Author: martintayler

For our last nature trip on our holiday to South Africa we booked our first ever guided  birding trip through the company “Birding Africa” (https://www.birdingafrica.com/) to the Kogelsberg Biosphere Reserve.

“Birding Africa” were very efficient in their administration and our guide David Swanepoel was superb. David quickly assessed our capabilities and designed a programme which was very suitable for us. He clearly had an amazing knowledge of birds and was excellent at spotting and pointing them out to us (not an insignificant skill!). We really enjoyed David’s company throughout the day. He drove us safely and was most a most engaging and interesting character. We arrived safely back at our apartment in Camps Bay after a very full day, exhausted but exhilarated

I have taken the following article about the reserve from https://www.kbrc.org.za which I find most fascinating:

“Just an hour out of Cape Town at the southern tip of Africa, lies an area of such natural beauty and floral diversity as to be recognized as perhaps world’s greatest biodiversity hot-spot. Size for size, the 100,000 hectare UNESCO designated Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve is home to the most complex biodiversity on our planet with more than 1,880 different plant species … the next richest is the South American rainforest with just 420 species per 10,000 square kilometers!

Biosphere reserves are ‘new concept’ reserves: no fences to keep ‘people’ out and ‘nature’ in. It is the commitment of local communities, farmers, conservation agencies and local government that protects the magnificent landscapes and unique biodiversity.

The Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve begins in the Atlantic Ocean, 7.5 km off a rugged, rocky shore interspersed by glorious, golden sandy beaches. A zig-zag ribbon of narrow coastal plain is squeezed between the ocean and huge sandstone mountains. Contorted by their tumultuous birth some 300 million years ago, these awesome folded mountains and highland valleys are home to the more than 1,880 different species of plants. Seventy seven (77) species within the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve occur nowhere else on earth. To put this in perspective, the whole of the UK has just twenty two (22) endemics.”

Our birding experience started at Rooi-els (about an hour and a half from Camps Bay) where we went looking for Cape Rock Jumpers. David heard them but they did not show themselves to us. However, we had very good views of Orange-breasted and Southern Double-collared Sunbirds, a Cape Bunting and several Familiar Chats, which was more than enough to keep us happy. As we walked along the pathway we also saw a Neddicky, a Cape Rock Thrush, a Cape Sugarbird and Red-winged Starlings. Even more distant up above us we could see a Rock Kestrel, White-necked Ravens and a Rock Martin.

Cape Bunting

Orange-breasted Sunbird

There’s no bird hiding here – I was just fascinated by all the different vegetation

Familiar chat

Rock Kestrel

Cape Rock Thrush

The path we explored at Rooi-els

Orange-breasted Sunbird

Cape Sugarbird

After a coffee break at Betty’s Bay we moved on to Stony Point (a former whaling station) to see African Penguins. We were also fascinated by the four different types of cormorant which we spotted (Cape, Crowned, Bank and White-breasted) We also saw Water Thick-knees and an African Black Oystercatcher amongst the rocks as well as dassies. These little furry creatures are, unbelievably, the closest living relative to African elephants.

Dassies

African Penguins

We also saw lots of Cape Wagtails, Kelp Gulls,  Hartlaub’s Gull and a Sandwich Tern.

Kelp gull

Hautlaub’s Gull

Bank Cormorant

White-breasted Cormorant

Cape Cormorant

Crowned Cormorant

Water Thick knees

African Black Oystercatcher

After Stony Point we went to the Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens. Here David picked out all sorts of birds for us. For me the stand out ones were Orange-breasted and Southern Double-collared Sunbirds. We also saw  Fiscal Flycathers,  Cape Robin-Chat,  Karo Prinia,  Cape White-eye,  Malachite Sunbird, Red-eyed Dove, Sombre Greenbul, Forest Canary,  Cape Canary and an African Dusky Flycatcher. Flitting past were also Greater-striped Swallows and Black Saw-wing. I did attempt some shots but I would be too embarrassed to show the results.

