Atlasville, 09 Nov 2005
My father has been visiting from the UK so we decided to head down to Cape Town as we have not been to that part of the country in 8 years, although I must admit I had a hidden agenda. Having booked a berth many months ago on the ‘Mega-Pelagic’ Indian Ocean birding cruise later this month I also decided that to do it justice I would finally have to shell out for a digital camera with interchangeable lenses. So off we set on 30th October, with me armed with a spanking brand new Canon EOS 20D complete with EF-S 17–85mm lens and EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens. It was the latter that I hoped to put through its paces as I familiarised myself with both camera and lens. To this end I had also booked a day’s pelagic birding out of Simonstown with Zest for Birds).
Our overnight stop on the way down to the Cape was in the rest camp at Karoo National Park just outside the town of Beaufort West, with a great view of the Nuweland mountains. Our late arrival meant no chance for me to fit in any birding, but I was up next morning before the others and managed a pre-breakfast drive around the Lammertjiesleegte loop. Only the 2nd bird of the day was one of those birds that is a must for someone whose usual birding haunts are 1,000 miles away in the Lowveld – Rufous-eared Warbler. With Malachite Sunbird, Dusky Sunbird, Pririt Batis, Karoo Long-billed Lark, Karoo Chat and White-throated Canary all added to the list I could really enjoy my breakfast before setting off for the 6-hour drive to Cape Town.
Our base for the next week was Table View Cabanas right on Bloubergstrand beach, which as the name suggests has a great view across Table Bay, of Cape Town and Table Mountain. We arrived with enough time to unpack and have a stroll along the beach to take in that magnificent view before sunset. I even added Hartlaub’s Gull sitting atop a street lamp-post.
The next day we headed for the old Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve (now part of Table Mountain National Park driving south hugging the coast via Sea Point, Clifton, Camps Bay and Llandudno, to Hout Bay, from where we took Chapman’s Peak Drive to Noordhoek. It really doesn’t matter where you go on the Cape Peninsula the scenery is very impressive. From Noordhoek it was on to Kommetjie and Scarborough and into the nature reserve. No sooner were we in the reserve than we saw our first bontebok. At Olifantsbos I added Cape Sugarbird to the birding list as well as African Oystercatcher. Next stop was the parking area near the restaurant below the funicular that takes you to the top of Cape Point. Watch out for the baboons here as they have become quite adept at opening car doors to steal food and anything else that takes their fancy. They can become quite aggressive if challenged, so windows up and doors locked.
There are two ‘points’ at the tip of the Cape Peninsula, the higher, steeper, more impressive Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, whose claim to fame is that it is the most southerly point of the African continent - all of 160 m further south than Cape Point! We took the funicular to the top of Cape Point before having lunch in the restaurant. Along the way I added Cape Bunting, Cape Bulbul and scurrying around the rocks a Black Girdled Lizard.
During the afternoon we moved to the east side of the peninsula, the False Bay side, and visited the African Penguin (lifer) colony at Boulders Beach.
The following day involved a lot of driving, going inland and taking in as many of the scenic spots as we could. The route took us via Stellenbosch and Franschhoek in the heart of the wine-producing region of the Cape. The Franschhoek valley is one of those picturesque spots worthy of gracing many a calendar. Then it was Villiersdorp, Caledon and down to the coast again at Hermanus, a well-known whale-watching destination. Although not a bird-watching day we couldn’t miss a pair of South Africa’s national bird, Blue Crane, in a field near Villiersdorp. From Hermanus it was a case of follow the coastline through Kleinmond, Betty’s Bay, Pringle Bay and Gordon’s Bay, rejoining the main N2 at Somerset West and heading back to Bloubergstrand.
Up next was West Coast National Park at Langebaan, an 80 km drive north up the west coast from Bloubergstrand. While the rest were more interested in the scenic beauty of the shoreline, where I did add a lifer with Crowned Cormorant, I made sure that I got into the Geelbeek, Seeberg and Abrahamskraal bird-watching hides. Caspian and Common Terns, Common Ringed, Kittlitz's and White-fronted Plovers, Little Stint, Banded Martin, Black Harrier and Karoo Scrub Robin were all added to the trip list.
Then the day I had been waiting for. While the others had a day to really relax I was up before dawn to head for Simonstown and join the Zest for Birds Cape Pelagic trip. The weather was not too bad, overcast, not too windy and no rain forecast, although with not too much sun to look forward to the conditions for photography were not ideal. The plan was quite simple, head out to sea and locate some fishing vessels that were actively catching fish, as where the fish are would be where the birds are too. I imagine that radar/radio/sonar had a lot to do with where we ended up, but I was more interested in would there be any birds there, as there was no guarantee that there would be any birds following those shoals of fish. I need not have worried on that score, however, and we located a few trawlers some 32 km due SW of Cape Point with wheeling flocks of assorted seabirds in their wake.
But, back to departure from Simonstown. Not far out to sea we located some African Penguin, which I had first seen 3 days previously on Boulders Beach, and not one but four species of tern, Arctic, Common, Greater Crested and Sandwich. We picked up the odd shearwater and petrel as we headed out to sea but of course the greatest numbers and species diversity were found close to the fishing fleet. It was a very successful day, totting up 31 species including Sabine’s Gull, Wilson's and Black-bellied Storm Petrel, Parasitic and Pomarine Jaeger, Sooty and Great Shearwater, Great-winged, Grey, Soft-plumaged, White-chinned, Pintado, Northern Giant and Southern Giant Petrel, and 4 albatross species, Atlantic Yellow-nosed, Indian Yellow-nosed, Black-browed and Shy Albatross. 19 lifers amongst this haul.
Our final full day in the Cape was fairly relaxed with a trip into Cape Town itself and a stroll around the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in the suburb of Newlands, tucked up under the eastern face of Table Mountain. As well as being a world-renowned botanical garden, Kirstenbosch also boasts a great view out over Cape Town’s eastern suburbs and False Bay to the distant Hottentots-Holland mountains. Even here I managed to add birds to the trip list, including Southern Double-collared and Orange-breasted Sunbird, Cape Batis, Cape White-eye, Cape Robin-Chat and African Olive Pigeon.
The trip home included an overnight stop in Karoo National Park again, but rather than heading there via the direct route straight up the main N1, we took a longer and infinitely more scenic route. Leaving Cape Town on the N2 we drove as far as Swellendam, then struck north-east via Barrydale, Ladismith and Calitzdorp to Oudtshoorn. Here we joined the N12 and headed north to Beaufort West arriving at Karoo NP with enough time to unpack and take a late afternoon drive up the Klipspringer Pass into the Nuweland mountains. Pale Chanting Goshawk and Fiscal Flycatcher were seen on the way up the pass, and in the growing gloom on the way back down to the rest camp we got excellent views of a Cape Eagle-Owl.
From my perspective the main objective had been achieved. The purchase of the Canon EOS 20D and lenses was well worth it and I had familiarised myself with them ahead of the upcoming Indian Ocean pelagic cruise.
Of course a trip list of 161 species, including 21 lifers, was a good outcome to the trip.
