West Coast National Park

On Sunday morning Cindy, Kim, Mike and I headed northwest of Cape Town toward the dryer coastal fynbos (small bushes characterize this habitat).  We stopped along a dirt road first where we found several birds such as Speckled Mousebird, Karoo Scrub Robin and Karoo Prinia (see pictures which I recently posted on Facebook).  The area is basically beach sand with interspersed scrub brush and dry.  We then proceeded to the National Park where we found Eland (largest of the antelope group) at tortoise and ostrich in addition to many interesting birds.  This is a very large park where we will return too when the final members of our tour get here next week.  As you can see from my picture post we added several new species to our list—Cape Weaver, White-browed Plover, Lesser Flamingo, and were treated to a beautiful spring floral display.  Yes, it is spring here.  We had a very nice lunch at what is now a restaurant, but was one of the original settled location by Europeans.  The building was built in 1744 as I remember.  The food was outstanding (see picture in earlier post).  Mike found a Southern Cape Penduline-Tit nest with nesting activity apparent with the two birds sitting beside the nest.  We also had a very aggressive Southern Double-Collared Sunbird that wanted to pose for pictures.  This particular male had very prominent yellow markings on his carpel wing area, a sign of breeding plumage.  The weather was beautiful in the mid too upper 70s, clear and no or little wind.  A very good day.