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Rainy Weather

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When May arrived nobody would have thought that we would be having such heavy rains. In three days last week, I measured more rain than we had in the first three months of 2022 on three separate occasions! Our total for the month was 171mm, the second highest for May in the 24 years that I have been measuring rainfall in Hermanus.

It was enough to open the Bot River lagoon, making for a pretty spectacular sight!

The Bot river flowing into the sea

We went for a drive to see the effects of the storm and were amazed at the waterfalls everywhere. The Mossel River was flowing strongly, and it was amazing to see how the Bot River has subsided and the way in which the course of the stream has opened up.

A Visit To Hilton

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The Hermanus BIrd Club’s outing to Hilton Farmhouse, situated between Still Bay and the mouth of the Gouritz river, took place from 11 to 14 October.  There were thirteen participants and we all heaved a sigh of relief on arrival at the seaside venue, having traversed the bad dirt roads and found our way without getting lost!

The house was spotless and everybody was gobsmacked by the sheer size of the place!  Getting people to leave to go birding was also quite a problem as most seemed quite content to sit and watch the sea and the many whales that were permanently in evidence.

Unfortunately, the weather did not turn out too well with overcast and drizzly conditions, so that birding was not easy.  We also had to traverse more bad roads wherever we went, however, there were large sections of truly magnificent fynbos and remnants of old, mature forest, where we searched for Flycatchers and other forest birds, but without much success.  Since the area was new to all of us, we did enjoy the outings and there was considerable approval of the venue and the area.

A visit to Voelvlei, last seen when occupied by thousands of waders, was disappointing as there was no water and virtually no birds.  The area around did, however yield a couple of Fish Eagles, a Booted Eagle and a pair of Black Harriers.  All in all, we identified 107 species on the outing, so were quite well pleased.

Our list comprised; Bar-throated Apalis; Cape Batis; Southern Red Bishop; Yellow Bishop; Bokmakerie; Southern Boubou; Cape Bulbul; Denham’s Bustard; Common Buzzard; Jackal Buzzard; Brimstone Canary; Cape Canary; White-throated Canary; Familiar Chat; Levaillant’s Cisticola; Grey-backed Cisticola; Red-knobbed Coot; Cape Cormorant; Reed Cormorant; White-breasted Cormorant; Black Crake; Blue Crane; Cape Crow; Pied Crow; Laughing Dove; Namaqua Dove; Red-eyed Dove; Ring-necked Dove; Fork-tailed Drongo; Yellow-billed Duck; African Fish Eagle; Booted Eagle; Little Egret; Common Fiscal; Fiscal Flycatcher; Egyptian Goose; Spur-winged Goose; Little Grebe; Sombre Greenbul; Common Greenshank; Helmeted Guineafowl; Kelp Gull; Black Harrier; Black-crowned Night Heron; Black-headed Heron; Grey Heron; Purple Heron; African Hoopoe; African Sacred Ibis; Hadeda Ibis; Rock Kestrel; Brown-hooded Kingfisher; Giant Kingfisher; Pied Kingfisher; Black-winged Kite; Yellow-billed Kite; Blacksmith Lapwing; Crowned Lapwing; Agulhas Long-billed Lark; Large-billed Lark; Red-capped Lark; Brown-throated Martin; Common Moorhen; Speckled Mousebird; African Black Oystercatcher; Speckled Pigeon; African Pipit; Kittlitz’s Plover; Three-banded Plover; Karoo Prinia; White-necked Raven; Cape Robin-Chat; Secretarybird; Cape Shoveler; Cape Sparrow; House Sparrow; African Spoonbill; Cape Spurfowl; Common Starling; Pied Starling; Red-winged Starling; Little Stint; Cape Sugarbird; Greater Double-collared Sunbird; Malachite Sunbird; Southern Double-collared Sunbird; Barn Swallow; Greater Striped Swallow; White-throated Swallow; Common Swift; White-rumped Swift; Cape Teal; Caspian Tern; Swift Tern; Olive Thrush; Cape Wagtail; Knysna Warbler; Lesser Swamp Warbler; Little Rush Warbler; Common Waxbill; Cape Weaver; Southern Masked Weaver; Whimbrel; Cape Whit-eye

Catering at the farmhouse went off with a bang, with Graham providing fires for the braais on two nights and everyone mucking in for the pizza evening on the last night.  None of us had previously operated a full-on pizza oven, but we seemed to get it right and the results spoke for themselves.  I think there may well be a demand for another visit to this unusual place.

Velddrif Birding

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We left Kagga Kama on Monday morning and headed to Velddrif, at the mouth of the Berg River. Our journey took us north via the spectacular Middelberg Pass to Citrusdal, then across the Swartland via Piketberg to Velddrif, where we stayed in a beautiful cottage at the very well-appointed Quagga Lodge, on the banks of the river and about four kilometres upstream from the town. It was a perfect birding destination, with a kilometre of river frontage along which to amble and enjoy the plentiful water birds.

Sadly, our planned visit to the salt works on the river could not be realised, as new owners have prohibited all birding, thereby frustrating a huge cohort of SA and foreign birders, who used regularly to visit this important site where numerous waders, many quite rare, could previously be observed. We did, however, find the Poetic License gin distillery, and we did manage to raise our trip list bird count to around 95 birds (without the help of any gin!). This included African Marsh Harrier, Purple Swamphen, Little Bittern, White-backed Pelican, Purple Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron and many others, that we could see from the river bank in front of our chalet. The Hermanus Bird Club will be visiting the area for three nights in August, and this was a fine foretaste of what can be expected.