Hitting the road is for birds... really!

PICS: ALAN LEE Ornithologist Alan Lee who is riding 3 000km through the Western Cape to check the status of fynbos birds. A male Orange-breasted Sunbird on a protea bush. It is one of only six bird species that are endemic - occurring nowhere else - to the fynbos region.

PICS: ALAN LEE Ornithologist Alan Lee who is riding 3 000km through the Western Cape to check the status of fynbos birds. A male Orange-breasted Sunbird on a protea bush. It is one of only six bird species that are endemic - occurring nowhere else - to the fynbos region.

Published Mar 13, 2012

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Field biologist Dr Alan Lee is doing a point survey of birds and plants while his bicycle leans against the sign indicating the 860m summit of the spectacular Robinson’s Pass between Mossel Bay and Oudtshoorn. It’s been a tough climb that has left its mark, he tells the Cape Argus.

He is taking an interview call on his cellphone from the mountain top – “I can feel my muscles today!” he admits.

Which is not surprising, because with his odometer registering 1 145km since he started pedalling on January 31, he’s now probably just over one-third of the way into a 3 000km journey that is taking him on a criss-cross, zig-zag route across many of the mountain ranges of the Western Cape.

It’s also taking him through much of the province’s spectacular fynbos vegetation, and this is the real reason for his hard slog – to survey the status of fynbos birds and particularly the six species that occur nowhere else on Earth: the iconic Cape Sugarbird, Orange-breasted Sunbird, Protea Seed-eater, Cape Rockjumper, Cape Siskin and Victorin’s Warbler, with a view to helping assess the likely future impacts of climate change on the populations of these birds.

“Most climate change models predict a drier environment in the not-too-distant future for the Western Cape. This could have severe repercussions for the endemic bird species that live there,” he explains.

“Surprisingly, we know very little about four of the six species found only in the fynbos. This survey is a first step to addressing the shortcomings in the knowledge of some of the birds that make South Africa so very special…

“Climate change is definitely going to make things worse.”

Lee is a post-doctoral research fellow at UCT’s FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, and his project is being done in partnership with the SA National Biodiversity Institute at Kirstenbosch which co-ordinates climate change research in the country.

He’s also collaborating with conservation group BirdLife SA, which recently appointed Dale Wright as its regional conservation manager for the Western Cape.

Wright points out that Lee’s planned route takes him through many of the identified Important Bird Areas (IBAs) of the Western Cape.

“So he’ll collect data on the key fynbos endemics which our new regional programme will aim to conserve. It therefore made perfect sense for BirdLife South Africa and Alan to partner on this project.”

Lee, who did his undergraduate studies at Wits University, is no stranger to long bike rides.

“I’ve always enjoyed cycling to some degree or another, and when I was working overseas I would cycle everywhere – it was the cleanest, quickest form of transport,” he says.

Then, when he got tired of living in London, he went to South America and cycled from Buenos Aires in Argentina to the coast of Peru – a 6 000km journey that took him three-and-a-half months, “more or less for adventure and fun”, and when he met his wife-to-be Anja en route.

He ended up living in Peru for seven years, working for a non-government conservation group to research the impacts of tourism on wildlife.

Meanwhile he was also able to gain his PhD through the Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK with a study of the parrots and macaws in the forests of the Peruvian Amazon.

Although he’d grown up in Johannesburg, his family owned a property on the edge of the Baviaanskloof near Uniondale which was a completely different ecosystem and where his interest in fynbos and fynbos endemic birds was piqued, he explains.

“The birds would appear and then suddenly disappear and I couldn’t tell where they were going, so it was just a voyage of discovery for me to start with.

“I started doing some reading, and as I delved deeper I realised that while these birds were of ‘least concern’ status, they were actually in trouble for no apparent reason. In particular, numbers of seedeaters and rockjumpers had declined dramatically.”

At the end of December, when he was driving back home before the start of his project, he realised that he shouldn’t do it in a vehicle – particularly because he’s stopping to sample every kilometre along the roads and even more frequently, every 500m, in the off-road areas.

“I thought, why don’t I just do the whole thing by bicycle? It’s a good way of saving money, and it’s easier to stop at the side of the road, and I’m also raising awareness.”

The day he set out was inauspicious, as he noted in his blog:

“Day 0: Today I left home with little fanfare – just a kiss from Anja and Elena (their daughter). In the distance thunder rolled, and I had to overcome a sense of trepidation and nervousness. However, the storm parted and winds blew me to Uniondale in record time. More rain on the horizon for tomorrow… but the show must go on.”

But matters improved quickly:

“Day 1: First official survey day! And not a bad one; I braved mist and drizzle to cycle over the Kouga mountains that rewarded me with records for all six endemics during 15km of survey line, with 19 points completed. Tomorrow I disappear down Prince Alfred’s Pass and into the Outeniqua mountains for a while – no internet.”

And mid-February he was blogging from the Little Karoo:

“Hi! Just reached Prince Albert today, after some awesome scenery from the Kammanassie to the Swartberg. Yesterday I was on top of the world (nearly) on Blesberg – 2 084 metres, with breathtaking views from the Karoo to the Outeniquas. Nice birds too! Today I was up early to wake the Hadedas, to beat the heat (and the south-wester) and get to Prince Alfred – 80km on the clock so far today. Tomorrow I start my survey over the Swartberg Pass.”

His journey will take him until the end of April, when he hopes to finish up his survey in Cape Town. And he’ll celebrate his 38th birthday later this month on the road.

“I’m definitely getting to places I’ve never been before, so it’s a journey of discovery for me as well,” he says.

l Lee’s blog is at http://bluehillescape. blogspot.com/. For more information about BirdLife SA’s Western Cape regional conservation programme, contact Wright at westerncape@ birdlife.org.za or 072 562-3946 - Cape Argus

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