10/7/2024 - 10/15/2024
I have long dreamed of visiting Cape Town, South Africa. From a birding perspective, it offers a rich set of unique birds - a good number of which can be found nowhere else in the world. Couple that with the insane experience of a South African pelagic trip, and you have an amazing birding experience on your hands. While I have been fortunate to have already travelled extensively this year, I was looking for a nice way to cap off the year. I had put in a lot of overtime at the beginning of the year to deliver a project and was able to get an extra week off work in compensation. Somewhere, I ran across a birding tour offered by Birding Ecotours that checked a lot of boxes on my dream trip to Cape Town. Mainly, they offered up chances to see a number of the region's iconic species along with the dream pelagic trip. It was too good to turn down.
The tour would start with an afternoon in the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. From there, we would spend a couple days in the Cape Town area while determining which day we would be doing the pelagic. Pelagics are always a bit weather sensitive and spending some flexible time in the area gave us the best shot at making the boat. This allowed us to bird up to Rooi Els (pronounced Roy Els), Betty's Bay, and Harold Porter Botanical Gardens one day and then do the pelagic on the other. Leaving Cape Town, we would head up to Langebaan and bird through the West Coast National Park before heading up into the Karoo, a semi-arid desert-like region north of Cape Town. The tour ended with a return to Cape Town for some local birding before finishing with a couple hours at the (in)famous water treatment plant, Standfontein. My trip allowed a little extra time in the area; as I arrived the night before the tour started and stayed a couple of days afterwards. All in all, it was a beautiful trip, and we had great weather throughout it.
About that birding.... According to the internet, there are 18 true endemics in South Africa. These are birds that are only seen in South Africa, proper. The qualification is for Lesotho and Eswatini. These are two counties contained mostly within South Africa. Eswatini shares some of its border with Mozambique but is largely within South Africa. If you add in these two countries, you can add another 20 endemics to the list. Finally, if you look at regional endemics (birds who are largely only found in South Africa), you can add another 30 to this list. This gives us 58 "endemics" for the region. During the 7 days on tour, we saw 38 of them. In total, I had 222 species from the trip. Only two of those were added on the days I was there on my own. This is without leaving the Western Cape area and hitting regions like the Drakensberg Mountains or Kruger National Park. On a side note, the Western Cape is not a large mammal area. There are a few species of antelope to be found here, but large mammals are mostly confined to the Kruger area. So, there will not be photos of lions, giraffes, or rhinos.
Along that line, there will not be a lot of scenery shots, either. I just did not take them. We spent a lot of time in the van moving from location to location. Times at locations were focused on finding birds; although one individual in our group seemed to be doing it all at every stop. Of the participants on this trip, he was, by far, my favorite. Nick was an Australian journalist and had the energy of 5 teenagers; although he was roughly my age. Every stop was spent photographing birds, taking video, "iNatting" (refrerred to as Seek in the US) plants and bugs, and taking sound recordings. In between all this, he was still spotting birds for the group, at times. Truly a passionate and knowledgeable individual. Also on the trip was a Canadian couple and another American. Our guide was Josh Olszewski. Josh was not only a knowledgeable birder, he knew most of the local flora and fauna: snakes, rats, bats, animals, and plants. Josh had an answer for just about every question and was patient enough to answer them while tracking down birds by sight and ear. Just do not ask him to back a van down a narrow drive and keep both mirrors on the vehicle.
I plan to break these posts up a bit differently. I plan to cover all of the Cape Town "area" birding in this post. This will be Cape Town and the areas around Rooi Els. In the next post, I will cover the time from the pelagic and up into the Karoo; kind of a sea to desert post. This means this post will cover the beginning and end of the trip, and the second will cover a bit of the middle. While it seems a bit odd, my last two days were spent re-covering some of the same areas from the tour, and it makes sense to include the pics from then with the others. Anyway, that is the plan. Let's get to it, then.
Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens -
The gardens were a half hour walk from the hotel where I was staying. In spite of various reports, the neighborhood and gardens are quite safe. If I was in better shape, they would even be a lovely walk. The gardens are huge and beautiful and very hilly. The only downside is that they did not open until an hour after sunrise. With some additional confusion on my first day, concerning safety, I was an additional half hour late getting there. First day photos are always iffy. It did not help that I had no idea where to go inside the park. I just started wandering and taking everything in. Birding was fairly easy: Cape White-Eye, Olive Thrush, Southern Double-collared Sunbird, Karoo Prinia, Cape Bulbul, Cape Spurfowl, and a host of other birds were easily found. The travelling and the hills in the park quickly took a toll on me, and I exhausted early. I was determined to hang out through lunch before heading back to the hotel, where I thought I would be meeting our guide for dinner. The day was sunny and beautiful. I eventually got the camera out and took some photos before the light got too harsh.
Once midday struck, I found a shaded area and tried to shoot there. Results were very mixed. Keeping me company in the shade were Cape Robin-Chat, Africa Dusky Flycatcher, Cape Batis, and even a few African Paradise-Flycatchers. Lemon Dove skulked along the stream. It is easy to see why they were originally named Cinnamon Dove. Since the name was already taken, the bird had to be renamed with the confusing description of "Lemon". The Paradise-Flycatchers were a great find. Long ago, on my first trip to Africa, our guide, Isa, wore a tee shirt that pictured a breeding male with a long tail. I have wanted to see one like it ever since. This was my first adult male with a long tail, and it brought back a lot of memories from Tanzania when I saw it.
Around 2 PM, I headed for a restaurant inside the gardens and sat down for lunch. I turned my phone on and had a text message come through from the group leader. He and the group were at the gardens and even at the same restaurant I was at. Looking around, they were about 4 tables away from me. It appears that I had misread the itinerary, and we were supposed to meet midday to start local birding at the gardens. I am glad I did not screw it up worse. They had just finished eating; so, I hurried through my meal and caught up with them. My exhaustion level was about an 11, at this point. The park was cooling down, and the birds were very active. Josh was expertly calling everything out. When I found them, they were looking at a Brown-backed Honeybird. No way I was going to identify that bird on my own. In the short couple hours following Josh around, we found every bird that I had found on my own that morning (except for Lemon Dove) and more. Quite a bit more. My initial pride at how well I had done took quite a shot.
We finished the day at the park with an owl. Spotted Eagle-Owl nests right by the front entrance of the gardens. After dinner, we picked up another owl species in a local neighborhood. African Wood-Owl was not a new species for me, but it is always good to see an owl.
As I mentioned above, I had a couple extra days in Cape Town after the tour ended. The morning after the tour finished, I headed back to Kirstenbosch. Atop the gardens is the protea gardens. I would spend most of the day there. The protea is a family of flower named after the Greek god, Proteus. Like the god, they can take many different shapes and sizes. They are also known as sugarbushes, and they attract a lot of birds. On the way uphill, I checked some of the other gardens and found a small flock of birds busily feeding in the flower beds. There were several beautiful Common Waxbill along with a small flock of Bronze Mannikin. Both are common pet store birds, but the Waxbill is native; the Mannikin is an introduced species. There were also a couple of Cape Canary feeding with them.
Uphill, things were lively. I was lucky, and the morning was lightly overcast. Table Mountain was making a bit of weather in its lee and providing some nice cloud cover. It did mist a little bit at one point, but it was brief. It was a perfect morning of shooting. One of my target species (one of many) was the Cape Sugarbird. This species is endemic to South Africa and is an iconic species. The bird is, overall, dull gray/brown, but males sport a long, flowing tail and some cinnamon coloration when breeding. They favor proteas. My first trip to the park, I only saw a couple of birds in the afternoon. This morning... they were everywhere.
I probably spent too much time photographing these birds, but they were hard to pass on. The males were perching up on the flowers and singing. The song is not that pretty, but they were great to see.
