by Bryn De Kocks
Recent Adventures
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Bird Outings & Twitches
Birding Paardevlei & Macassar (22 February 2014)
It was an early Saturday morning, and it actually started at the beach. I originally woke up early for a surf session, heading in at around 07:00, and leaving the glassy waters at around 09:30. I figured that since I was so close to Paardevlei, I may as well head down and see if there…
Differentiating Little Egret and Snowy Egret
In South Africa we encounter countless amounts of Little Egrets out in the field. They are a common bird which are typically found in shallow areas of water, both salt and fresh water. When compared to our other Egrets; it’s a fairly straight forward identification process. With that said, when one throws into the mix…
A Weekend in McGregor
After several months of mechanics, my car finally gave a code on a diagnostic scanner and on Thursday morning I found myself with a car that had a cleaned throttle body – I was hesitant that this would be the fix, but I was hoping. My girlfriend has been in McGregor for a few weeks,…
Pelagic Birding Off Cape Point – (24 April 2016)
My last pelagic trip was three years ago. Funnily enough, it was three years ago almost to the day (3 days off). In my last entry I managed to amass plenty of new lifers, but ended my previous post with the sentence “Next time, I’ll be setting my sights on the Pintado Petrel…” And so…
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…
An Escape To The Hills of Honeywood
After a stressful series of months, having to move houses and the subsequent drama thereof; I was more than ready to escape away from everyday life and spend a weekend away from home. My girlfriend Milli and I had been discussing places where we could go visit, enjoy the nature and the photography, along 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…
