Scott Bader Pty's 'Froggy Evening' found that we DO have frogs on site!
The Pty team at Hammarsdale, aware that the site had a history of serious oil pollution under its previous owners, decided to focus on wetland indicator species. Of these, frogs are among the most important; they are the most threatened group of vertebrates and because they breath through their skin, they're particularly vulnerable to waterborne pollution. As was explained to us by our guest, Dr. Jeanne Tarrant, manager of the Threatened Amphibian Programme of the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT). We had invited her to have a look at the site, and show us how to find and identify frogs.
Jeanne started off with a presentation on her subject, clearing up a lot of misconceptions and superstitious beliefs. It was heartening to see how many detailed, science-based, community-supported projects are happening in South Africa to secure the future of our froggy friends. These are based largely on data gathered by the citizen science projects initiated by the SA National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). Jeanne worked with the FrogMAP project (as Steve W did with LepiMAP for butterflies and moths) and these informed the recent SA Government White Paper on Biodiversity policy. She is now using iNaturalist to log frog sightings... or rather, hearings! She showed us how to use iNat's app to record sounds using our phones, and upload them direct to the site - see here https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/138624433
We had a fun session messing around in the site's wetlands, where we found the aforementioned Painted Reed Frog. We also heard the Snoring Puddle Frog (as identified by Jeanne), but it wasn't calling at full scale so we missed recording it. Conditions were not frog-optimal - a very hot and dry day, with a big thunderstorm looming. As we wound up, a LOUD frog call sounded from near Head Office. Jeanne traced it to a bird bath next to the front door, which was giving housing (and a mating site) to a gang of Natal Sand Frogs. We went over there, and Steve used his phone's 'Frogs of Southern Africa' app to call the frogs. To our delight, the 'advertising' calls of the frogs we could see were accompanied by the 'aggression' calls frogs use when a rival appears. We took a video, but it's too large to email until Steve learns how to video edit on a Samsung properly. The iNat photo record is here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/138626348.
Jeanne had lots of useful advice on how to manage our site for frog biodiversity. She has contacts who can help us deal with the bush encroachment, and alien invader plants, without doing harm to the frogs.
Annie Pillay and Philip Hayward of the site team arranged a venue for Jeanne's talk, and some yummy snacks for the participants (no frogs' legs, as Steve teased)! We hope this will be the first of many events where Scott Bader's sites engage their local species experts in finding ways to protect and improve their biodiversity.
