by Bryn De Kocks
Recent Adventures
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Bird Outings & Twitches
Winter Morning at Rietvlei, Milnerton
After some very good rainfalls on Friday evening, the weather had cleared by Sunday and unlike the previous day, there was hardly any wind around. Not wanting to waste the rare pleasure of a warm and sunny winter’s day, we headed through to Rietvlei in Milnerton at around 09:30. I had previously been to Rietvlei…
Birding at Paarl Sewage Works
Rather spontaniously, on Sunday morning Cathryn and I decided that we would take the trip through to Paarl Bird Sanctuary. I knew that she still need both White Faced and Fulvous Ducks and what better place to find them, earlier in the week the Fulvous had been reported, so things were looking good to get…
Great Egret & Overberg Landscapes
On Friday a whatsapp message came through in a birding group, of a Great Egret spotted by Dave Winter, just passed Rooi Els. The message arrived just after 17:00, and once I had seen it, the time was already 17:30. I had to decide whether I’d make it to the location before sunset. I already…
A Weekend in Onrus – Day 1 & 2
It was Megan’s birthday a couple of months ago and as a gift from her grandparents, they gave her access to their holiday home in Onrus for a weekend. After an initial delay, the time had come for us to venture eastward, for the last weekend of July. I am not a stranger to Onrus…
Birding at Rooi Els and Bettys Bay
Somerset West Bird Club Outing – Rooi Els and Betty’s Bay (16 March 2013) The day started as any good day of birding does, by waking up far too early. The alarms were set for 5:00, allowing us 45 minutes to wake up, get ready and to grab some snacks/breakfast and put in petrol. Cathryn,…
Strandfontein and Rondevlei – Autumn Birding
Last weekend, weather conditions prevented any birding – with gale force winds and intermittent rain from Friday through until Tuesday. Because of this, Cathryn and myself were both keen, should the weather co-operate – to head out and try get some birding done. Come Saturday late morning, we found ourselves looking at the options. The…
Storm Chasing Adventures
Browse All Storm Chasing Blogs
Chasing Dusk: A Guide To Predicting and Photographing Sunsets
Nothing brings a landscape to life quite like phenomenal lighting. Sunset photography is popular, and sometimes just being in the right place at the right time will give you the biggest advantage in creating the photograph you’ve been envisioning. Thankfully being in the right place at the right time isn’t just a result of luck….
Chasing Lightning in Cape Town 12 & 13 February
Despite being in the middle of a water crisis, the Cape Town area got a few millimeters of rain relief this week with the arrival of some rare thunderstorms to the area. I’d been watching the model runs for a few weeks, and they had repeatedly shown some interesting developments into the third week of…
Chasing Snow in Ceres – 16 July 2017
The weather forecasts for the past week had been showing a strong cold front pushing through the Western Cape on Saturday evening into Sunday morning. Of particular interest with this front was the forecasted freezing levels, which suggested that we may be in for a good snow event across parts of the country. With the…
Chasing Lightning In The Cape
Some people may not be aware, but before birding came into my life I was heavily invested in storm chasing and in 2009 I founded the country’s first dedicated storm chasing community website. My active involvement in storm chasing and tracking may have diminished slightly over the years, but you can bet that if there’s…
Chasing Fires in Somerset West (3 January 2017)
At lunch time on Tuesday I left the house to pick up my girlfriend, but as I opened the front door I was greeted with flames whipping into the air on top of Rome Glen, which is just about 2 kilometers to my east. Fires are usually pretty common in summer around the area, but…
Chasing Mammatus and Other Local Adventures
I woke up on Sunday morning with Monique doing a “Women’s Walk” in Cape Town, and thus had the morning to myself and had planned to head through to Kogelbay and try some surf photography again. The swell forecast was good and the surface wind was forecast as a moderate South Easter, usually good for…
