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Shortly before Summer 2009 I read about Giants Castle Nature Reserve in South Africa’s Drakensberg Mountains, and the
photographic hide overlooking a feeding station for Bearded Vulture (a.k.a. Lammergeier) and other raptors. I booked a reservation to
use the hide for two days through Rockjumper Birding Tours, and around those dates we organized a brief tour of the Western Cape and parts of KwaZulu-Natal.
I also wanted to finally take a pelagic trip off Cape Town, something I had had
cancelled twice on previous visits, due to bad weather.
 Black-browed Albatross
The itinerary was very similar to my first
South African trip in 2006. Birding wise, I had “cleaned up” most of the
endemics and regional specialties then, so rather than a list-ticking tour I
wanted to photograph some of the most charismatic species I had seen then (you
can refer to that trip’s report for a detailed description of species and sites).
Also, we wanted to see the Western Cape unique fynbos lanscape in the flower season, and early spring seems to be the best time of the year
for this. The rains had been good during the winter, so things looked promising…
Unfortunately, as it happened we had the worst weather imaginable, almost
without interruption from the moment we landed in Cape Town.
Our Rockjumper guide
for the trip was Glen Valentine, younger brother of my guide during my first
trip, Keith. At twenty-three his knowledge of the birds and wildlife of the
region is amazing, and his guiding skills have been honed on the many tours he
has led through Africa and Asia. He made a big effort to make the trip a
success despite the terrible weather; his being a photographer helped a lot
when understanding my needs. You can check his images from several African and
Asian destinations at Rockjumper’s website.
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| Lammergeier |
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| Pintado petrel |
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| Karoo Prinia |
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| Cape endemics: |
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| Orange-breasted Sunbird |
Cape Sugarbird |
Cape Rockjumper |
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We began by spending four days in and around
Cape Town, visiting West Coast National Park and Cape of Good Hope Natural Reserve at the southern
tip of the peninsula. We enjoyed one morning of fair weather and had a taste of
the beautiful flower carpet covering much of the landscape, and the many birds in
full breeding display. By early afternoon the clouds started gathering, and
that was it: we had nothing but rain, fog and strong wind for practically the
whole of the trip.
Eland
We failed to find Mountain Zebra in Cape of Good Hope, but
had nice views of Bontebok and a herd of Eland that included a
truly impressive bull. Birds included displaying endemics such as Cape Sugarbird, Grassbird and Orange-breasted Sunbird.
Still, my favorite
birds of the day were a family of Ostrich with the smallest chicks I have seen; they couldn’t be older than a couple of
days, hardly bigger than an egg.
Ostrich Chick
I made several visits to photograph
sunbirds and sugarbirds at Kirstenbosch Gardens at the foot of Table Mountain, which was very close to the Little Lodge guesthouse where we were staying.
This
is a beautiful botanical garden that I had visited in two previous occasions,
where the many kinds of blooming Protea flowers
offered wonderful natural perches and backgrounds to the birds.
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| Southern Red Bishop |
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| Grassbird |
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| Bontebok |
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| Karoo Robin |
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| Angulated Tortoise |
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| Southern Double-collared Sunbird |
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| Southern Boubou |
Orange-breasted Sunbird |
Helmeted Guineafow |
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