by Bryn De Kocks
Recent Adventures
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Bird Outings & Twitches
A Twitch Bus Adventure – A Parting Gift (Part 3)
While our trip had seen us awake at completely unreasonable hours, it was decided that we wouldn’t be rushing out on Saturday, and instead we’d take it easy. We still wanted to hit the road in the morning though, as we’d be starting our venture back to Cape Town. While everyone else enjoyed their breakfast,…
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…
Improving Your Bird Identification
Being able to identify the bird you’re looking at is probably the most core aspect of birding, it is also one that doesn’t come without effort. Like with most things in life, what you put in is what you get out and if you continue trying to learn, you’re going to improve. If you become…
Finding the Gymnogene
In an entry I made last week I discussed my misfortune with the Gymnogene that nests fairly near to my house, though not exactly sure where. I was driving home and the bird flew across in front of my wind screen by just a few meters, but being without my camera, it felt like a…
Little Ringed Plover at Vermont Salt Pan
Nearly three weeks ago, news broke that the country’s first Little Ringed Plover was discovered at the Tankatara Salt Pans near Port Elizabeth. It was mere minutes later that plans were being put in place by fellow twitchers to chase down the bird with a rather lengthy 16 hour return trip. I was one of…
A Winter Visit to False Bay Nature Reserve
With a rare weekend of beautiful winter weather on the cards, I made sure to get out in the field as much as possible this weekend. Saturday I spent the day at Lourensford Farm building up a list of species for their conservation department, while on Sunday I went through to Strandfontein Sewage Works with…
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…
