Surfbirds Birding Trip Report: South Africa, Cape Town

Having some air miles to use up this year, I decided on a quick trip to Cape Town to try for some endemics for my life list & also some photos for my website: www.andylovering.com

I flew overnight from Nice, via Frankfurt with Lufthansa, arriving in Cape Town midday on the 16th, & had 3 nights booked at Afton Grove Country Retreat in Nordhoek. This is a delightful property with rooms & cottages set in a couple of acres of garden & run by birdwatcher, Chris Spengler. A very friendly ambiance, reasonably priced with nice breakfasts ( dinners too, when birdwatching groups are present )& a selection of really nice local wines. I spent the first afternoon checking the garden ( Cape Canary, Cape White-eye & Pin-tailed Whydah )& then the extensive reed bed & scrubland just over the road, where the highlights were: Cape Spurfowl, Spotted Thick-knee, Reed Cormorant, Burchell's Coucal, Yellow Bishop & Levaillant's Cisticola. I can highly recommend Afton Grove ( www.afton.co.za ) for visiting birdwatchers.

The next day, 17th, I had prebooked a full day private tour of the Cape Peninsula with Birding Africa ( www.birdingafrica.com ). My guide was Martin Benadie, who was extremely knowledgeable & made sure that I saw as much as possible. We started at Kommetjie, where all four seawater Cormorants were present & I managed close-up photos of Bank Cormorant. Other highlights there were African Black Oystercatchers, Swift Terns, many Hartlaub's Gulls & a couple of very obliging Karoo Prinia's.

We then drove on to the Cape Peninsula where we found our only really obliging Cape Sugarbird, which allowed me to take some excellent photos of it feeding on Protea flowers. The Fynbos habitat was superb, with many Protea bushes in bloom. Entering the park proper, we also found Ostrich, Orange-breasted & Southern Double-collared Sunbirds, Jackal & Steppe Buzzards, Cape Grassbird plus Chacma Baboons, Cape Grey Mongoose & Bontebok Antelope.

We stopped at Boulders Beach, Simon's Town for the colony of Jackass Penguins & then moved on, around False Bay, to Strandfontein sewage works, which is also a nature reserve. Greater Flamingos & Great White Pelicans were the most spectacular birds, but there were also many ducks, Red-knobbed Coots & waders, amongst which there was one larger plover that we deduced could only be a Greater Sandplover, a local rarity.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, nestled behind Table Mountain, where we enjoyed African Olive Pigeon, Sombre Greenbul, Cape Robin Chat, Forest Canary, Common & Swee Waxbills, returning to Afton Grove for a pleasant dinner & local wine.

I had prebooked a pelagic boat trip for the 18th, but this was postponed ( as, I understand, is often the case ) due to rough seas & high winds. Greg & Lisa, a pleasant couple who warden Ramsey island, off the Welsh coast, for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, had just arrived & were also booked on the delayed Pelagic, so the three of us joined Martin for a day trip to the Hottentot Holland Range on the easten side of False Bay. We headed straight for Rooi Els & walked along the coast where, despite the high winds, we had stunning views of Cape Rockjumpers, Ground Woodpeckers, Cape Rock Thrush, Cape Siskin, Cape Bunting & more Chacma Baboons.

After a refreshing drink out of the wind, we headed across more Fynbos to Betty's Bay to view another Jackass Penguin Colony at Stony Point. All four Cormorants were present here too & a few Cape Gannets flew past. Cape Sugarbirds, Orange-breasted Sunbirds, Crowned Plovers & Cape Spurfowl were in the nearby gardens.

We enjoyed lunch at Harold Porter Botanical Gardens & the afternoon walk produced Leopard Tortoise, Olive Woodpecker, Cape Batis ( on the nest ), African Black Duck, African Paradise Flycatcher, Black Sawwing Swallow & a superb Victorin's Warbler.

We intended to visit Strandfontein sewage works again, but the roads were closed by the police for some reason. This area is near to a very large 'shanty town' &, sensing possible trouble, we returned to Afton Grove for another delightful dinner & excellent wines. Unfortunately, we heard that the pelagic trip was postponed again; this was bad news for me, as I was flying out the next evening, but I hope that it eventually ran for Greg & Lisa. We discussed the situation with Martin and decided to spend the next day, 19th, up on the West Coast.

With a very early start & a packed breakfast provided by Afton Grove, we headed out, past Table Mountain, stopping at some reedbeds & ponds along the way. We were headed for the West Coast National Park, which protects some of the remaining Coastal Strandveld. Not long after encountering this type of habitat, our main target bird for the day, a stunning Black Harrier flew across the road right in front of our vehicle. We turned off the main road & birded a lovely track, meandering through farmland & scrub. Martin found us our second target bird, Southern Black Korhaan plus both Greater & Lesser Honeyguides, Southern Red Bishop, Bokmakierie, European Bee-eaters, African Hoopoes, Kelp Gulls, Jackal Buzzard, Black-shouldered & Yellow-billed Kites, unusually, a Common Peafowl and some beautiful Blue Cranes. Heading north, we stopped the car to allow an enormous Baboon Spider to cross the road & then continued to a small wildflower reserve ( out of season unfortunately ) where we found Cloud Cisticolas, Orange-throated Longclaws & hundreds of red, black & yellow Milkweed Locusts.

