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 and saw a message from Sarel Snyman, who had picked the bird up again, this time along with a second bird.
I’m not sure if this is every birder’s experience, but I am often ready within seconds for a twitch, whereafter I sit and stare at Milli for not getting ready fast enough. “We need to go!”, “Quick” – are terms that don’t go over well when someone is already rushing, apparently.
I’d already seen a couple of Long-Crested Eagles in the province, and one with pretty great views too. It seems like yesterday, but it was apparently more than 10 years ago since I had my Helderberg Nature Reserve sighting. A few years later, I also picked some up in George.
Having started birding fairly young, I often still think of myself as a beginner birder, the young one in the circles. But then I need to remind myself I’m no longer the early 20s birder and I’ve pretty much caught up to those I looked up to so much when I started, the birders who took me under their wings to show me the ropes and allowed me to see more species than I ever could have by myself.
Tangent aside, with the bird having just been seen – we raced off in the direction of Klapmuts. Milli still needed to see a Long-Crested Eagle, and it was a bird she really wanted to see. Raptors have always resonated more than passerines for me, and so it’s also often a focal point of our birding outings.
The weather was miserable, the first real rains of the year, and although the sky was relatively clear on the route, with clouds breaking to expose columns of sunlight against distant rain, as we approached Klapmuts the weather started to change, the rain getting progressively heavier the closer we got to the location.
We were really worried about having a similar experience to last time, where we had missed the birds by an hour.
A Sigh Of Relief As We Connect With The Long-Crested Eagles
When we arrived there was another car there, and thankfully the couple pointed out the birds across the field. A distant view, but also an immediate sense of relief. Still, we wanted better views and if we were lucky, possibly even some decent photographs.
I had just purchased the Tamron 150-600mm G2 lens, and this was my first outing with it. Having come from using the Canon 400mm 5.6 prime. So I was very eager to see what it could do…
We watched the two Long-Crested Eagles move up off the ground and move in our general direction, but at a distance, still too far to photograph. So we made our way down the road and watched the birds make their way into a large Oak tree.
It’s in this tree that we noticed the one bird had a catch with it and had made its way to the tree to eat it. But it wasn’t going to be easy, several aggressive Fork-tailed Drongos didn’t take the bird’s presence well, continuously bombing it and trying to get it to move from its territory.
At this point, the second bird was sitting in the next tree. But shortly afterwards, it dropped down in the farmlands below, before reappearing about 10 minutes later.
It’s at this point that the second bird makes its way to the one enjoying the fresh catch. Here we saw a truly awesome interaction, where the first bird passed the dead prey via its beak into the mouth of the second bird, who gladly accepted the act of sharing.
We watched on for another hour or so before the birds moved off and dipped down, going unseen. Another 30 to 45 minutes of waiting didn’t yield any results, but before driving off – we wanted to take a drive up the road and see if there were any better views.
Second Chances
We scanned the farmlands without success, turning the car around and heading back. But just seconds after heading back from where we came, I caught a glimpse of one of the birds coming towards us in flight. It was one of those situations where you have about 3 seconds to somehow get the camera out and lock it into focus.
I somehow managed to capture a couple of shots of the bird (shout out to the Tamron’s AF). Giving me some of the best Long-Crested Eagle photos I’ve managed to get. Granted, they aren’t going to win any National Geographic awards, but given the views we had been getting, especially in terms of range – it was a welcome change.
The bird then sat down on a nearby fence pole, the rain now coming down quite heavily. These were the last views of the bird before it took off again. However, they have since been seen at the same pin.
Dipping On The Red-Breasted Swallow
It’s not all partial sunshine and rainbows though, a few days later we got the alert of a single Red-Breasted Swallow near Hawston, at the same general location as the recent Macaroni Penguin and Black Tern. While closer to us than to those in Cape Town, it’s still almost an hour’s drive and with Swallows having somewhat erratic macro movement patterns, each minute was valuable time.
We managed to connect with Pieter Vorster, who was the guy who found the bird. But it hadn’t been seen in over an hour at that point – so we had to go searching.
Eventually, after 4 hours of looking around, we had to call it. There were quite a few Barn Swallows and a few Greater Striped Swallows, but they came and went over the hours, none of them showing the diagnostic red body we were looking for.
It was surprising to us that despite being the second record for the province, there wasn’t really any other interest, with Milli and I being the only ones on sight for most of the day.