My main target up here was Karoo Prinia. I wanted a better shot of this species. They were quite active around the area, but they were very busy collecting food for young. They would hop into a flower bed, and you could watch the plants shake as they worked their way around under the mass of leaves and flowers. They would briefly pop out and then quickly move elsewhere. I never did quite get the shot I was looking for. There were lots of plants in bloom, and everything was quite active. Cape Bulbul were busily feeding on nectar. Small flocks of Cape White-Eye would move through, chattering noisily. Cape Spurfowl were herding young along the edges of the beds. A cooperative Southern Boubou stopped by for some pics. Southern Double-collared Sunbirds sang up a storm, and a Black (Yellow-billed) Kite swooped by a few times. About the names, the naming authority of choice in South Africa is the International Ornithologist Congress (IOC). eBird (and I) use the Clements checklist. This provides a bit of discrepancy at times; so, you will see instances where I provide the Clements name for a species and then place the IOC name in parenthesis with it. The Yellow-billed Kite is considered a separate species from Black Kite by the IOC but not on the Clements checklist.
The clouds started to clear, and I decided to head back to the lower areas. I wanted to grab some shots of the geese and ibis before the light got awful. I was actually a bit late for that, but I made do. Interestingly, the ibis here is the Hadada Ibis. That alone is not interesting, but the IOC name is Hadeda Ibis. This had sparked a bit of an interesting conversation between some birders in India. I do not think that any of us knew, at the time, that it went by different names. They were both just convinced that the other did not know how to pronounce the bird's name.
After grabbing a couple shots, I retreated to the sheltered area to look for the Paradise-Flycatchers. I briefly saw one but did not get shots. Unfortunately, I did not have all day to spend here. I would have loved to hang out until late afternoon. I had things to tend to back at the hotel, though, and left after grabbing lunch.
I cannot stress how beautiful and wonderful the gardens here are. I did not cover a lot of the trails here. There are several that wind up into the Table Mountain area. It would be amazing to live here and photograph the species found in this park. Here are a few cell shots that do not do it justice.
Overstrand -
For lack of a better name, I am just going to refer to this area as the Overstrand area; it is actually all part of the Overstrand Municpality. This covers the eastern coast of False Bay and includes areas like Pringle Bay, Rooi Els, Betty's Bay, and the Harold Porter Botanical Garden. We visited this area on our first full day.
I was very excited to visit this area. Here, we would be tracking down another iconic South African endemic, the Cape Rockjumper. This species inhabits the rocky slopes of "fynbos" habitat. Fynbos is an Afrikaans word meaning "fine plant" and is in reference to the thin leaves characteristic of the plants. There are hundreds of varieties, and they span a narrow belt of coastal area in the Eastern and Western Cape territories of South Africa. This part of the world is not only a birder's dream, it is a botanist paradise.
We started our day in an area near Pringle Bay. A Striped Flufftail was being seen here, and our guide wanted to try for it. This bird is beyond skulky. At best, we were promised a brief glimpse as it ran across a clearing. At worst, we would see nothing. We actually did one step below that. We did not even hear one. The area was fun, though, and we spent some time here eating breakfast - or, as I like to call it, shooting without interruption. While everyone ate, I took the opportunity to grab a few shots. The only cooperative bird I was able to track down was a Cape Grassbird. I am not complaining. This bird was high on my wants list, and it was nice to get a cooperative bird. Also in the area were Yellow Bishop, White-browed (Burchell's) Coucal, and some fly-by Spur-winged Goose.
