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With the year's birding already well on track, I had an opportunity to spend the weekend in Cape Town before a few business visits on Monday and Tuesday. It was the ideal chance to pick up some of the trickier birds I was hoping to get this year so I decided to head for the Agulhas plains and spent the nights on either side of the weekend with my parents.
Saturday morning I left in a drizzle that became a downpour when I summited Sir Lowry's pass. It was still dark too so quite miserable. But towards Caledon the strong south-easter had helped to blow some of the darker clouds away and was only spitting now and then. Just past the top of Akkedisberg pass I turned onto a farm road to start my birding but my first surprise was of the mammal kind - a family of four bat-eared foxes. I've never seen these cute foxes outside of the desert/arid areas so I was completely taken by surprise. Initially the birding was fairly quiet, apart from lots of Common/Steppe and Jackal buzzards interspersed with regular groups of Blue crane. I heard Bokmakieries calling loudly from all over and as the temperature increased just a little, I started seeing more birds: White-necked raven, Yellow-billed and Black-winged kites, lots of Egyptian and Spur-winged geese, Yellow canaries and Pied starlings. Soon I had one of the fynbos specialists I was hoping for, Orange-breasted sunbird, and not too long after, the first Cape sugarbird for the year. I stopped at a marshy river crossing before turning towards Elim and picked up Cape bulbul, White-throated swallow, Yellow bishop, Levaillant's cisticola, Pin-tailed whydah, African dusky flycatcher, Fiscal flycatcher and Karoo prinia. Just outside Elim I started seeing the first of many White storks and then the big one - Denham's bustard! And not one, but four of them! Having only seen them once before in Wakkerstroom, this was a fantastic sighting for me and I even managed a few pictures for the record. Beyond Elim towards Struisbaai I noted Karoo scrub-robin, Cape spurfowl, Capped wheatear, two immature Black harriers and a lone Booted eagle. After a quick visit to the southern-most tip of the continent just outside l'Agulhas, I stopped for lunch in Struisbaai and while sitting at a picnic spot watching the tide slowly recede, I saw some terns coming in to roost on the slowly exposing rocks.Finishing off lunch quickly, I walked closer and was easily able to ID the Swift and Sandwich terns. Careful scanning though produced one smaller, completely black-billed tern. A managed to snap a quick photo and later ID'd it as Common tern. With 23 new species for the year, I headed to Bredasdorp for the night.
On Sunday I left again well before sunrise and although the wind was a bit calmer and there were fewer clouds around than Saturday, I still had a few drops of rain as I headed for the Potberg section of De Hoop Nature Reserve. Just before sunrise, as the birds started appearing, I slowed down and started birding. White storks, Blue cranes, Black-headed herons, Steppe and Jackal buzzards were common and after three individual sightings of more Denham's bustards, I started thinking these were common too! I was still desperate for some larks as I still haven't seen a single one and then about 10km from Potberg's entrance I got all three I was looking for in one strike - I stopped at a farm road junction where there was plenty of perfect lark habitat. I first picked up the bubbling call of Large-billed lark and soon after, the two-note whistle of Agulhas long-billed lark. And then just ten metres down the road, an entire flock of Red-capped larks chasing insects in the fallow lands. Other birds seen before Potberg included Brimstone canary, Rock kestrel, Grey-backed cisticola, Pied starling and African pipit. At the entrance of Potberg a tapping noise meant only one thing, but when I saw the woodpecker it was rather disappointingly just a Cardinal woodpecker. There wasn't much going on so early in the morning at Potberg and as I didn't see any vultures soaring yet and didn't feel like walking to the top, I only did some birding around the car park, adding Cape batis, Cape white-eye, Sombre greenbul, Greater double-collared sunbird and Fork-tailed drongo before turning back. Out on the dry farmlands again I was hoping to see some korhaan but I was to finish the weekend without seeing a single one. But on the farm road leading up towards Swellendam, the birding was still good and highlights included Acacia pied barbet, Giant kingfisher, Cape teal, Grey-winged francolin, Chestnut-vented tit-babbler and two majestic Secretarybirds. The N2 back to the Strand was congested and busy but I arrived back safely around 3pm.
On Monday, I finished work at 4pm and with a few hours daylight still left, I decided to try my luck at the Strandfontein sewerage works. This turned out to be a very good idea as I added Maccoa duck, Red-billed teal, Cape shoveller, Brown-throated martin, Common moorhen, Hartlaub's gull, Little grebe and Southern pochard all as new birds for 2015. I left Cape Town with a total of 46 new 2015 birds and now stand at 469 African birds for the year!
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