July 21, 2005
By Rose Setshoge
THERE'S a new chick in town. The young bird is the offspring of the well-known pair of black eagles that nests in the Walter Sisulu Botanical Garden.
The egg is one of two laid. It hatched after a 45-day incubation period, on 3 June, according to Phillemon Ndou, the black eagle information officer.
"No one knows when the second one will hatch." He says the female eagle removed the unhatched egg from the nest and "no one knows where she took it".
The black eagle pair, Emoyeni (of the wind) and her mate Dubbed (the shy one), is one of the attractions at the garden in Little Falls, Roodepoort. They have two nests near the top of the 70m high Witpoortjie Waterfall, both of which they use.
Black eagles mate for life. Each year, around March, they prepare the nest, adding new sticks and leafy twigs. Two eggs are laid around mid-May, four days apart.
The famous couple is part of the history of the garden, where there have been breeding pairs of black eagles since the 1940s. There are only a few such birds in an urban environment, where they live on hares and guinea fowl.
Emoyeni started living in the cliffs in 1982 and was later joined by Dubbed after its original mate, Quatele (the angry one), disappeared.
Walter Sisulu Botanical Garden, 30 kilometres west of Joburg's central business district, is one of eight botanical gardens in the country run by the South African National Biodiversity Institute.
The 300 hectares of landscaped and natural veld areas are planted with indigenous trees and 600 species of indigenous flowering plants and shrubs.
There is a variety of species of arachnids, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. More than 230 species of birds have also been spotted in the garden.
Walter Sisulu Botanical Garden is in Malcolm Road, Poortview, Roodepoort. It is open from 8am to 5pm, including weekends and holidays.
Entrance is R12 for adults and R5 for students and children. It is free for senior citizens on Tuesdays. Dogs are not allowed in the garden.
For more information, phone 011 958 1750.
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