Birdingcapetown

It was almost as cold as Cape Town gets this morning. 6 degrees. We arrived amidst riverine mist. But, contrary to the weather report, the sun streamed onto the mountain which was flanked by a dawn moon.

Last Tuesday at my bird count with Jane. It’s been a miserable anxious week with my boy cat Crumb missing without trace since last Monday. We did see a bittern after the count though, which is still an absolute treat.

Terna as I found him soaking in the dawn by our river confluence bird count. In summer I really miss the late dawn that invites you to enjoy it without too much bother. This project is partly what inspired my newfound love for daybreak.

Just after dawn at our bird count site on the confluence of the Liesbeek and Black Rivers. We’d just seen a Giant Kingfisher in the willow next to that date palm. The developers are flouting their court order to stop claiming they can just ignore it while they appeal. They seem confident that the courts will bow to their robber-baron capitalism destroying aboriginal heritage and sensitive environments. Let’s hope they’re wrong. People are getting pretty sick of these people ramping up their destruction just as we’re understanding how far it’s gone already.

Lesser Flamingoes! I don’t think I’ve ever seen them at Strandfontein before. Plenty of the Greater Flamingoes - and we saw lots of those too. Greater Flamingoes are almost all white except for their pink beaks and wing feathers. Lesser Flamingoes like these have deep red beaks, often quite red wing-feathers, and occasionally the whole bird is a lurid pink. Manual focus on the Fujifilm XE1 with a Nikon 300mm f4 and 1.4x converter 💪 ...