Cape Town

Boulder’s Beach & Strandfontein

Later on Thursday evening Cindy Stone arrived.  Kim went to pick her up and I stayed at our residence working on the blog and some pictures.  First thing Friday morning we headed out birding, first driving along the coastal highway and visiting Boulder’s Beach.  We observed several species near the ocean—Rock Kestrel, Cape (Kelp) and Heartlaub’s Gulls, Karoo Prinia, Karoo Scrub Robin and both Yellow and Brimstone Canaries before we headed to Strandfontein.  Strandfontein is a combination of local park with picnic facilities and further down the road is a sewer treatment facility with many ponds.  And you know how birders love sewer treatment plants.  We ended up spending the remainder of our day there with a brief respite at KFC for a quick lunch.  The area was extremely prolific in bird species.  Waterfowl were everywhere—duck, our first Greater Flamingo --and there were so many of the beautiful, graceful bird that we actually tired of seeing them before the day was over.  Ducks included—Cape, Red-billed, Yellow-billed, Cape Shovelers, Southern Pochard, and grebes include Little Grebe (Dabchick) and Great Crested Grebe.  We also had Cape Francolin (spurfowl) a large chicken like bird, several species of cormorant, Little Egret, and Glossy Ibis and Blacksmith Plover –there name is derived from their call which sounds like striking an anvil) and a very pretty white and black bird-- Sacred Ibis.   I could go on boring some of you with the various species we encountered but I will not.  When I get some decent internet service I will post many pictures for you to enjoy.  All in all, we had a very successful day.