A rich diversity of flora and fauna were discovered during the a recent nature challenge even though the country was on lockdown, writes Tony Rebelo and Alanna Rebelo.
This year, the height of the Covid-19 lockdown in April coincided with the fifth iNaturalist City Nature Challenge.
In this annual global nature hunt, members of the public are encouraged, as citizen scientists, to explore their cities and report on the animals and plants that share our world.
With everyone confined to their homes in many major cities around the world and only some fortunate enough to have gardens or balconies, this posed a major challenge for a nature hunt.
Although just a few months have passed, it is already hard to remember that in South Africa, we were only allowed out for essential purposes, such as medical emergencies and food, which meant that nature interaction was confined to people’s homes.
The lockdown was, however, no excuse for passivity in a megadiverse country like South Africa. Many Capetonians discovered the wonders of a nectar feeder, or the power of a half apple and a handful of seeds left outside. Many birds and critters could be enticed to visit when human visitors were forbidden.
The lockdown became a time for people to engage with the wildlife in their homes and gardens. You might ask how you can engage with nature? If you have gardens, you can, for example, look for and record the elusive dwarf chameleon, or have a garden party and record all the critters visiting the flowers, the plants, and your picnic.
If you are a night owl, why not hold a night expedition and look for spiders and insects by their eyeshine, and the pale chameleons and other denizens of the night, like praying mantises, crickets and frogs?
Having no garden is not an excuse to not interact with nature. You can do bird surveys from your windows, or set up moth traps (sheets illuminated with a bright light at night), insect hotels or nesting boxes. Inside our houses, the geckos, mosquitoes and other goggas can entertain and infuriate us.
If you are feeling lonely, isolated, and socially distanced, you need only peek into the corners and under the beds to find ants, house flies, or perhaps even cockroaches and bed bugs. But besides these obvious pests, there is also a great diversity of amazing moths, fish moths, spiders and beetles.
As we celebrate World Nature Conservation Day on 28 July, it helps to maintain a perspective of the value of all life when one considers that each is visiting our dwellings for a very good reason, and many of them are actually cleaning up after us or helping to keep down pest numbers.
City Nature Challenge: lockdown edition
At the end of April 2020, six cities in southern Africa took part in the City Nature Challenge 2020 lockdown edition, of the 244 worldwide: Cape Town, the Garden Route, Durban, Nelson Mandela Bay, Tswane and Gaberone.
Cape Town – for the second year running – scored the top spot in the world for the number of nature observations (34 254). Interestingly, almost a quarter of all Cape Town’s observations were collected by the Scouts. Although the Garden Route only made position 10, it secured second spot for cities outside of the United States.
Expressing her amazement at the results, Dr Eleanor Yeld Hutchings from the biodiversity management branch of the City of Cape Town said: “For a country [that was in] hard lockdown I think it’s unbelievable how much we managed to do.”
Cape Town’s top observer was Grade 11 pupil Jeremy Gilmore, who racked up 834 observations. Several hundred observations from a garden is no mean feat. He is one of Cape Town’s youth, who has a passion for learning about indigenous flora, as well as protecting what we have left. In his spare time, he joins the Friends of Tokai Park in hacking alien trees in Tokai Park to protect the Fynbos.
Our City Nature Challenge success is perhaps not surprising in a country like South Africa, where we have an estimated 67 000 animal species, and more than 20 400 plant species described. We have around 7% of the world’s vascular plant species, 5% of mammal, 7% of bird, 4% of reptile, 2% of amphibian, 1% of freshwater fish and 16% of shark, skate and ray species. And not only this, but around half to two-thirds of the species in each of these groups are found only in South Africa).
A tale of six cities in lockdown
And so continues the tale of the six cities. The City Nature Challenge turned out not to be just a one-off event, but the beginning of nature exploration and appreciation in and around our homes during the hard lockdown. Many residents joined one of the six city lockdown projects on iNaturalist, and recorded the life around their homes.
We can learn a lot from what people found and shared. In the Fynbos, of course, birds feature highly around people’s homes, but Cape Town’s top position goes to the dwarf chameleon, Marble Leaftoe Gecko, the Honeybee and Brown Garden Snail (an invasive alien: you know the one), with the Redeye Dove taking position five.
In the Garden Route, where Fynbos meets the forests, birds take all the honours: the Cape Weaver, Greater Double-Collared Sunbird, Redeye Dove, Fiscal Shrike (Jannie) and the Speckled Mousebird.
At the interface of the Fynbos and thicket biomes, Nelson Mandela Bay features the Common Dwarf Gecko, Tropical House Gecko, Honeybee, Citrus Swallowtail and Common Blue in its top five.
Would you have guessed that the four most recorded animals in Durban are butterflies? – with the Common Bush Brown, Natal Pansy, Dark Blue Pansy and Citrus Swallowtail leading the pack, and a dragonfly, the Julia Skimmer, in spot number five. Staying with the grassland biome, the City of Tshwane recorded the Honeybee, Spiny Sugar Ant, Laughing Dove, Hadeda and Common Dwarf Gecko as the species most commonly found in gardens.
And Gaborone is off the charts, literally. Of the top five animals, only one moth – the Vestal – has a common name: the other Antlions, moths, bugs and beetles still need to become better known before they are baptised with vernaculars.
Who would have thought that the tale of six cities would be so different, so rich, and so exciting? We should take stock of the animals and plants that share our homes and gardens (for example using the free iNaturalist app). Conservation and environmental awareness are fun, joining a global community is free, and you can begin at home.
– Dr Tony Rebelo is affiliated with the South African National Biodiversity Institute and Dr Alanna Rebelo is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology at Stellenbosch University.
