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…
I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to stay in Cape Town (Vredehoek) over this past weekend for 4 days, thanks to a friend (Andrew) who happened to be going out of town for the week and allowed me to stay at his place for the time. I’ve spent a lot of time around…
A few weeks ago, the weekend of Valentine’s Day to be precise – I was fortunate enough to get Megan out my side for the weekend, picking her up on the Friday after work. Thanks to some rather awful traffic we only arrived in Somerset West after sunset and would in turn have to wait…
I’ve used up all my alliteration in the title, so don’t expect any fancy word usage for the rest of this blog post (I do have pictures though, lots of pictures). Friday – 30 January 2015 : Strand Beach This weekend was a good’un – I picked up my girlfriend Megan Davies on Friday afternoon,…
I can’t remember the last time I was outside with my camera, so this weekend I decided I needed to head out into the post-cold front weather. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to shoot or where I wanted to go, but I felt like doing some chilled back road driving, as opposed to spending…
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,…
Well well, finally I left the house and have an outdoors adventure to blog about! The weather this winter has been rough, with some bitterly cold spells, and it was clear already by Tuesday the first of July that another serious cold front was headed this way. Weather prediction models were showing freezing levels down…
It has been what feels like forever since my last blog post, most likely due to a combination of winter weather and a semi-functioning car. None the less, I am here now with absolutely nothing new to share, though I did go through all my archives today and with winter in full swing, and my…
On the evening of Saturday the 24th May I got a message from fellow photographer Etienne Beneke saying that he would be shooting a particular location in the morning and asked if I would be keen to join. The location is question will be easily recognized by most locals, but I do know there’s a…
It seems that this is a great time for local music with most of the country’s best bands all putting out albums over the past couple of months. Just a few weeks ago Wildernessking released their ‘The Devil Within‘ EP, followed by Conqueror releasing their new album ‘Life on Repeat’. Which brings us to the…
A friend of mine recently contacted me asking if I would want to go camping for the long weekend, as we had both taken leave for the Friday. After weighing up the options, we decided that we would spend a couple nights at Kogelbaai (Koeel Bay / Cool Bay). Since Cool Bay is only 20…
Autumn is by far the best time of the year for sunsets, with cold fronts passing just south of the continent, it means that we get the associated clouds while often not receiving the rain. Before most cold fronts arrive, there are preceding cirrus clouds (high level clouds). These cirrus clouds tend to make for…
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…
With a four day weekend on the cards, even the fact that I had to drop over a grand to get my car to get it sorted out wasn’t going to bring me down. I spent both Friday and Saturday not really doing much, and by Saturday I knew it was time to make up…
Without turning this blog into my diary, I was having a pretty rough week this week and felt the need to get out the house and to socialize in some way, shape or form. I had initially planned to drive through to Cape Town, but my car had other ideas and I found myself trapped…
This previous weekend saw some local birding which started on Saturday morning. On Friday night I sent local photography and bird enthusiast Etienne Beneke a message to find out if he was perhaps keen to go birding on the Saturday morning. Etienne tries to get out every weekend, so he was more than amped to…
The second day of our camping trip saw me waking up just before sunrise, the temperatures were surprisingly comfortable during the night, but the fresh morning air required some extra padding before heading out with the camera. The clouds from the day before had disappeared and although the sun was still hidden behind the mountain…
With the recent long weekend, I made plans with my friend Andrew to go on a bit of a camping trip. I was given the challenge of planning the route and finding the best places to camp. Initially I spent about a week looking for locations, everything from the Cedarberg to the Tankwa Karoo. In…
This day was set to be far more memorable than I had imagined it would be. I woke up, and had to put in for a day’s leave urgently as I had to take care of some things; but I was free until 11:30 in the morning so I figured I would risk my unreliable…
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…