We are excited to announce the first sunbird sighting at Ryan Road Park, after almost a year of hard work we are observing tangible results from our activities!
I am so pleased to announce that today we saw our first sunbird visitors to one of our gardens -
Ryan Road Park. The double-collared sunbird pair were spotted visiting an aloe and a cobra lily, that are in full bloom with the rest of the garden. We are so delighted that our first experimental garden is already feeding and sheltering sunbirds less than a year since it was first planted. Thank you to all the hard work from neighbours, gardening volunteers, home nursery volunteers, Ingcungcu, Cape Bird Club, and birding volunteers. And thanks to Jill Bowden from Constantia and Neville van Schalkwyk from the Herbanisation Project in Lavendar Hill for donating the specific plants that were the first to draw the sunbirds to our garden. Many others have donated time, energy and materials to the various gardens, too many to name, but thank you ALL. This goes to show, if we just keep at what we are doing we can help the birds and insect life find passage across our urban landscape. Sunbirds venture out a maximum of 1 km from know food sources. It is only 22 km across from Table Mountain and Rondebosch Common to Driftsands in Delft. That means we need only 22 gardens to ensure the basic stepping stones are in place to get sunbirds and the plant pollen they carry across the city.
Can we do it? Well I think the sunbirds today have just announced that we can.