The National Park itself was relatively quiet, but we did see Eland, Ostrich, Neddicky & Bar-throated Apalis before arriving at the reedbeds next to the visitor centre. The tide was in, so not the best time for waders, although White-fronted Plover, Kittlitz's Plover, Three-banded Plover, Little Stints & Curlew Sandpipers were present, plus a fly-past of Caspian Tern and a couple of African Marsh Harriers. We then had to head back to Cape Town, as I was to be dropped at the airport and Greg & Lisa to Afton Grove. Our parting gift was another excellent view of a Black Harrier before taking a photo opportunity of Table Mountain from the beach.

This was an excellent trip, if very short, and my thanks go to Chris & Martin for being such good company & making sure that everything ran smoothly. The full trip list follows; Total 166 bird species ( of which 48 species & 3 subspecies were new for me ). Photos can be viewed in the South Africa section of the Photolibrary on my website.

Kind regards
Andy
www.andylovering.com

Species Lists

Ostrich
Jackass Penguin
Great Crested Grebe
Black-necked Grebe
Little Grebe
Great White Pelican
Cape Gannet
White-breasted Cormorant
Bank Cormorant
Cape Cormorant
Reed Cormorant
Crowned Cormorant
African Darter
Grey Heron
Black-headed Heron
Purple Heron
Little Egret
Cattle Egret
Black-crowned Night Heron
African Sacred Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Hadeda Ibis
African Spoonbill
Greater Flamingo
Egyptian Goose
Yellow-billed Duck
African Black Duck
Cape Teal
Red-billed Teal
Mallard
Cape Shoveler
Southern Pochard
Spur-winged Goose
Maccoa Duck
Yellow-billed Kite
Black-shouldered Kite
Steppe Buzzard
Jackal Buzzard
African Marsh Harrier
Black Harrier
Peregrine Falcon
Rock Kestrel
Cape Spurfowl
Helmeted Guineafowl
Common Peafowl
Blue Crane
African Purple Gallinule
Common Moorhen
Red-knobbed Coot
Southern Black Korhaan
African Black Oystercatcher
Ringed Plover
White-fronted Plover
Kittlitz's Plover
Three-banded plover
Greater Sandplover
Crowned Lapwing
Blacksmith Plover
Common Sandpiper
Greenshank
Curlew Sandpiper
Little Stint
Ruff
Bar-tailed Godwit
Avocet
Black-winged Stilt
Spotted Thick-knee
Water Thick-knee
Kelp Gull
Hartlaub's Gull
Caspian Tern
Swift ( Greater-crested ) Tern
Sandwich Tern
Common Tern
Feral Pigeon
Speckled Pigeon
African Olive Pigeon
Red-eyed Dove
Cape Turtle Dove
Laughing Dove
Namaqua Dove
Burchell's Coucal
African Black Swift
White-rumped Swift
Little Swift
Alpine Swift
Speckled Mousebird
White-backed Mousebird
Pied Kingfisher
European Bee-eater
African Hoopoe
Ground Woodpecker
Olive Woodpecker
Red-capped Lark
Cape Clapper Lark
Barn Swallow
White-throated Swallow
Pearl-breasted Swallow
Greater-striped Swallow
Rock Martin
Brown-throated Martin
Banded Martin
House Martin
Black Sawwing
Fork-tailed Drongo
Greater Honeyguide
Lesser Honeyguide
Pied Crow
House Crow
White-necked Raven
Cape Bulbul
Sombre Greenbul
Olive Thrush
Cape Rock Thrush
Capped Wheatear
Familiar Chat
African Stonechat
Cape Robin-chat
Cape Rockjumper
Karoo Scrub-robin
African Reed Warbler
Lesser Swamp Warbler
Little Rush Warbler
Victorin's Warbler
Bar-throated Apalis
Cape Grassbird
Zitting Cisticola
Cloud Cisticola
Grey-backed Cisticola
Levaillant's Cisticola
Neddicky
Karoo Prinia
African Dusky Flycatcher
Fiscal Flycatcher
Cape Batis
African Paradise Flycatcher
Cape Wagtail
African Pipit
Long-billed Pipit
Orange-throated Longclaw
Common Fiscal Shrike
Bokmakierie
European Starling
African Pied Starling
Red-winged Starling
Cape Sugarbird
Malachite Sunbird
Orange-breasted Sunbird
Southern Double-collared Sunbird
Cape White-eye
House Sparrow
Cape Sparrow
Cape Weaver
Southern Masked Weaver
Southern Red Bishop
Yellow Bishop
Common Waxbill
Swee Waxbill
Pin-tailed Whydah
Common Chaffinch
Cape Canary
Forest Canary
Cape Siskin
Brimstone Canary
Yellow Canary
Cape Bunting

Mammals:

Bontebok
Eland
Chacma Baboon
Cape Grey Mongoose
Grey Squirrel

Others:

Leopard Tortoise
Rock Agama Lizard
Baboon Spider
Milkweed Locust

South Africa, Cape Town - 16th to 19th November 2006

Species Lists