HOW CAN OUR CITIES BE SO DIFFERENT?

We are approaching 3 weeks of Lockdown. And our first city has reached 2000 observations, and regionally we have hit 11,000 observations.
But how can our cities be so different?

Garden Route
is the leader at present.
And their top 10 are almost all birds. In order:
Southern Fiscal, Olive Thrush, Speckled Mousebird, Egyptian Goose, Fiscal Flycatcher, Red-knobbed Coot, Reed Cormorant, Greater Double-collared Sunbird, Common Moorhen, and then in position #10 a moth: Cape Autumn Widow.

Cape Town
is fast catching up with Garden Route. And it is dominated by herps, at least in the top three positions:
Cape Dwarf Chameleon, Marbled Leaf-toed Gecko, Western Leopard Toad, followed by birds:

Red-eyed Dove, Cape Sparrow, Laughing Dove, Red-winged Starling, Southern Double-collared Sunbird, with the Western Honey Bee in #9 and then the Cape Bulbul. Far more balanced, but not a single species in common with the Garden Route. (I have left out Lichens, but they are not a species!).

Nelson Mandela
is bringing up third place at present. It is by far the most balanced city, with 2 herps, 3 insects, 2 birds, 3 plants., featuring:
Common Dwarf Gecko, Western Honey Bee, Citrus Swallowtail, Tropical House Gecko, Hairy Wild Lettuce, Common Spekboom, Cape Autumn Widow, Red-eyed Dove, Cape Weaver & Asian Ponysfoot (dont ask, I have never heard of it either - go look it up). A few alien ruderal species here.

Durban
is dominated by butterflies!

Plume Moths, Common Diadem, Vervet Monkey, Aloes, Cream-striped Owl, Sooty Blue, Common Bush Brown, Common Blue Complex, Village Weaver, Painted Reed Frog
So 6 moths, 1 mammal, 1 bird, 1 frog and 1 plant. But observations are still low and these may well change as the data comes in.

Tshwane
is also dominated by insects.
Small Spiny Sugar Ant, , Cream-striped Owl, Western Honey Bee, Laughing Dove, African Migrant, Hadada Ibis, Cape Porcupine, Umbrella Paper Wasps, Plant Bugs, Plain Tiger Butterfly -
so 3 butterflies, 1 ant, 1 bee, 1 bug, 1 wasp, 2 birds and 1 mammal. But the samples are small, and we can expect these to change soon..

Gaberone
our - last city, is overwhelmingly dominated by insects:
Variegated Mud-loving Beetles, Antlions, Hydroporine Beetles, Harlequin Ladybeetle, Burrowing Grasshopper, Zuphium, Paraplea, Seed Beetles, Shimmering Sugar Ant & Mushrooms. But this will definitely change over the next few days. Still - the only city with an Alien Invasive animal species (the Ladybeetle).

At present, the following species are shared in the top 10! Laughing Dove, Redeye Dove, Honeybee and Cream-striped Owl.
With the lockdown extended for another two weeks, our lists will have time to mature and flesh out. I wonder what the next round will bring?

(Note: details will change as observers add their backlogs and identifications are refined. This page summarizes the situation at time of preparing this. The results displayed though are still for the first three weeks of the challange: visit the links on the project page for the latest results. )

Posted on April 15, 2020 10:56 PM by tonyrebelo