Harold Porter National Botanical Garden

Water-lillies and frogs

Southern Double-collared Sunbird

Juvenile Fiscal Flycatcher

Cape Canary

Forest Canary

Orange-breasted Sunbird

Cape Canary

Southern Double-collared Sunbird

Orange-breasted Sunbird

Orange-breasted Sunbird

Orange-breasted Sunbird

Karoo Prinia

Cape White-eye

African Dusky Flycatcher

Cape Robin-chat

After the Harold Porter National Botanical Garden we returned to Betty’s Bay for a late lunch.

On our route back to Camps Bay we stopped off at at Pardeviei Wetland at Somerset West but the water was very low and, although we could see lots of birds (including Blacksmith Lapwing, Black-winged Stilts and Pied Avocets) in the distance, we felt that we had had enough and set off to face the Cape Town traffic.

The weather was not very kind to us as it was very windy and quite grey. In a way that may have been a blessing as we might have been even more exhausted if it had been a hot sunny day. Nonetheless an amazing day where we saw over 50 different species.

 

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The Cape Flats Waste Water Treatment Works, or simply Strandfontein as it is known to birders, also forms part of the False Bay Nature Reserve. It really is a marvel for birders as you can drive around the gravel paths and see and photograph birds at close quarters.

Strandfontein features more than 300 hectares of reed-fringed detention ponds and dunes connected by gravel roads that are usually in good condition, although on this occasion we did have one terrifying moment when we got stuck in  a very deep section of slurry which had been deposited on one of the paths.and which demanded all our driving skills and ingenuity in to order to extricate from a very embarrassing situation.

In the end it was really worthwhile and we saw an amazing amount of birds in a very short trip.

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Greater flamingo

Greater flamingo

Greater flamingo

Cape weaver

Black-winged stilt

White-necked raven

Cattle egret

Cattle egret

Blacksmith lapwing

African sacred ibis

African sacred ibis

African sacred ibis

White-faced whistling duck

White-faced whistling duck

Great white pelican

African sacred ibis and glossy ibis

Egytian goose

Spur-winged goose

Red billed teal

Little grebe

Barn swallow

Caspian tern

 

 

Well as this is my nature blog I’m going to allow myself a little licence to show some of the natural surroundings of Franschhoeke in the Western Cape of South Africa. Not a bird in sight.

It is very different from the Klein Karoo or even the Robertson wine region where we were before. A really stunning part of the world.

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I didn’t expect our stay at the Excelsior Estate Winery at Robertson to provide such good opportunities for bird photography. On the first evening we walked down to the river amongst the vines and saw weavers and southern red bishop birds. The following day we were able to use a golf trolley and venture further into and around the vineyard. The advantages of the golf trolley was that the birds weren’t so nervous about our presence.

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The stars for me were the bigger birds we saw, an African darter, a black-headed heron and a buzzard and the smallest, the southern double collared sunbird.

 

African darter

Buzzard

Black-headed heron

Cape bulbul

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As we were due to be up very early for a meerkat safari (which didn’t happen because of rain) we didn’t take up the option of the ostrich farm tour. We had a leisurely day exploring the Swartberg Pass and the area around the Cango Caves.

Stunning scenery again.

We spent quite some time watching the southern masked weavers “weaving” their nests and came across the southern red bishop for the first time. I gather it is quite a common bird but it is the first time we had seen it and it is quite stunning.

Southern masked weaver

Southern red bishop

White-breasted cormorant

 

Greater striped swallow

Willow warbler (?) in the garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

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As we had had quite a long and tiring journey from Knysna to Oudtshoorn we just relaxed in the afternoon in the gardens of the farm where we were staying. Oudtshoorn is the ostrich capital of the world and we were staying on an ostrich farm.

The view across the farm to the local church.

As the ostrich is the biggest bird it is appropriate that I have it as my header photo, although I much preferred the weavers and the common fiscals.

