My first two years birding in the Cape Provence (South Africa)

During my last couple of years at school, I developed a really strong passion for bird watching.  This was first ignited by Tony Verboom, a very close school friend of mine, who took me off on one of his birding trips. We spent the morning in a local swamp, crawling on our bellies, getting knee deep in mud and thoroughly filthy in our pursuit of lesser spotted thing-a-me-bobs.  And I absolutely loved every minute of it, especially when a beautiful osprey flew over our heads.  From then, I lived and dreamed birds and cycled to the local birding spots every weekend in pursuit of new species (or ticks as we call them) in order to increase my  life list.  I also joined the Cape Town bird club and went on some great hikes with them.

Here are some of the new birds I saw in my first couple of years in the Cape and surrounds.

Rondevlei

• Avocet
• Little Bittern
• Redknobbed Coot
• Reed Cormorant
• Burchell's Coucal
• Black Crake
• Cape Shoveller
• Cape Teal
• Redbilled Teal
• Yellowbilled Duck
• Little Egret
• Yellowbilled egret
• Purple Gallinule
• Egyptian Goose
• Spurwinged Goose
• Dabchick 
• Great Crested Grebe
• African Marsh Harrier
• Blackcrowned Night Heron
• Blackheaded heron
• Grey Heron
• Purple Heron
• Sacred Ibis
• Malachite Kingfisher
• Pied Kingfisher
• Moorhen
• Eastern White Pelican
• Blacksmith Plover
• Kittlitz's Plover
• Ringed Plover
• Curlew Sandpiper
• African Spoonbill
• Blackwinged Stilt
• Cape reed warbler
• Cape weaver
• European sedge warbler

Uilenskraal

• Bartailed Godwit
• Kelp Gull
• Giant Kingfisher
• Knot
• Grey Plover
• Whitefronted plover
• Ruff
• Sanderling
• Little Stint
• Caspian Tern
• Sandwich Tern
• Whimbrel

Devil's Peak

• Black Eagle

Kirstenbosch

• Cape batis
• Sombre bulbul
• Cape canary
• Paradise flycatcher
• Rameron Pigeon
• Spotted prinia
• Cape sugarbird
• Lesser doublecollared sunbird
• Malachite sunbird
• Orangebreasted sunbird
• Alpine Swift

Rietvlei

• Osprey

Betties Bay

• Levaillant's cisticola
• Neddicky
• Cape rock thrush
• Ground woodpecker

Cape

• Cape gannet
• Cape Bulbul
• Cape bunting
• Jackal Buzzard
• Steppe Buzzard
• Cape Cormorant
• black crow
• Pied crow
• Water Dikkop
• Cape Turtle Dove
• Laughing Dove
• Redeyed Dove
• Cattle Egret
• Greater Flamingo
• Cape Francolin
• Greenshank
• Helmetted Guineafowl
• Hartlaub's Gull
• Hoopoe
• Rock kestrel
• Blackshouldered kite
• Orangebreasted longclaw
• rock martin
• sand martin
• Speckled Mousebird
• Spotted Eagle Owl
• Feral Pigeon
• Rock Pigeon
• Chestnutbanded Plover
• Crowned Plover
• Whitenecked raven
• Cape robin
• Bokmakierie
• Southern boubou
• Fiscal shrike
• House sparrow
• Cape sparrow
• European starling
• Redwinged starling
• Little Swift
• Swift Tern
• Cape wagtail
• Cape whiteeye
• Diederich Cuckoo

Karoo

• Pririt batis
• Mountain chat
• White stork
• Whitefaced Duck
• Whitethroated canary
• Karoo chat
• Greybacked cisticola
• Fairy flycather
• Greater Kestrel
• Redcapped lark
• Palewinged starling
• Cinnamonbreasted warbler
• Rufouseared warbler

Camping as a child

Memories don't come better than our annual "boys only" camping trips to Uilenskraal just outside Hermanus.  Grandpa, Dad and I would drive out there in Dad's orange variant.  We always camped in exactly the same spot under an old tree.  We'd always erect two tents - a big orange one for dad and Grandpa to sleep in with large wooden pegs that would require a heavy rubber hammer to drive into the ground.  My tent was considerably smaller and easier to erect.

After the tents where up, we'd set up the old camp table and chairs.  The we'd go for a walk along the beautiful lagoon.  At night, dad and I would often go for a stroll in the adjacent camp site were there were hundreds of dilapidated caravans.  It was quite spooky at night but I always felt perfectly safe because I was with dad and it was at times like this that I'd feel such love for him that my eyes would literally well up.  Then on the way home, we'd stop off at the little camp shop and get mint chocolates.

Breakfasts were always a veritable feast.  All three of us were big eaters and we'd create a huge fry up using an ancient iron frying pan - egg and lots of bacon and banana and bread and tomatoes and more would all go into the pan and the gorgeous smell would create much anticipation for what was to come.

Mum found a pile of old letters that I wrote to Gran and Gramps when I was a child.  Amongst them is a drawing (see photo below) of all the elements I've mentioned - the old tree, the Variant, the orange tent, my small tent and the camp table.  This drawing is now a treasured possession.  I feel so thankful to Gran and Gramps for keeping it.

I have two particularly vivid memories from our camping trips.  The first was when a large black snake slithered across the grass close to the tents.  I was absolutely terrified and gramps, in a protective instinct, gave it a mighty wack on the head with a large stick.  It turned out in the end that it was a non poisonous mole snake.  When it was dead, I was able to hold it and I was absolutely fascinated by the way its scaly skin felt.

The second was my first ever fishing experience.  Dad patiently showed me how to create fishing knots and tie on hooks and sinkers.  Then he taught me how to cast and I practised over and over again on a long section of grass by the tents.  Finally it was time to try the real thing.  I was so excited.  We pumped prawns on a large mudflat close to the camp site - dad always maintained that live prawns made the best bait.  Then we went down to the lagoon mouth and dad taught me the grissly knack of threading the hook through the wriggling prawn.  I cast in and as if ordained, caught a feisty steenbras within 10 minutes!!  Talk about beginner's luck.  Excitement doesn't adequately describe how I felt.

Unfortunately it's been downhill since then.  I'm been fishing many times since then but I'm usually the last to catch a fish or the fish I do catch are laughingly tiny.  But nothing can take away the thrill of catching that first fish.