[vc_row][vc_column][vc_media_grid style=”pagination” items_per_page=”3″ gap=”2″ arrows_design=”vc_arrow-icon-arrow_02_left” css=”” grid_id=”vc_gid:1774868655912-7c7b0610-ae23-1″ include=”327081,327082,327083,327087,327088,327080,327085,327086,327084,327079,327093,327094″][vc_column_text css=””]Photo credit: Mark Brown, Jesse Brown, Cassie Carstens, Jessica Wilmot[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]The Subaru Forester is packed to the roof. Somewhere between bird-ringing equipment, holding pens, field clothes and emergency snacks, we have just enough space left for ourselves. Coffee in hand, we begin the 1,463-kilometre drive to Velddrift on South Africa’s West Coast with one objective: to launch BirdLife South Africa’s new tracking project on Curlew Sandpipers and Grey Plovers, supported by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the Ecological Restoration Fund (ERF).
Recent Red List assessments classify Curlew Sandpipers as Vulnerable globally and regionally, while Grey Plovers are Near Threatened regionally. Understanding their movements is therefore critical for protecting the wetlands they rely on throughout their lifecycle – from Arctic breeding grounds, across migration routes, to their non-breeding habitats in southern Africa.
From the outset, I knew the project’s success would depend on assembling the right team, and I’m immensely grateful to everyone who set aside two weeks to help launch it.
Colleagues Ward Hagemeijer from Wetlands International, and Bart Kempenaers, Eunbi Kwon and Mihai Valcu from the Department of Ornithology at the Max Planck Institute of Biological Intelligence in Seewiesen, Germany, immediately embraced the idea of collaborating. South Africa is fortunate to have many incredible ornithologists and bird ringers, but deploying tracking devices on long-distance migratory waders is a specialised craft – one largely lacking in southern Africa. The ethical considerations of trapping, handling and fitting tiny tracking devices to long-distance migrants are significant – something I take extremely seriously.
Alongside the visiting experts willing to share their knowledge, an equally experienced group of local researchers joined the team: father-and-son duo Mark and Jesse Brown from Conserve Eden; BirdLife South Africa colleagues Cassie Carstens, Alan Lee and Giselle Murison; and Joel Radue and Robert Thomson from the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town.
After months of planning, endless meetings and more than a few sleepless nights wondering whether I could pull this off, the end of February 2026 finally arrived. This would be the first project of its kind in southern Africa – exciting, but undeniably nerve-racking.
I still remember my third meeting with Ward. For more than two hours, he very patiently walked me through the long list of technical and ethical considerations involved in trapping and tagging migratory waders. By the end of the call, I was equally inspired and quietly panicked. There were so many details I hadn’t even considered. Looking back now, I am so thankful that a random email address I found on the International Wader Study Group website connected us. Sometimes, the most important collaborations start with a slightly hopeful “Hello, my name is Jess, and I work for BirdLife South Africa”.
Fieldwork itself quickly proved intense. Afternoons were spent setting metres of mist nets along the berms of salt pans near the mouth of the Berg River estuary, followed by long hours of waiting once the sun had set. Our fieldwork was carefully timed around the new moon, when the nights would be at their darkest.
Using thermal binoculars, we scanned the darkness for birds that might have flown into the nets, while conducting net checks every thirty minutes. Away from the processing tables, everything was done without lights to minimise disturbance. At first, when Ward suggested working entirely in darkness, we wondered how we would navigate the maze of guy ropes without landing face-first in the thick salt-pan sludge. Somehow, we managed.
The theory was simple: high tides would push birds off their usual roost sites, forcing them to seek refuge at the salt works where they feed during the day. Some nights, the plan worked beautifully. Other nights, we were left wondering where the birds had decided to spend the evening.
On a few occasions, we stayed awake until dawn, trying to capitalise on shifting tides – especially for the Grey Plovers who appear more difficult to catch. Naturally, the Curlew Sandpipers seemed to arrive on site at dawn, just as we were getting ready for bed, while the Grey Plovers could be heard calling in the mud flats next to where we were taking down the nets – a cruel joke, one might say.
Despite a lack of sleep, night fieldwork also offers its rewards. For those of us arriving from the glow of Johannesburg, the sky felt vast and impossibly clear. Just before sunset, large flocks of flamingos and pelicans would pass overhead on their way to roost – sometimes so close that you could hear the swooshing of their wings.
But of course, the biggest and most humbling reward was holding a Curlew Sandpiper for the first time. A monumental moment, really. In the palm of your hand sits a bird weighing barely more than 65g, delicate, alert, and built for journeys that span continents. Under the soft glow of a headlamp, measurements are taken, early breeding plumage admired, a metal ring is fitted, and a tiny tracking device carefully secured. After observing the bird’s movements in the holding pen to ensure its well-being was not compromised, the bird is released back into the darkness over the salt pans, carrying with it the beginning of a story we hope to follow across the African–Eurasian Flyway.
By the end of ten days, 20 Curlew Sandpipers and three Grey Plovers had been fitted with satellite or GSM tags. Almost immediately, the birds began revealing new information. Two Curlew Sandpipers moved south to Langebaan, where they remain today. Another began travelling northeast through Africa only a few days after being tagged – currently in the Sudd marshes of South Sudan.
With every new data point, the story of these birds, and the wetlands that sustain them, begins to unfold. The information they provide is invaluable, helping us understand not only their movements within South Africa but also their journeys across the African–Eurasian Flyway. The team’s expertise continues to bear fruit as we learn from those who understand the global landscape a lot better than we do.
Like the European Roller tracking project, this work is about more than just science, though. It is also about storytelling, using the movements of individual birds to reveal the extraordinary importance of inland and coastal wetlands – and inspiring others to help us protect those sites.
By the time our fieldwork came to an end, complete strangers had become friends – bonded by a shared vision of doing our small part to protect the delicate, interconnected web of the natural world.
Somewhere out there tonight, the Curlew Sandpipers and Grey Plovers we tagged are resting along the West Coast mudflats, preparing for journeys that will carry them thousands of kilometres across continents and oceans.
And as we begin our own long drive home, with the Subaru a lot dirtier and occupants a little quieter, those journeys have already begun to unfold – one data point at a time.
At the time of writing, 10 Curlew Sandpipers are on the move, while all three Grey Plovers remain around Velddrift, regularly commuting between the De Plaat mudflats and the commercial salt pans.
This project would not have been possible without the dedication of many collaborators, and we are deeply grateful to everyone involved, including the management of the commercial salt works, Cape Salts, for allowing us access to their properties.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
