North West Atlassing

North West Province has a total of 1486 pentads covering the area, and to date 241 pentads have already been atlassed at least once. This equates to a coverage of 16.2%, not far behind the overall SABAP2 coverage of just over 20%.

In reaching the 16.2% mark, a total of 755 card were submitted, constituting 44 625 records. This is an average of 59.1 species per card. The highest species for a North West card is 143, not an easy target. Next target 200???

Thanks to all the observers who contributed to these stats, this is a job well done.

Pilanesberg Atlassing

With all the fun of watching the BASH statistics being reached, I have only now got to update the Pilanesberg map.

As reported earlier, 2520_2705 has hit RED, with 2515_2705 only one list away!!

Sadly, the 4 green pentads have gone unnoticed for some time. Pursuing my challenge to TURN PILANESBERG BLUE (and RED ;-) I urge all atlassers visiting Pilanesberg in the next short while to target these areas, as there is some good birding to be had in these pentads.

2510_2700 is just 4 lists away from hitting BLUE

2510_2705 and 2510_2710 are just 1 list away from BLUE

2515_2710 needs 2 more for BLUE


Help is on the way for some of the North-Western Pentads with the new Black Rhino Lodge situated in close proximity to these, so I hope to see these reach BLUE soon.

Happy atlassing!!

BASH STATS SMASHED

On visiting the SABAP2 website this evening, I was impressed to see that the rather HUGE targets set for the BASH challenge had all been reached. What an amazing sight to see what was accomplished in 2 months.

Herewith the stats:

Well done to Team SABAP2!!

Pilanesberg atlassing

Pentad 2520_2705 covering Sun City has turned RED! This is the first pentad out of 1486 pentads that cover the North West Province to have been atlassed 25 times or more.

Thank you to the observers who assisted me in reaching this target.

And unless an observer out there would like to prove me wrong, the next RED pentad is likely to be 2515_2705 covering the central area of Pilanesberg Nat Park (directly North of the Sun City Pentad), as it is currently standing on 24 full protocol cards.

Who will submit the 25th???

Yellow-throated Sandgrouse

The scenic route home today took me past the ploughed lands favoured by the Sandgrouse, but I was not fully expecting to find them, with it being 10:30.

I was therefore pleased to find a group of 9 birds feeding about 30m off the road. I approached on foot slowly, and at 20m, they took off, followed by another 11 birds that I hadn't noticed. I was happy to note that after flying a stretch, they circled and landed together about 80m away, having expected them to move off completely.

Now I can see why the jizz of a bird is so important to identification, because in flight the Speckled Pigeons and Yellow-throated Sandgrouse look very similar. This is till you notice the more pointed wings and more rapid flight of the Sandgrouse. With Pigeons and Sandgrouse sharing the fields, it makes identification quite tricky at first!!

And then there's the sandgrouse call to make life so much easier.

YT Sandgrouse update

With the thought of adding another pentad to the BASH statistics (see the SABAP2 webpage), we headed off to atlas pentad 2525_2705 yesterday. Sadly, after one thing and another, we only managed 1.5 hours before calling it quits.

The list started off well, with species like Yellow Canary, Abdim's Stork, Yellow-crowned Bishop, Chestnut-backed Sparrowlark and Yellow-throated Sandgrouse showing well. I'll know the full total when I get around to submitting the list.

Using atlassing as the excuse, my main target was to located the YT Sandgrouse again, and I was not disappointed. This site is proving very reliable.

To start, 1 male and 2 females were noted feeding in the ploughed lands, and the next hour saw us noting over 40 sandgrouse along the 3km of road.

This area has the benefit of easier access than the site just south of Sun City, although you have to work for the sighting. No such thing as sitting around waiting for them to land in front of you. With all the rain we have had recently (close on 300mm in January), I haven't ventured down to the Sun City site as getting stuck in black-cotton clay doesn't appeal to me. If we experience a few days of dry weather I will pop past this site and see what arrives. An update will follow if I don't get bogged down.