The day was holding out with a bit of overcast skies, and I was pretty happy about that. We moved from here to Rooi Els. We parked at a gated road and walked a mile or so down it. It was rocky and a bit rough to walk on, but that was fine. The birding was great. We started with Familiar Chat and Speckled Pigeon working along the road. The chat was easily recognized (once the behavior was pointed out by Josh) by the wing flutter it did after every movement. Also working the edge of the road were several Orange-breasted Sunbird. The males are quite stunning. Cape Bunting was also plentiful along the road. As we were walking, a Yellow Bishop was spotted. I was a bit behind the group, and, next thing I knew, the bird flew up and landed a few yards away from me. It sat there and sang for a bit before moving across the road to feed in some grasses. It was a pretty cool experience. A young Red-headed (Gray-backed) Cisticola spent a while hopping around in the brush along the road; occasionally popping up for photos. On the way back out, a pair of Cape Rock Thrush perched on the rocks up the slope and called. Rock Kestrel soared by along the steep, rocky cliffs. A pair of Cape Siskin briefly darted by, and a very cooperative, young Cape Grassbird fed within feet of us. I had to back up a couple of times to even try to shoot him.
Of course, the star of the morning was the Cape Rockjumper. It is actually named for the way it hops around the rocks while feeding. A somewhat skulky species. They do not appear to be overly shy. They are just always around the rocks and on the ground when foraging. They will perch from time-to-time and sing/call. This is really the best way to spot them. We had two, and both turned out to be fairly close. They could have easily been a 100 yards up slope, and there is nothing we could do about it. You are not allowed to walk up into the fynbos. The first bird turned out to be banded. That is a bit of bad luck in my book. I like my photos without bands. The second bird was not banded but not as cooperative. Regardless, it is a beautiful and iconic species. There is even a whole guiding company named for this species. I was overjoyed to see one.
Again, I did not do well on getting shots of the locations we visited. Here are a couple shots that show the general area along the road we birded in Rooi Els. They at least give you a good idea of what the fynbos looks like.
We walked out and started the trip over to Betty's Bay. Along the way, we stopped in town and got a great reminder that I was in a place a lot more wild than Indiana. We had stopped at a small shop for coffee and a restroom break. I was out front looking for birds when a huge Chacma Baboon walked by. This was, by far, the largest baboon I have ever seen. I was so amazed; I forgot to take pictures. Instead, I watched as it casually strolled up to the various cars parked in the area and tested all the door handles on the cars. I would not want to be the person who left my car unlocked or the windows down.
We got to Betty's Bay just as the light gave way. The clouds dissipated, and we were left with a bright, sunny, midday sun. We are so far south of the equator, that it was not Florida-bad, but the light was not favorable. Harsh lighting is harsh lighting. Did it stop me from shooting? No. Are the pictures great? Definitely not, which is too bad. There is a large seabird colony here; among them - African Penguin. We pulled into the lot and walked up to the beach to look over the colony. You are not allowed on the beach. There is a boardwalk here that will take you out around a rocky point. The penguins nest along the boardwalk. Out on the rocks, hundreds of seabirds were nesting. Hartlaub's and Kelp Gull nest here along with four species of Cormorant: Cape, Great (White-breasted), Bank, and Crowned. Rock Hyrax also call the rocky cliffs home. We had a number of species fly by in our time here. The oddest, to me, was probably the Northern Giant Petrel flying just off the coast. Alpine Swift darted by. Great Crested Tern would pass by in ones and twos. Common Terns flew by in steady numbers. In the parking lot, we had our first Rock Martin of the trip. Combing the exposed rocks along the beach was a single African Oystercatcher. It was a beautiful and active area. Some of the Cape Cormorant were still brining in nesting materials.
As we were walking out, Josh quickly picked out a penguin with unique plumage. The penguin had a totally white face.
I got a couple general shots of Betty's Bay. This area used to be used for whaling. The penguins now hang out on the ramp where the whales were hauled in. The second shot looks across the water from the beginning of the boardwalk and shows the beach area where the penguins hang out.
