Establishing a long-term bird ringing site. Part 1: the place
Bird ringers in Europe and bird banders in North America will both be familiar with the concept of a “bird observatory”. The concept even has an art...
Author: Les Underhill
Prof Les Underhill was Director of the Animal Demography Unit (ADU) at the University of Cape Town from its start in 1991 until he retired. Although citizen science in biology is Les’s passion, his academic background is in mathematical statistics. He was awarded his PhD in abstract multivariate analyses in 1973 at UCT and what he likes to say about his PhD is that he solved a problem that no one has ever had. He soon grasped that this was not the field to which he wanted to devote his life, so he retrained himself as an applied statistician, solving real-world problems.
Dwarf Blue refreshed after 142 years
What are all these citizen scientists focused on? The temperature in the Robertson Valley is a warm 32°C. It is 1pm on 2 March 2019. They are taking photographs...
… and now for something a little bit different … BOPping birds … Birds with Odd Plumage
Since it started in March 2012, 450 records have been uploaded to the BOP section of the Virtual Museum. BOP stands for Birds with Odd Plumage. The BOP lo...
The town in South Africa with the most Virtual Museum records per inhabitant is Daniëlskuil
We asked citizen scientist Altha Liebenberg to select a few of the Virtual Museum records which had given her the greatest pleasure in submitting during 2018. A...
Marvelous moths are a massive challenge: a selection from the Virtual Museum in 2018
Birds are simple. So are dragonflies. If you are looking for one of life’s tougher challenges then volunteer to help with the identification of the moths ...
BestYear by 21%: There were 93,482 Virtual Museum records in 2018
The Virtual Museum had its BestYear ever in 2018, by a margin of 21%. The total for 2018 was 93,482 records. The totals for 2017 and 2016 were 75,408 and 73,104...
A poor documentation of a local extinction: Cape Dwarf Chameleon
Where have all the chameleons gone? For many years, I could find a Cape Dwarf Chameleon almost on demand in my garden in Rondebosch. If a visitor wanted to see ...
Do lots of Citizen Science in 2019
15 Citizen Science ideas for 2019 Keep your favourite camera handy! Grab all the opportunities which present themselves to take photos for the Virtual Museum. D...
Alien opportunities: 10 bird species with feral populations in South Africa
Research opportunities on alien birds Although alien species are widely (and rightly) regarded as a “bad thing”, they offer special opportunities for research! ...
Calvinia BioBash: Citizen Science in the Hantam
The Hantam is the general area north of Calvinia in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It’s an arid area, and poorly covered in biodiversity surveys. C...