Well now, where to start? The beginning as good a place as any… Yesterday (Friday 7 September 2012) I went to the Helderberg Nature Reserve as I often do during my lunch breaks, I started out at the pond before seeing one of the Cape Mystery Buzzards near their breeding forest, hence I decided to…
Well Spring is definitely in the air with avian activity picking up, with both breeding pairs being seen more actively and some of the migratory birds returning. Though it is not only birds that are giving hints of the season, the Oak trees are now almost completely green in places and with the weather forecasts…
Friday – 17 August 2012 Starting on Friday, after a series of strong cold fronts which brought some damaging winds, icy temperatures and heavy rain, the sun was finally showing again and on my way home from work for lunch I noticed an unusually large amount of Pied Crows circling around the area, I figured…
The past week has been anything but easy, both personally and in regards to being out taking photographs. Without getting too much into the personal knocks, my grandmother passed away last weekend, she was always extremely supportive of my love for photography and every week would edge me on, asking that I show her the…
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…
After meaning to make one of the Bird Club outings for a number of months, I finally had the weekend free and was completely dedicated to attending this time. I started following the timing of the weather closely from early in the week and one day it looked terrible, then it looked more promising and…
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…
This weekend began with me not expecting to be able to get out in the field at all due to the weather forecasts, but on Saturday morning I woke up and looked outside and saw that while it was cloudy, there was far more sun than I was originally expecting. I realized that this may…
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…
Well, winter is without a doubt upon us here in South Africa, especially true for the Western and Eastern Cape where we have been having rain for at least two-thirds of the week and as luck seems to always have it, the rainiest days occur on the weekends. Because of these conditions I have been…
To top off an already busy weekend of birding I decided on Saturday night that I would wake up early, and if weather permitting, head to the Strandfontein Sewage Works and Rondevlei Bird Sanctuary. At around 8:15am I looked at the weather via some webcams in Cape Town and Muizenberg and decided I may as…
The weekend got started on the Friday evening with a great sunset, I headed down to Strand beach and positioned myself at the tidal pool and waited as the colours increased. While shooting, a couple walked onto the tidal pool wall and stood staring at the sunset for a bit, as can be seen in…
After a series of cold and wet days during the past week, as soon as the cold fronts began to clear I headed to the Helderberg Nature Reserve for a very short check on the pond which tends to get some interesting visitors at times.
Earlier this week I decided that on Sunday (10 June 2012) I would make a plan to head to the Paarl Bird Sanctuary should the weather co-operate. Lucky enough, the large cold front which brought snow to the mountains around the Western and Eastern Cape and even as far as Gauteng had passed and the…
After a day of some birding that was less successful than I had hoped I decided to wake up early once again and dedicate the day to trying to see some raptors, an idea which at the end of it all I realized is probably far better done in summer. The weather was much better…
A plan was made to head out on Saturday 2 June with a couple of other birders in the area, one of which I knew online. I stumbled out of bed at 6:50am after a barrage of alarm clocks I had set to ensure I would get there on time. The plan was to visit…
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…
There has been a bit of excitement around a couple of Ferruginous Ducks that were seen last week at the Paarl Bird Sanctuary. This weekend I was checking facebook constantly for updates from other birders to see one of two things: A) Whether they were in fact victims of reverse migration or B) Escapees. On…
While I would like to keep this blog primarily a birding blog with a few lines in a post about my landscape photography adventures, this week has not allowed it to be possible and the following post will contain mostly landscape photographs, but don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of attempted birding. First…
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…