Our last visit to Kirstenbosch on this trip to Cape Town: I was hoping to see male sunbirds (which we had seen on a previous trip) but we were unsuccessful but not unhappy as we had another lovely walk around the gardens and saw a spotted eagle-owl, and plenty of other birds
Does this count for a sun bird? A bird of paradise plant
Spotted eagle-owl
Olive thrush
Not sure about this one – maybe Cape robin-chat?
Cape bulbul
Pair of Cape bulbuls
Click below for gallery of photos
We made a return to Kirstenbosch after visiting the nearby Winery at Groot Constantia just to relax after a busy morning.
Again we enjoyed the gardens but didn’t see much birdlife other than the ubiqitous Guineafowl and Egyptian geese.
Egyptian goose
Guineafowl
Cape bulbul
Click below for gallery of photos.
It was noticeably warmer when we arrived in Stellenbosch with no coastal breezes and our visit to the leafy University of Stellenbosch’s Botanical Garden was very welcome. There were collections of fynbos plants, ferns. orchids, bonsai trees and dry-country succulents from Namibia and the water lilies were reminiscent of the University of Bristol’s Botanical Gardens but not in sweltering greenhouse (even though there were greenhouses that we didn’t attempt to enter).
Click below for gallery of photos:
Travelog for Thursday 1st March 2018
We so enjoyed the Rondevlei Nature Reserve earlier in our trip to Cape Town we decided to return. We were greeted by the warden who remembered us from our last trip. He suggested that we might also like to visit the Sewerage Works (!) and offered to draw up a map for us whilst we were visiting the reserve.
We didn’t see as much at Rondervlei this time but it was still a very worthwhile visit. However, we couldn’t resist a trip to the sewerage works and followed the warden’s excellent map. This trip was beyond our wildest dreams. Once we had signed in to the park we followed a road for about 4 kms and arrived at the sewerage works (a little smelly as we were warned). From there we followed gravel tracks in our car for kilometre after kilometre and saw the most amazing collection of birds without ever getting out of the car. The birds didn’t seem affected by us and we could view the birds really close up.
I’ll post (some of) my photos now and try to identify later.
False Bay Nature Reserve photos followed by Rondevlei Reserve photos:
Rondervlei Reserve photos:
This was to be a non “nature” day but there were a couple of things of interest on our walk through Camps Bay this morning.
We have only ever seen dassies on the top of Table Mountain so it was interesting to see them on the boulders in Camps Bay at the bottom of Table Mountain.
One of the most unbelievable facts about Table Mountain’s dassies is that they are the closest related relatives to elephants. Despite the enormous difference in size between the two, research has claimed the dassie is the African elephant’s closest living relative. (see article)
We saw several dassies in this bay at Camps Bay
I’m not sure what these terns are in the photo but (having read the following article http://nemesisbird.com/birding/bird-sightings/common-gulls-and-terns-of-south-africa/) can guess at sandwich terns.
Travelog Tuesday 27th February 2018
Menu Cape Town February/March 2018
Today we had the best of the weather so far on our trip with lots of sunshine and no cool wind until the evening.
We had a walk along the beach in Hout Bay in the early morning and saw our small cormorant (joined by a few others today) and a seal which came zooming up close to us on the beach.
We took the amazingly spectacular route along Chapman’s Peak to Simon’s Town to see the fascinating African Penguins on Boulders Beach. The swift terns and the Cape wagtails also put on a good display. The kelp gulls were very threatening and we even saw one steal a penguin’s egg.
Click below for gallery of photos from this morning:
Travelog for Monday 26th February
Menu Cape Town February/March 2018
A very full day visiting several hides in the West Coast National Park, 120 kilometres up the west coast from Cape Town.
We reached the lagoon at high tide and so most of the birds were quite distant but we visited other hides where the birds were much more accessible. I still can’t believe how the rock kestrel posed for us only a few yards from the car.
I look forward to some free time to identify some of the birds I haven’t got to grip with yet.
Rock kestrel
Bontebok
Cape bunting
Cape sparrow
Cape sparrow
White-throated canary
African sacred ibis
African sacred ibis
Yellow-billed duck
?
