Western Cape Biodiversity Challenge

[TH]

At the beginning of 2010, my wife and I decided to set ourselves a little personal challenge. Since we found ourselves always going to the same areas over and over again and seeing the same things all the time (and realized that there were a number of species that we had not seen in many years or had not bothered going to look for at all even although they occurred pretty close to home), we decided to put this little challenge together.

Since the Western Cape is our home province, the idea was to try and see (and photograph) all the species of birds, mammals, reptiles and frogs that occur in the province. No time limit was set on this challenge and we would just go about it using the available time we had in the field. It would also help to give us some direction for our time in the field and forced us to visit a number of places in the province that we had not been to for a very long time. It also made things slightly tougher as a number of the species are probably a lot easier to find in other areas outside of the province, so part of the challenge was to try and find sites for these species within the provincial boundaries.

Anyway, we are still plodding along with this but, if any of you are interested in seeing our progress so far, feel free to pop through to this link - http://www.hardaker.co.za/challenge.htm. Because of the people involved with this forum, you are probably only really interested in the reptiles and frogs, so just click on those links to see which species we have already seen and which we are still missing. As you will notice, there are still a few really common species that we have just not bumped into yet. And it’s amazing, even if one is actually spending quite a bit of time in the field, how often that happens. Slowly, but surely, we will continue to fill in the gaps until we have a completed list…

We are enjoying this little challenge and getting to see a number of these species that we have not seen in a very long time. And it keeps us out of trouble too…

[Francois]

After I saw your site about a year back I have also started a national list for reptiles and birds.

I follow you on facebook and SA rare bird news. It always amazes me what you find on some of those trips and the great photographs just make it even better!