Introduction
South Africa is home to approximately 250 estuaries all around the coastal of the sea. Estuaries are considered as coastal body of water that is in a short distance with the sea. There is some type of communication between the estuary and the sea. Estuaries are made up of freshwater derived from land e.g. water from rivers. There are different types of estuaries: permanently open estuaries e.g. Mlalazi estuary in KwaZulu Natal; temporarily open/closed estuaries e.g. Mpenjati estuary in KwaZulu Natal; estuarine bays and river mouths e.g. Mfolozi in KwaZulu Natal. KwaZulu-Natal has approximately 16 estuaries all suited along the coastal bay of Richard bay. They range from the north to the south of the coast line.
Estuaries are important productive systems; they supply for organisms. They play an important role as being a nursery for marine organisms and the bird species, which are both resident and migratory. The estuaries in…show more content… Binoculars were used to spot the bird species. To make sure that there were no mix up when sampling the teams that were doing the sampling had to read through the clue card of all the water bird species that can be found, just to make sure that they do not get confused over what type of bird species there are spotting. Because there are bird species that are found at the edges of the estuaries that are excluded. The sampling started from July 2004 and ended January 2015, the sampling was carried out seasonal. Each of the six estuary were divided into four regions and in all the four regions counts were made of the water birds uncounted and recorded. Bird species like duck, white faced; tern, sandwich; gull. Kelp; fish eagle, Africa; etc. the status of the estuaries was recorded daily during the sampling period. In each of the estuary the counts were made every 4 times a month, and the days that the sampling took place were randomly