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With 16 June being a public holiday, the long weekend was an ideal opportunity to try and do a pelagic trip out of Simon's Town with Trevor Hardaker's Zest for Birds. Having had a Cape Town pelagic trip cancelled before due to weather, we were really hoping that this one would come off. Sadly, this was not to be.
After meetings in Pretoria on Friday, I rushed home to pick Nicola up and drive to the airport, only to get confirmation from Trevor while sitting in the lounge that the entire weekend's plans have again been called off due to bad weather. It was depressing news since it meant we would miss out on the possibility of about five lifers and 15-20 new birds for the year. But at least we had a back-up plan to visit a few other Western Cape localities to try and up our annual count. The flight went without a hitch and after picking up our rental from Avis we made quick work of getting to our accommodation in Kalk Bay at The Inn at Castle Hill. Unfortunately our accommodation didn't really lift our spirits - although the room itself was nice and comfortable enough, it had no TV and you had to stand on your knees to reach the coffee/tea on a little trolley. The 'private' bathroom was not en-suite but down two passages, lacked a shower and the skylight leaked. Luckily we weren't planning on spending a lot of time in the room so we settled down for the night.
At 5am we were up and left Kalk Bay for West Coast NP, arriving just before the gates opened. It was cold and windy with waves of drizzle and rain blowing in every now and again. But the birds still had to feed so we notched up a few like Bokmakierie, Cape spurfowl (hundreds), Cape bulbul and Pied crow before getting to Geelbek. In the reedy marshes before the first Geelbek hide, Levaillant's cisticola was calling and Blacksmith lapwings, Curlew sandpiper, Three-banded and Kittlitz's plovers were all battling against the wind on the exposed flats. From the hide we could see plenty of Greater flamingoes and a single Lesser flamingo also winged past. Caspian and Swift terns were fairly common but as the tide started receding, we were most interested in the waders. First of course were the long-legged Common whimbrels followed shortly by Grey plover and Common greenshank. No Eurasian curlews though. With the wind howling from the east, we kept only the windows open looking west towards the second Geelbek hide. Reports from the previous week indicated Common redshank in the area and it was a surprisingly short time before these flashy birds showed up. Two individuals came quite close to the hide and we got decent pictures of them feeding alongside all the other more common birds. Having spent two and a half hours at the hide it was time to move on and we paid a quick visit to Abrahamskraal where we were lucky to add African rail along with Cape shoveler, Red-knobbed coot and Little grebe. On our way to Tsaarsbank we came across a family of Grey-winged francolins that gave us good opportunities for decent pictures. At Tsaarsbank itself there were the obligatory Kelp and Hartlaub's gulls along with a handful of African black oystercatchers. A few Cape, Crowned and White-breasted cormorants were around but no Bank cormorants. We sat and waited for a while but when it started raining quite heavily around 11:30, we called it a day. We drove back to Geelbek for lunch and thereafter, north to Langebaan for a quick bit of shopping before heading back to Cape Town. My brother-in-law, Gordon, joined us for dinner at Harbour House restaurant in Kalk Bay where we pigged out on seafood and wine.
During the night it started raining again and by the time we woke up, it was coming down heavily. So we dozed for a while longer before having a quick bite to eat and then packed up and left. Although it was still pretty miserable outside, it had stopped raining so we headed to Kommetjie to see if we could find Bank cormorant and/or Antarctic tern. Although there were nice views of Swift tern and both Cape and Crowned cormorants, neither of our target species could be seen. The wind was howling and things were fairly unpleasant so at last giving up just after 10am, we headed to my parents' place in the Strand. Here we were welcomed with cookies and tea and spent the rest of the weekend with the family. On Monday morning we had a late breakfast before packing up and heading for the airport.
It was very disappointing to have the pelagic trip cancelled and the weather easily cost us 20 new annual species. But we're still very happy that we got the Common redshanks and it was good to spend some time with the family.
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