New DVD on the Flora of Meadowridge Common

Fiona Watson has compiled and created a dvd of the Flora of Meadowridge Common, which includes its history and many beautiful photographs of the indigenous flowers - and some of the animals - that occur on this small remnant of Cape Flats Sand Fynbos in the middle of suburbia. The dvd is for sale at R100 and all profits will go towards the Friends of Meadowridge Common. Contact Mrs Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696 if you would like to purchase a copy.

March - the start of autumn

March lilies (Amaryllis belladonna) - the first sign that autumn in on its way. Read more about them in Trevor Adam's article in PlantZAfrica. Trevor writes, "There is still some mystery as to what pollinates the March lily. Rudolf Marloth, a famous amateur botanist, believed that the belladonna lily was being pollinated by a hawk moth. It was also noticed that large carpenter bees visited the flowers during the day. On the Cape Peninsula, at least, it seems that bees are the main pollinators of the March lily." Your observations and photos would be most welcome - please post them on our facebook page or on iSpot.

Friends of Meadowridge Common AGM

Black Sparrowhawk. Photo: Ann Koeslag.

The Friends of Meadowridge Common will be holding their AGM on Monday 29 February 2016 which will include a talk by Ann Koeslag on BLACK SPARROWHAWKS OF THE CAPE PENINSULA with particular reference to the pair of Black Sparrowhawks that successfully raised three chicks on Meadowridge Common in September last year. The speaker is Ann Koeslag, a founding member of the Black Sparrowhawk Project.
The venue is the Meadowridge Library, Howard Drive, Meadowridge and the time is 7h30.
Entrance is free and all are welcome. Secure parking and refreshments will be available. For more information, please contact Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696 or email the Friends at Meadowridgefriend@gmail.com.

Black Sparrowhawk chicks contributing to science

Adult female Black Sparrowhawk photographed by Sibyl Morris on Meadowridge Common on October 2015.

Visitors to Meadowridge Common last spring may have noticed that a pair of Black Sparrowhawks successfully reared a family of three chicks in one of the tall pines on the Common. In September the chicks (one female and two males) were ringed - a process that involved a professional rock-climber who retrieved the chicks one by one, placed them in a yellow bag and lowered them to the ground where they were ringed, measured, weighed and returned to their nests again. A more detailed description of the process and what information can be gained from ringing these birds can be found on the website of the Black Sparrowhawk Project. There were also some posts on our Facebook Page.

Margaret Macivor with one of the three Meadowridge Common Black Sparrowhawk chicks - all of which were successfully ringed.  



The adult female, mother of the three Meadowridge Common chicks, watching the ringing process. Note her rings. Photo: Margaret Macivor.

Mark Cowan, climber and expert chick ringer.

The guidelines for trapping birds are very strict. Not only does the trapper have to have had training in handling and ringing of the birds, but they also have to be registered with the ADU who gives them permission to do so.  In addition, they have to have permission from the Province in the form of a “hunting licence” to be allowed to trap. (From the website The Black Sparrowhawk Project.)

Talk on Fire

The Friends of Meadowridge Common are hosting an illustrated talk on Monday 16 November 2015 on Fire and Fynbos with particular reference to the Cape Peninsula fires in March this year. The speaker is Dalton Gibbs, Regional Manager South, Biodiversity Management Branch of the Environmental Resource Management Department of the City of Cape Town. Included in the programme is a short film by Dalton Gibbs. The venue is the Meadowridge Library, Howard Drive, Meadowridge and the time is 7h30. Entrance is free and all welcome. Secure parking and refreshments will be available.
How to get there: http://meadowridgecommon.blogspot.co.za/p/find-us.html.
For more information, please contact Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696 or email the Friends at Meadowridgefriend@gmail.com.

Spring Walk 2015

The Friends of Meadowridge Common Annual Spring Walk on the Common will be held on Saturday 26 September 2015 at 11h30. Meet at the Faraday Way entrance to the Meadowridge Common soccer fields. (Click here for a map.)
  The walk will be led by Stuart Hall, a doctorate student in the Botany Department of Stellenbosch University. Entrance is free, but all donations towards the work of the Friends will be appreciated.
For more information, please contact Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696 or email the Friends at Meadowridgefriend@gmail.com.

For a list of flowers you might see on the spring walk, click here.

A brief history of Meadowridge Common

Bergvliet Farm Homestead

In 1685 Governor Simon van der Stel was granted a farm and grazing rights on a vast estate he called Constantia. After his death in 1712 his property was divided into two portions – Constantia and Bergvliet. In 1769, Petrus Michel Eksteen acquired the farm and built the Bergvliet homestead (above) near Die Oog. The Homestead still stands, and was proclaimed a National Monument in 1989 (now declared a Provincial Heritage Site, Grade II).

William Purcell

  In 1865, the estate was bought by William Fredrick Hertzog. Upon his death in 1902, the estate passed to his sisters Mrs S.W. Purcell and Mrs. A.M. Jeffcoat. Dr W.F. Purcell, son of the former, managed the estate on behalf of his mother and aunt between 1902 and 1919, during which period he began to survey the flora of Bergvliet. Purcell recorded and collected 595 plant species in the greater area of the Bergvliet Farm. His specimens formed the core of the South African Museum's herbarium collection but are now preserved in the Compton Herbarium at Kirstenbosch. His "list" represents 26.4% of the flora of the Cape Peninsula.

   Following the death of Dr Purcell in 1919, the Reverend W. Jeffcoat assumed stewardship of the farm on behalf of the family. In about 1930, the farm was divided again, the Jeffcoats acquiring Bergvliet, and the upper or northern portion, Kreupelbosch, going to the Purcell descendents. Today, the small natural remnants of the original farm – Die Oog Bird Sanctuary and Meadowridge Common – give us an idea of what the Bergvliet flats must have been like before their development.

   In the 1990s, Fiona Watson and Esme Morris identified several rare and endangered species of plants on Meadowridge Common including the protea Diastella proteoides and the bulb Moraea elsiae. They formed the Friends of Meadowridge Common which comprises dedicated and interested citizens whose common interest is the conservation of this small natural remnant of the original Bergvliet farm.

Extracted from “Bergvliet–Meadowridge–Diep River: Towards a local structure plan. Background report, March 2005”, prepared by Cindy Postlethwayt (Consultant: Strategic & Urban Planning), in association with Sustainable Energy Africa.

To see the chapter on Bergvliet Farmhouse in the book The Great Houses of Constantia by Philippa Dane and Sydney-Anne Wallace (Don Nelson, 1981), click here.