by Bryn De Kocks
Recent Adventures
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Bird Outings & Twitches
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…
Grootvadersbosch – Day 3 (Rained Out)
This post is a continuation from part 1 and part 2 of birding at Grootvadersbosch. We awoke on Friday morning, the last full day at Honeywood – to a wet and miserable day. Well more wet than miserable. It had rained through the night and there were showers on and off in the morning, during…
Dipping on the Great Spotted Cukoo & Dick Dent Outing
After another week of plummeting temperatures which brought snow to the mountains of the South-Western Cape, the Great Spotted Cuckoo in Klipheuwel seemed to be bracing it well, now present for nearly two weeks, it was last seen on Friday morning. Noting that the cold front was forecast to pass and give way to partly…
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…
A Raptor Watch Weekend
Saturday (15 February 2014) – Newlands Raptor Watch This past weekend saw the annual Somerset West Bird Club raptor watch take place at Newlands Forest. Last year was my first time attending this yearly outing and we managed to catch sight of a European Honey Buzzard that time, so I was hoping for a repeat…
Ravens and Kestrels and Swifts – Oh My
Well, it’s been a while since my last birding blog update, but at no fault of my own… Winter has been baring down on Cape Town in full force over the past few weeks, in fact this weekend will be the third straight weekend of rain, and while others have been making the most of…
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…
