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…
Twitching The Long-Crested Eagles & Red-Breasted Swallow
I mentioned recently in my blog about birding at Strandfontein, that Milli and I had gone after the Long-Crested Eagle that was seen near Klapmuts, outside Stellenbosch, where we didn’t manage to connect with the bird. Well, over this last weekend, while trying to decide what to do for the day, I checked my phone…
European Nightjar At Helderberg Nature Reserve
Several weeks ago, a European Nightjar was reported at the Helderberg Nature Reserve in Somerset West, no more than 5 minutes from where I stay. I went to the reserve the day after the sighting and attempted to see the bird myself – but there was no sign of it. Fast forward to last week…
Continuing The Lucky Streak
While success in birding can often be tied to dedication, there is no way of getting around the fact that it also includes a lot of luck. You can be visit a local patch regularly for a vast number of hours, but there is still the possibility that the second you leave, an unbelievably rare…
Camping Trip – Day 2 & 3 (Grootvadersbosch)
The second day of our camping trip saw me waking up just before sunrise, the temperatures were surprisingly comfortable during the night, but the fresh morning air required some extra padding before heading out with the camera. The clouds from the day before had disappeared and although the sun was still hidden behind the mountain…
A Day Out – Part 2 (Helderberg Nature Reserve)
Continuing on from my previous installment from Sir Lowry’s Pass. The time was now 7:30 and the Helderberg Nature Reserve gates had just opened, so I decided to head through to catch what I hoped would be some early morning bird activity. I arrived at the reserve at around 7:50 and the sun was now…
Storm Chasing Adventures
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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…
