A Cape Bird Club Outing to False Bay Ecology Park

2016-02-10 | puppy1952

Although I arrange the outings programme for The Cape Bird Club, living in Struisbaai prevents me from attending most of them. Circumstances brought me to Cape Town for a few days which became extended for another week so I was delighted to be able to attend February’s weekday outing led by my friend, Heather.

How lovely that the sun was shining and the wind not blowing too strongly. We had a group of about 12 – four in each car.

A Perfect Day for Birding

False Bay Ecology Park consists of a number of ponds which boast a variety of birdlife and at this time of the year it is good for waders. These birds are difficult to identify specially when they’re far away and there is no telescope available. However, our leader was amazing and with lots of discussion with other good birders and referring to the field guide we managed to agree on what they were. We were delighted to find greenshank, curlew, ruff, little stint, three banded plover and Kitlitz plover. Here are two of them.

Common Greenshank behind, Ruff in front.

These little stints were taken by me on another occasion

Swallows are often found near water, as are brown throated martins. We found Barn Swallows and Martins but the white-throated and striped swallows were conspicuous by their absence.

Barn Swallows

Every pond was great to see and we spent three happy hours exploring and admiring the birdlife. We got a list of 57 species and hereunder are photos of just a few.

Moorhen

Black-winged Stilt

The African Jacana shouldn’t be here but he hasn’t read the field guide.

Shelducks are infrequent visitors to FBEP – Heather’s way of remembering which one is the female? The female wears white face powder.

The graceful pelican

A zitting cisticola

FBEP is famous for its greater flamingos (in front) so but today some Lesser Flamingos (behind) joined them

Lesser flamingos have maroon bills with a black tip – juveniles have a dark bill with black tip

A flamboyance of Lesser Flamingos

Spur-winged Geese

Black-shouldered Kite

This Kittlitz Plover tried to attract us away from its chick.

The chick sat dead still and was beautifully camouflaged – we had a peep then left them in peace.

One can also find bokkies in the park – this is a grysbok

It was great meeting new people and catching up with members I know. We all had a jolly good time.

Our leader on the left

Retiring Adventurously – Downtimes and Uptimes

2015-02-16 | puppy1952

I don’t do sick and I don’t do old. Give me a crying baby or a mischievous child or even a whole crowd of them and I will cope with the greatest of ease. I say I don’t do the former but that’s not quite true – of course I will deal with whatever I have to at any particular moment – but it’s way out of my comfort zone. So when the beloved awoke with a shivering fever and a rebellious tummy on Monday morning I was not well pleased. There was no escaping to the classroom with the words take yourself off to the doctor and drink plenty of fluids. Just as well because there was no way he was going to cope with this one on his own. I was all dressed and ready for gym but had to abandon that plan and drive the invalid shaking almost to convulsions to the doctors – why don’t they do house calls anymore? He was hurriedly ushered into a treatment room where he lay in his gown wrapped in a blue blanket which he insisted I tuck firmly under his freezing feet. It was a hot day but he was shivering as if he were at the South Pole. I feel so helpless in these situations. My ministrations limited as they are seem not to help and all I can do is just stand there and wait for the worst. The young doctor – they get younger as I get older- I’m sure this one was still in his teens – came in after what seemed hours but was only 10 minutes. After asking all the right questions and pressing in all the right places he put Earl on a drip and instructed him to lie there for the next hour. It was 9 o’clock. “I’ll just make it to gym then,” I said “I’ll pick you up when I’m done?” “Don’t leave me,” he wailed. So that put paid to that escape plan.
Much to my relief the drip worked and the shivering stopped and my ailing man fell asleep. I sat ‘monitoring’ him while checking Facebook and emails on my iPhone. I’m a woman I can multitask!
The hour dragged by and then he was released with a script for a pharmacy of drugs. I made sure he was comfortable, showered and changed – I had to get out of my gym clothes – then headed to the mall to get the script filled out. Then back to the invalid, dosed him with 4 different drugs, made sure he was comfortable and asleep then escaped to have tea with Carol. He was much better on my return but still slept most of the day and all that night. On Tuesday he got up for part of the day, did some things that needed doing then collapsed into bed exhausted and wondered why! I am pleased to report that by Wednesday all was back to normal!

On Tuesday I was up before the crack of dawn and out of the house before 6:00 am. My destination? – Home Affairs. I was determined to be in the front of the queue as I had to get a new I.D. Document – the old one went Awol somewhere between the Vodocom Shop at our local mall and The Kruger National Park in June last year. My passport although valid gives problems at border posts by refusing to scan. It happened in Australia and then again in Namibia so I thought it best if I was to be crossing African borders to get a new one in order to avoid delays and an excuse to arrest me! Home Affairs is notorious for its long queues and it is not uncommon to spent an entire day waiting to be processed. Their offices open at 7:30 am and I arrived at Maynard Mall parking at 6:20 am delighted that I would be very near the front. But oh no – the parking was closed – and I was fourth in that queue. There was much hooting and tooting until somebody came to explain that the rules had changed. The parking garage and the mall would only be opened at 7. There was nothing to be done so I switched up the radio and sat an waited knowing that there would also be a queue on the pavement and at the other parking garage over the road! By the time I had parked and raced for the escalator I was number 61 in queue to get into the offices! Admittedly the queue did move quite quickly and it was 8:30 when I finally made it in. Then there another number issued, a wait in the pay desk queue – R400 for the passport – ID – Free for over 60s! From there to the photobooth and a grumpy photographer barking unfriendly commands – take off your glasses – don’t smile! From there you had to wait for your number to be called. I found it all quite amusing. The queue consisted of rows of chairs and you had to move up every minute or so as you came closer to your turn. It was like being on a conveyer belt. I didn’t dare take photographs in case I was expelled! Finally, I reached the front row and then my number was called. This time a friendly and efficient assistant. My fingerprints were taken digitally and I had to sign on a digital device too. It was all done and dusted by quarter to ten – only three and a half hours. The good news is that on Friday afternoon I received an SMS to say my ID is ready for collection! Wow! But I shall wait for the Passport to be ready and collect them together. The estimated time is between 2 and 6 weeks. Maybe I will be lucky!

