Climate change a killer for fynbos birds

Tanya Farber | 16 November, 2015 12:35

A new study at the University of Cape Town shows that birds are feeling the heat – and a lot more – from changes in climate.

A dozen species in the Western Cape are declining because of changing conditions, according to the study by scientists from the Percy Fitzpatrick Institute at UCT in collaboration with the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

The study looked at 12 fynbos bird species and compared the information with data captured 15 years prior.

Changes in climate were assessed for the same period and a decline was noted across all species.

Several factors resulting from man-made conditions are pushing them out of their habitats. Heat is one of them, but shifting patterns in fire and rainfall are also proving detrimental.

The study, which will be published in the Oxford University Press journal Conservation Physiology next month, includes some well-known species such as the malachite sunbird and the familiar chat.

Lead researcher Susie Cunningham said the findings could inform plans for better conservation strategies.

Read on …

SA’s coastal birds under severe threat

Cape Town - There’s bad news, good news and some... well, interesting news about the Western Cape’s coastal birds and seabirds.

The bad news includes confirmation of the massive decline in numbers of the African Penguin, arguably the most charismatic of the coastal birds and a conservation icon, and also of migrant wading birds like the Sanderling, Curlew Sandpiper, Ruddy Turnstone and Grey Plover.

The good news – there’s a lot less of it, unfortunately – is that the population of the formerly endangered African Oystercatcher has increased substantially and its Red Data threat status has been downgraded to “near threatened”.

And the interesting news is that while the numbers of several species using our local shoreline has plummeted, the total number of birds hasn’t changed in the past three decades.

This is because the virtual disappearance of some migrant waders has been offset by large numbers of Egyptian Geese – it’s an indigenous bird, not an exotic from northern Africa as is often mistakenly presumed – and ibises, especially Sacred Ibises, explains Professor Phil Hockey, head of UCT’s Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology.

“Numbers of gulls and herons have also increased, and the preponderance of large-bodied birds means that avian biomass [the combined total weight of all the birds] has increased on the shore.

“The niche occupied by waders that feed on small crustaceans associated with washed-up seaweed, once such a feature of the west coast, appears to have been taken over, at least in part, by Common Starlings [formerly called European Starlings].”

Hockey’s comments come in the “FitzPatrick Report” that is one of the features in the first issue of African Birdlife, the new magazine of conservation group BirdLife South Africa that will hit the bookshelves of selected outlets on Wednesday week.




Read on: http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/environment/sa-s-coastal-birds-under-severe-threat-1.1418315#.UJkXbG_ZbWg