Lesser flamingo
Lesser flamingo
On the foreshore there were curlew sandpiper, bar-tailed godwits, sanderlings and a few other small jobbies.
I’m sure I have seen this grey heron in Eastville Park
Click below for gallery of photos from today:
Travelog for Sunday 25th February
This morning we visited the Rondevlei Nature Reserve on the outskirts of Cape Town. We arrived at the same time as a very excited school group and thought that our visit might be a disaster but we had a wonderful time with good sightings of a good number of species.
There have been sightings of 231 different species at this reserve since it opened in 1952. I hope to be able to identify some of the birds we saw today in the next couple of days if I get a few minutes to myself but our social programme has been very busy and as yet have not had the time, although we did get quite a lot of help from a very friendly and helpful lady birder in one of the hides.
A few of my favourites from this morning with a gallery of the other photos at the end (the last few were from the playing fields of SACS College where we watched some cricket and had a braai with our South African (and French) friends,
Karoo Prinia
Cape wagtail
Three-banded plover
Pin-tailed Whydah
Common waxbill
Flamingo
Black-winged stilt and greenshank
Avocet and black-winged stilt
Great white pelican
Great white pelican
Blacksmith lapwing
Glossy ibis
Barn swallow
Greenshank
Yellow-billed duck
View across the reserve
Sacred ibis
Click below for gallery of today’s photos:
Nothing terribly adventurous today – just a walk along the beach in Camps Bay to the next bay at Clifton.
Masses of cormorants flying south and a few north – a mixture of Cape cormorants and a back bird with brown wings (probably a red-winged starling), a great black-backed gull, Egyptian geese which are obviously considered as pests locally, and a little egret.
Cape cormorant
Bank cormorant
Could this be a red winged-starling? – can’t wait to get my hands on a bird book
Egyptian goose
Little egret
Also saw some Cape wagtails along the main road in Camps bay.
Menu Cape Town February/March 2018
In the morning we had a very pleasant walk along the beach at Hout Bay where we saw a number of gulls and a very small cormorant-like bird diving in very shallow water and a single swallow (one swallow doesn’t make a summer but it’s definitely summer here).
Bird photographer in local camouflage at Hout Bay
Bank cormorant
We had enjoyed a very pleasant breakfast at Hout Bay and, not feeling like lunch, we made the silly mistake of visiting The World of Birds in the hottest point of the day.
We had doubts about seeing caged birds but as this is very much a bird sanctuary we thought it would be worthwhile. We believed we were nearing the end (literally) after cages 17 and 18 but discovered this was only the first section and that in all there were over 150 cages.
Here are photos of a few of the 400 species that can be seen at The World Birds from our (exhausting) visit.
On our first full day in Cape Town we visited the National Botanical Gardens of Kirstenbosch – surely one of my top ten best places in the world.
The gardens were as spectacular as ever and we had a few glimpses of birds on the coast road to Kirstenbosch (mainly cormorants) and at the gardens (although as yet I don’t quite know what I’m seeing).
Seals and sea birds on the coast road out of Camps Bay
A sample of birds from Kirstenbosch:
Egyptian Goose
Guinea Fowl
And some of the amazing flora:
I have created a travelog page of our stay in Cape Town for family and friends who might be interested (but they won’t all be nature photos).
Menu Cape Town February/March 2018
I have just finished reading Horatio Clare’s charming little book Orison for a Curlew about the (possibly) extinct slender-billed curlew. It’s a mix of travel and nature writing
My photo and plate are taken from the entry about the slender-billed curlew in Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender-billed_curlew
I so enjoyed reading this book and thought it would be worthwhile to record the nature books that I have read and enjoyed in the last few months:
Horatia Clare (2015) Orison for a Curlew (Little Toller)
Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss (2017) Wonderland A Year of Britain’s Wildlife, Day by Day (John Murray)
Rosamond Richardson (2017) Waiting for the Albino Dunno How Birds Can Change Your Life (Weidenfield & Nicholson)
Simon Barnes (2017) The Meaning of Birds (Kindle Edition http://www.headofzeus.com)
Lars Gejl (2016) Waders of Europe A Photographic Guide (Bloomsbury)
I have also created a bibliography page which I will add to as time allows.
Martin's Bird Blog & Nature Photos 