easily enough as a proud ibis again.
To understand how Southern Bald Ibises move around, and which habitats they choose to use at different times of the year, we fit tracking devices onto some birds. The easiest way is to catch the juvenile on the nest before it fledges. There’s only a small window of opportunity when the chick is big enough to be fitted with a Teflon harness and tracking unit – allowing for a little bit of growth into adult birds – without being so loose that the harness falls off, so we need to time this carefully.
On the day of fitting the tracking devices – and because we don’t want the chicks throwing themselves into the Bedford Dam – we need a team member to wait at the bottom of the cliffs in a canoe with a net, to scoop out any duck wannabes. Retrieving the chicks from the nest requires abseiling down the artificial cliff to the nest. Since I had no abseiling experience or equipment, initially I opted for canoe duty. We had a great team of abseilers with tons of experience, also in ringing and fitting tracking units to birds, so I knew the birds were in good hands.
The Southern Bald Ibis juveniles received their brand-new merchandise to kick off our habitat-use study, and we were excited to start learning more about their habits. We celebrated with coffee and rusks, watching our birds coming in to roost against a sky filled with Barn Swallows and a sunset over Bedford Dam.
– Carina Pienaar
This captivating and informative book focuses on the coastal and terrestrial bird species most at risk within South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini. Presented in an elegant large format, Birds on the Brink highlights the beauty, unique traits and vulnerabilities of these birds, while emphasising the human-induced threats, such as habitat loss, climate change, energy infrastructure and competition for resources. Personal accounts from scientists, conservationists and guides on the front lines offer insight into the science, skill and dedication required to safeguard these species. The birds featured are not merely fascinating creatures – they act as sentinels of biodiversity, whose decline signals concerning ecological shifts.
