by Bryn De Kocks
Recent Adventures
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Bird Outings & Twitches
A Little Yellow Surprise: Western Yellow Wagtail At Macassar Sewage Works
Our Saturday started early. The plan was to drive through Van der Stel Pass near Botrivier, then head to Hawston to search for the Red-Breasted Swallow again. Things didn’t go quite as expected, and we ended the afternoon with a Western Yellow Wagtail in Macassar. Here’s how the day unfolded. Van der Stel Pass Birding…
Citrine Wagtail – Second Time Lucky
This past Saturday morning I was running through my Facebook news feed when I saw mention of a Yellow Wagtail reported at Strandfontein Sewage Works near Cape Town. Having the morning free, and having not had a chance to see a Yellow Wagtail yet, I debated the 40 minute drive for a bit before deciding…
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…
Birding Challenge – Gotta Tick ‘Em All
I was contacted by Trevor Hardaker this past week, letting me know that him and Margaret, his wife – would be passing through my area and heading to Rooi Els to target some birds for the challenge. They knew I still needed the Ground Woodpecker as a lifer and figured that it would be a…
Birding in the Helderberg – 20 October 2012
Helderberg Nature Reserve There was a bird club outing this Saturday morning, but unfortunately I was not able to get up at 6am due to a lingering illness I’ve had for a few weeks now, leaving me desiring more rest, or so was the plan. I ended up waking up around 9:00 and despite the…
Dick Dent Bird Sanctuary Meet Up
I recently headed to the Dick Dent Bird Sanctuary with the Somerset West Bird Club, originally I didn’t think I’d have time as I had an extremely busy schedule for the day, but after performing the errands I needed to, I found myself able to meet up with the small group of local birders at…
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…