 

 

 

 

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The main focus of our stay in Oudtshoorn was  a morning “safari” to see meerkats in the Klein Karoo. However, when we got up at 4.30 am  it was raining and we had been warned that the trip would not go ahead in the rain as the meerkats would not come out to play.

Fortunately we were able to re-arrange another visit on the morning we were leaving Oudtshoorn and the weather was fine.

The vegetation in this part of the world was very different from Kruger but quite impressive at this time of the morning with the backdrop of the Swartberg and the Outeniqua Mountains. I must say that, as in Kruger, much of the time I had great difficulty getting the white balance correct in my photos especially with the morning and evening light. 

Before we got to see the meerkats (we had to search for them as they move from burrow to burrow) we only saw antelope. In this part of the world they have Southern Eland, Greater Kudu and Common Duiker (the smallest).

Common duiker

Greater Kudu (with the big ears)

There was a family of seven meerkats. It’s a matriarchal society and it seemed that 2 of the meerkats were pregnant and our guide assured us that this was going to cause some fuss in this group.

We saw a few birds on our trip. The first was a house sparrow! There were quite a few Egyptian geese,  southern-masked weavers, a couple of southern black korhaan and the ubiquitous common fiscal.

House sparrow

Southern-masked weaver

Southern black korhaan

egyptian goose

Common fiscal (the butcher bird)

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Clearly the main focus of the 6 games drives we did in the Thornybush Game Reserve was the animals. However, we had a fantastic opportunity to see a large number of birds too. I felt I probably tested the patience of our fellow tourists by me wanting to stop to see birds; but they were very tolerant and even helped to spot birds and point them out to me. Our guides were very good too and incredibly knowledgeable. They nearly always knew the names of the birds – the problem of identification has been my lack of memory.

However, with the help of my field guide (Newman’s) and the knowledge and great cooperation of Larry Swetman (back in Bristol) I have been able to identify most of them.

Labelling is a job for back home.

The slideshow is a selection of the photos I took (the slideshow can be pinched out on an iPad for optimum viewing).

Listed below are some of my favourite birds.

Probably the rarest bird we saw was the bronze-winged courser (certainly by the reaction of our guide Kilmore) especially as it is usually nocturnal.

Bronze winged courser

The most exciting bird was the dark chanting goshawk which we saw swoop down on its prey and took it off to a nearby branch so that we were able to see it rip its prey apart and devour it.

Dark chanting goshawk

The most startling was probably the southern yellow-billed hornbill – there were hornbills everywhere.

Southern-yellow billed hornbill

The largest raptor was probably one of the vultures but I particularly liked the tawny eagle.

Tawny eagle

There were lots of very colourful birds but I wasn’t always able to catch them in their full splendour because of the rain and cloudy conditions which prevailed for the last few days. A few of the contenders

Woodland kingfisher

Crested barbet

Blue waxbill

The most fascinating bird for me was the long-tailed paradise whydah .

Long-tailed paradise whydah

We saw quite a lot of shrikes and I liked this photo of a red-backed bush shrike which I photographed in the rain.

Red-backed shrike

We saw oxpeckers mainly on buffalos but I love this photo of one on a giraffe.

I could go on …

We saw lots of other birds that I didn’t manage to photograph. I suppose I was disappointed most not to capture some of the cuckoos.

 

 

 

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We had planned a trip up the River Kromme at St Francis Bay as we made our way along the Garden Route from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town but the weather was so bad that it was cancelled (too wet and windy) and our first opportunity to get out and see some birds was on our second day in Knysna (yes it has stopped raining but it still isn’t very warm).

We walked along the edge of the Woodbourne Trust Nature Reserve and Bird Sanctuary near The Heads (which feature in nearly all the tourist photos of Knysna).

It was like home from home to start as the first bird we saw was a grey heron but it soon became a bit more exotic with African sacred ibis and Egyptian geese.