On the bright side, Earl recovered quickly and on Wednesday dropped the Fortuner off at Gus’s house and he and Andrew went to Stellenbosch to fetch the Land Rover Discovery 4! Earl is very pleased with the new vehicle. Before he drove it away, Martin spent two hours teaching him all the amazing features of the car. What wonderful service. Such a difference to the experience we had with the Volkswagen Caravelle. Fifteen years ago there were very few of them in the country. We researched it thoroughly and decided that it was the car we wanted and went off to a showroom in town to have a look. Nobody appeared to help us. I clapped my hands and yelled – Please come and sell me this car! A bored young man appeared and when I asked him to show me all the features he shrugged his shoulders and made a half-hearted effort at showing me a few things. He had no idea how to move the seats and was clearly ignorant of anything about the vehicle. If I hadn’t wanted it so badly I would not have bought it. We walked out and went to another dealership and asked them to contact that one to get the car for us. For all these fifteen years we have never been completely satisfied with Volkswagen’s service. Hopefully we will continue to have a better experience with Land Rover!

The Caravan ready for action

The new vehicle

From behind

Test Drive

My turn to drive

On Friday Earl heard that the yellow-fin tuna were in the bay and biting so he rushed to finish some stuff he was doing on the caravan and he and Yassin dashed off to see what they could catch! They were well pleased with the results and returned just in time for Earl and me to meet our friends for a dinner date at Brasserie in Tokai! We had a stunning evening.

Yassin with one of the yellow-fin tuna

Celebrating Heather’s birthday

Saturday was Valentine’s Day but because we’d been out the evening before we decided to not to go out on a romantic date. In any case we had lovely fresh fish for sashimi. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry as did ours when we were informed after waking from an afternoon nap that the teens were having a Valentine’s Braai that evening. We decided therefore to go off for a sunset picnic with our fish and salad but this plan too was thwarted when I discovered that the 6 teens were alone, had no braai wood and nobody had brought meat! No – I could not leave them alone with their chips and Coke – so we found ourselves entertaining 5 boys and a girl with an impromptu sashimi evening. Now some of those kids are used to our strange tastes and love to eat our weird food. But the girl and one lad looked horrified at the fare before them. “Don’t panic,” I said. ‘Just have one taste and if you really don’t like it, Grandpa will give sear some tuna for you”. The young lady agreed that it did not taste bad at all but she really would prefer it cooked. The lad had tried in our home previously and just said – cooked for me please! The rest of them tucked in and cleaned the platters.

Jay the handsome host

Tucking in

Seared to perfection

A relief not to have to eat raw fish!

Earl worked on the caravan on Sunday and I went off to a bird club outing with my friend Priscilla. We thought we had plenty of time to get to Stellenbosch but found that we could not get to Baden Powell Drive because of a marathon of some sort blocking the route. So we had to detour over the freeway and onto the N2 which made us a few minutes late. The rest of the group were nowhere in sight but a quick phone got Simon returning to find us and soon we were enjoying th walk along with the other. The birding wasn’t great but the walk in Assegaibos is wonderful.

Simon rescued us

The group looking at something in the trees

The majestic mountains

A beautiful setting

Our leader and his wife relaxing at the picnic site Thanks for leading on your birthday, John!

We ended the week with a braai at Heather and Peter’s and forgot all about the early disasters of the week!

Our hostess with host in the background

The Cape Bird Club Beginners’ Course Outing to False Bay Ecology Park

2013-09-01 | puppy1952

A Birding Paradise

There’s a place that was once a sewage farm,

But now the ponds are settled and calm,

And filled with wild and wonderful birds;

A perfect place for Avian Nerds

As you travel along the many dirt roads,

Look out for crabs and occasional toads.

Perhaps you’ll find a mongoose or buck

There will certainly be a yellow-billed duck.

The pelicans swim the swallows they fly

And maybe you’ll hear the fish eagle cry.

There are stilts and avocets, teal and coots.

A purple swamp-hen chews on roots.

And as well as all these waterfowl

You may even spot the eagle-owl.

The long claw with its orange throat

Sings out with a meowing note.

In rain, in shine, no matter what

You’re bound to see a helovalot.

Come join us at the Ecology Park

We’ll show you more than just a lark.

Today members of The Cape Bird Club took the delegates from Heather’s Beginners’Course on an outing to The False Bay Ecology Park where they put their newly acquired birding skills to the test. The rain had stopped and the skies were clear – we saw a beautiful rainbow – but the roads were somewhat muddy. Nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of the beginners though and the ‘guides’ were just too thrilled to show off this amazing place. We loaded the cars with each one having a window seat and each car set off to separately find the 27 target birds plus anything else that might show up. When we stopped to compare notes the vibe of excitement was tangible as the beginners shared what they had seen. Personally I never get tired of seeing the flamingos doing their amazing ballet in the shallows or impersonating ducks in deeper water. It was hugely rewarding to share my passion with others.