We left here and headed to Harold Porter Botanical Garden for some afternoon birding and a late lunch. The light was still pretty harsh. Right as it was getting perfect, it was time to head back to Cape Town. Well, it is a birding tour. The gardens were nice, and we had some good birds here. We had our first Yellow-billed Duck (they know how to name birds, here) sitting on a small pond at the entrance. A beautiful Jackal Buzzard circled overhead while we were eating. In the flower beds, we had Brimstone Canary and Streaky-headed Seedeater. Swee Waxbill fed on the lawn. We made a short walk of the area and had Piping Cisticola clacking out their typewriter-like calls. A Verreaux's Eagle was chased in the distance by a pair of White-necked Raven. Yellow Bishop fed in the tall grasses near a pond, and Bar-throated Apalis and Klaas's Cuckoo sang from the trees. When we got to an area with protea, we found a few Cape Sugarbird feeding in the flowers.
We also had our second tortoise of the trip, here. This is an Angulate Tortoise that was hanging out and chomping some grass. Once we got close, he made a quick get away, which was slow enough for me to grab a cell phone shot.
I had such a good time up in this area that I wanted to come back and spend time photographing things better. So, that is what I did. The reason I did not have a full day on my second trip to Kirstenbosch was that I was working out transportation back to this area for my last day. I got everything worked out; except for the weather. It was some of the craziest weather I have seen, and the driver thought it was crazy, too. As we left Cape Town, the wind was a little strong. By the time we got around to the east side of False Bay, it was incredibly strong. The wind was whipping out across the water and blowing up spray off the top of it. A constant hazy fog of mist constantly hung over the water of the bay for as far as you could see. Swirling vortexes weaved their way through the mist. Needless to say, it was not going to be an easy morning of birding. It was also sunny. Brightly sunny, and I needed overcast skies to compensate for the areas being against the morning light. It was a good plan, but the weather and execution left a lot to be desired.
I got to Betty's Bay right at 8:00 AM. This is when the boardwalk opened. One look at the waves crashing up against the rocks and covering the boardwalk in spray ruled that out pretty quickly. Down on the beach, everything was backlit. This would not have been the end of the world, but the wind was also blowing in straight from the east. Getting the birds aligned for a proper rimlight shot would have meant shooting directly into the wind - and blowing sand. Shooting into blowing sand is a quick way to pit a camera lens. I did some shooting off light angle, but the shots leave a lot to be desired.
I left here went to Rooi Els. I was hoping, against hope, that the mountain would provide some cover against the wind. We had missed Victorin's Warbler on our previous visit here, and I really wanted a second shot at it. No joy. The wind was strong enough to blow me back a couple steps at times. There was almost nothing moving in terms of birds, but there were swallows everywhere. Most were Plain (Brown-throated) Martin, but I did spot one Greater Striped Swallow in with them. Familiar Chat and Orange-breasted Sunbird were cowering in the fynbos. I eventually got down the road far enough to find a wind break. Here, I had a few birds I could shoot. High up the slope, I could hear a Cape Rockjumper calling. It was way too far to photograph. I ran into some locals and chatted with them about birding and the weather for a bit. Everyone I ran into in South Africa seemed to know a little about birds. It was kind of nice. I started to walk back and noticed that a Rockjumper was calling from very close by. Huddled on the back side of a large boulder was the banded Rockjumper from the first day. He was on the shaded side, and it allowed me to grab a few photos.
Happy to have some more Rockjumper shots but still a bit dispirited, I had the driver take me back to town. There was a park (Greenpoint Park) where Josh told me I could find Water Thick-Knee. I stopped by there and was able to track some down. The wind was a lot better back in town, but the lighting was unforgivingly harsh. I left there and hit up another park to look for Tambourine Dove (really just hoping for better shots of Lemon Dove) and struck out on everything. After that, I hung it up and went for a late lunch with my driver. Then it was back to the hotel to pick up luggage before heading to the airport.