From the edge of the reserve we could easily see avocets, black winged stilts, Blacksmith lapwings and common greenshank but the real treat was an African spoonbill which flew out and then back over our heads. We rewarded ourselves with lunch.

Reed cormorant (I think)

Little egret

African sacred ibis

Egyptian geese

Common greenshank and black-winged stilts

Common greenshank

Blacksmith lapwing

Avocet

African spoonbill on its way out

…and on its way back

 

 

 

 

 

A selection of animals from the reserve

Leopard

Lion

White rhino

Black rhino

Wildebeest

Impala

Burchell’s Zebra

Mongoose

Giraffe

Kudu

Buffala

Tortoise

Water Buck

Hyaena

Hippo

Monkey

Elephant

 

 

… more to follow

 

 

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Our trip to South Africa certainly got off to a fantastic start. We spent the first 3 nights at Chapungu, a luxury tented lodge, on the Thornybush Game Reserve in Greater Kruger.

We were quite apprehensive about the 28 hour journey from Bristol to Chapungu (via London Heathrow, Johannesburg and Hoedspruit) and quite concerned that we might not have the stamina for 6 game drives in three days with 5 am starts but either the adrenaline or the “sundowners”  with the beautiful backdrop of the Drakensburg Mountains) enabled us to cope quite well.

However, I didn’t count on the logistics of taking so many photos, saving them, editing a few and backing them all up which has been very onerous. Ah well, I enjoy it really.

The cloudy weather on a couple of the drives and even rain on the last day probably also  helped us to cope but didn’t do much for my later photos.

Initially I thought that I would revisit this blog at a later stage and write about the narrative of each of the 6 game drives but, unless we have a really bad run of weather when we return to the UK, I am realistic enough to know that that is improbable and that I shall enjoy more editing additional photos, remembering what was what and adding captions. However, I couldn’t fail to mention the excitement of seeing the leopard family with their kill in the marula tree, the lions protecting their kill, the hyenas and the vultures waiting to scavenge for their shares, or the goshawk which we saw stoop, make off with its prey and devour it in a nearby tree.

Another memorable moment when we got stuck in the river bed – just to let me see even more birds!

I have already prepared a very large number of photos in a slideshow but can’t imagine anyone sitting for long enough to watch all of them so will have to rethink how I am going to do that. I will probably post in a later blog when I have more band width.

For the moment I will settle for a more modest slideshow of some of my favourite photos (above – the slideshow can be pinched out to fit a tablet).

We would like to say a very big thank you to the interesting young tourists from around the world who were with us throughout the three days and who added a different dimension to our trip by sharing with us some of their “world”. Also I would like to mention the staff of Chapungu Lodge who were excellent in every way. Finally we can’t say enough about our guides, Jacques, Kilmore and Victor, who went to enormous trouble to take us to amazing places, got us so close to the animals and showed us with such enthusiasm and knowledge the variety of the incredible wildlife of South Africa.

A truly memorable trip.

The “Big Five:

In Africa, the Big Five game animals are the lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo. The term was coined by big-game hunters, and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot, but is now also widely used by safari tour operators.

Leopard

Black rhino (the horns are removed to deter poachers)

 

Elephant

Buffalo

Lion

 

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For our first bird watching sortie of the new year we had another visit to Slimbridge. However, with two young ones in tow we only had limited time for bird watching before their attention waned.

The highlight again was the water rails as normally they are quite elusive but today in one spot we saw three. There was a marsh harrier in the distance towards the estuary and pink footed geese (no photo).

Marsh harrier in the distance

Water rails

I’m not too sure about my identification of Bewick’s/whooper swans but I think the first below is whooper and the second Bewick’s.

Wigeon

Teal

Robin

Robin

Chaffinch

Blue tit

Blue tit

Pheasant – such wonderful colours

Redshank add a bit of colour on a muddy bank

Shelduck in flight

Shelduck

Little egret in the distance