Population survey of Taita Falcons

An award of £750 was made for a population survey of Taita Falcon Falco fasciinucha in South Africa. Initially this work, to be overseen by Andrew Jenkins and Anthony van Zyl of the Western Cape Raptor Research Programme based at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town in South Africa, was to have used helicopters for survey work but this plan was abandoned after concerns over disturbance. The project could not take place in 2005 but is on course to be completed during September/October 2006. The following report was received on 6th October.

"I will be compiling a series of reports for our sponsors and one or two publications on the results of the survey once the field season winds up towards the end of the year. In the meantime, I thought it would be a good idea to quickly sum up what we achieved in the survey.

In all, 12 people were involved as participants in the survey from September 17 to October 1, and between us we accumulated 58 person-days of effort at nearly 40 observation points. These points were situated immediately above or below a minimum of 50 potential Taita nest cliffs, spread along about 40 km of the more or less linear escarpment from Scotland Hill in the south to Chedle in the north, and including the vast complexity of the Blyde River Canyon. Obviously, we fell way short of covering all the available habitat, and were forced to concentrate on sites deemed most likely to hold Taita pairs on the basis of incidental observations made by Dave R, myself and others over the last 10-15 years.

We also did two helicopter-based survey flights, both centred on the canyon area, and did one heli drop off session with three teams of two positioned at strategic points in the area to conduct obs. The latter yielded key observations that led to the finding of the 4th nest. We owe a huge debt of thanks to Lt Col Willie van Aswegen, Capt Paul Bester and the crew at the 19th Squadron, Hoedspruit for all their considerable help and cooperation, not to mention their expert flying.

Starting with a population of two known and documented sites, occupied by pairs of adults and each with a history of successful breeding going back to the late 80s or early 90s, we were able to confirm these as still current and add another two good sites. Doubling the known population of the species for South Africa is no small achievement, although we fell tantalisingly short of my minimum target of 5 pairs.

In addition to the 4 Taita sites, we also located 3 active Peregrine sites (and noted with interest that at least 3 sites occupied by PFs at least until the mid-90s are now occupied by Lanners), 12 Lanner sites, 23 Rock Kestrel sites, 5 Verreauxs' Eagle sites, 3 Black Stork sites, 5 Jackal Buzzard sites and 2 White-necked Raven sites. Note that this is by no means an absolute assessment of the populations of these species in our study area, but does represent a very useful foundation for further survey work. I would like to provide the relevant sub-set of this information to Hannes Marais of the Blyde River Canyon NR for use in future management decisions in the Canyon area, assuming this is ok with the team and sponsors?

Overall, I think we did pretty well. We located two new sites, and learned plenty about how and where to look for others. If possible, I would like to return to the area later in the TF season (in Nov?) to tie up a few loose ends, confirm breeding at the four nests we have, and
possibly nail that elusive fifth nest.

Once again, well done and thanks to all involved for your considerable effort and committment. Any and all comments and suggestions on how the survey was conducted, how it could be improved if repeated, and possible ways forward from here, would be much appreciated."