That is getting a bit ahead of myself, though. I have one more area in Cape Town to cover before ending this post. The final day of the tour, we left the Karoo and headed back into Cape Town. We were doing a bit of target birding prior to hitting our final scheduled stop of the tour. We had a bit of mixed luck on the target birding; only managing to pick up Spotted Thick-Knee, African Black Duck, and Acacia Pied Barbet. At the barbet location, we had a cute little Southern Red Bishop showing off for some ladies. A Pin-tailed Whydah was also there, but he was showing off in a car mirror to himself.
We eventually started heading toward the coast. I had forgotten that this last place was on the itinerary. It is one of the "must visit" birding locations in Cape Town and is responsible for more rarities in the area than any other spot. One smell, and I knew immediately where we were at. This was Strandfontein - the water treatment plant. I really do not enjoy birding these places. Having said that, Strandfontein was far better than most. In some places, you could almost forget where you were at. Not everywhere, though.
On the way there, we ran across some notable birds perched along the road. We had seen one European Bee-Eater as a flyover earlier in the trip. Perched on some branches growing out of a sandbank were 5 or 6 Bee-Eaters. They are beautiful birds. Our guide got us turned around and pulled up to the spot; just to have the birds take off. A couple circled back to perch briefly but eventually flew off with the rest.
At the plant, we had a lot of birds. The most interesting, well to me, was the Greater Flamingo. The birds do not breed there. The closest breeding colony is hundreds of miles away; yet there are always flamingos there. From Josh's point of view, the most interesting bird was the current rarity. Franklin's Gull. If only it was something Australasian, instead.... We had ducks (Cape Shoveler, Cape Teal, Yellow-billed Duck, and Red-billed Teal), Eared (Black-necked) Grebe, Little Grebe, Pied Avocet, Red-knobbed Coot, Eurasian (Common) Moorhen, Western Cattle Egret, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Kelp Gull, Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint, and a host of other birds. Skulking in the rushes was Little Rush Warbler, which was a bird we missed earlier in the trip, and Lesser Swamp Warbler. Basking luxuriously in one of the smellier areas was a humongous, distant Hippo. There is, apparently, a population of them that moves in and out of the ponds at the plant. There was only one this evening. I did not get a lot of photos in here. I was restricted to shooting from the van; more by my own choice than anything else.
What I did take quite a few shots of were the flamingos. There was a large group of them near the shore of one of the retention ponds. I asked Josh to pull up next to them where they were the thickest and to let me get some shots. The road was a bit above them. I would have loved to be more eye-level. As we pulled up, they slowly wandered away. I have never been this close to this species, and I was happy to have the opportunity to photograph them.
This brought the trip to an end. We headed back to town and had one final, official dinner together. It was one of the nicer restaurants I have been in, and two of the trip participants decided to embarrass us all with an airing of grievances with each other right in front of everyone. I am not saying that the complaints were not warranted. This was just not the time nor place for it. The joys of group travel. We got back to the hotel, and I issued some quick goodbyes. I had had enough for the night.
The hotel we stayed at was Fernwood Manor. The place is really nice, and they are incredibly accommodating and fairly cheap. It is a rare combination. I really could not recommend a better place to stay. The neighborhood is safe, and it is an easy walk to Kirstenbosch from there. They even helped arrange my driver for me.
I am not sure what I expected of Cape Town. I mean, I had dreams of birding here, but that does not amount to an expectation. In short, the place was amazing. The birding was easy. Of course, having a good guide helped a lot. For the most part, though, you are not searching through heavy jungles or dense undergrowth. The fynbos, while providing a unique habitat with diverse and specialized flora and fauna, also provides for pretty easy birding. The areas we visited were largely safe. Granted, we did not get out of the van near the unorganized areas of town. The people I ran into spoke English and were friendly - even fairly knowledgeable about birds. You can drink the water, and that is really not common, at all. It all made for remarkably easy travel, which was a bit refreshing. All in all, Cape Town: Five Stars.
The next post will cover the pelagic trip, our voyage out of town to Langebaan and through the West Coast National Park, and then into the Karoo. Stay tuned for part 2!
Thanks for reading,
Mike
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