FRIDAY
As most of our adventures do, we started out of Durbanville, driving past new shopping developments which are being built for the planned urban sprawl yet to be erected. We eventually approached the rolling yellow fields dotted with combine harvesters which had worked the fields, leaving bound hay bales in their wake. The yellow-billed kites were out in numbers, hovering over the shorn fields - in quick succession we spotted five of them. Fields continued up to and beyond Malmesbury carrying on to Morreesburg with the occasional vineyard sprinkled in between. The smell of tar accompanied us on the R366 where roadworks were in place, the presence of the road work vehicles and all the harvesting vehicles just brought back how much human endeavour was about us and indicative of "progress" - this was to became a theme again when we approached all of the developments along the West Coast.
We were headed to Elands Bay where the Verlorenvlei outside the town was thickly spread with chincherinchee pricking their floral heads above the vlei. After some inspection we decided against the Elands Bay municipal caravan park which must have seen better days and was for the more adventurous at heart than ourselves. We decided to turn ourselves to my favourite spot on the West Coast, the Midwest caravan park in St Helene Bay. The white-washed beach house developments started at Dwarskersbos and continued into Velddrif. On the Dwarskersbos Road we passed the Rocherpan Nature Reserve run by CapeNature which we returned to on the second day of our short adventure. Finally in St Helena Bay we found more roadworks which was again indicative of the progress and popularity of the the little town and the planning for its future.
Of course St Helena Bay also has the ubiquitous white developments but the caravan park is our way of camping right on the beach listening to the rolling waves, bird calls and the shouted conversation of fisherman in their little boat rushing in failing light towards safe harbour.
Spotted on day one were a mongoose, tortoise, puff adder, and two black-shouldered kites.
SATURDAY
The start of our second day saw early morning mists clear to blue skies, but being the Western Cape the mists returned again bringing with it a cool breeze. Always someone to spot birds in camps we found turtle doves, common starlings, masked weavers and starlings.
Mists accompanied us to Rocherpan, and there was still colour in the fields to make me hope to see flowers in the nature reserve even though the spring has long left us and we are headed to a very warm summer.
Rocherpan has three bird hides and a combination of land, vlei and sea which provides a variety of breeding and feeding for the 183 species of birds that frequent it. The presence of water in the vlei is a determining feature of how many bird species will be around though. At reception we received both a map and a bird list to help us and we duly set off on the short 1.2km walk to the first bird hide. The day was a sunny one but the mists appeared near the ocean and came inland towards the vlei too. The cool breeze continued and made the sunny walk bearable to the hide which was over loose beach sand. We spotted pied avocet, Egyptian geese, coots and flamingoes, less welcome was a tick spotted on my trousers. While sitting in the hide I heard the scratching of bird nails on the corrugated metal roof, the honking of the flamingoes, the low howl of the wind, the nearby reeds rubbing against each other in the breeze and the calls of the smaller wading birds.
We encountered birders in the second bird hide that did not greet and while sitting in silence watching the few birds the vlei had to offer I pondered the best etiquette when birding - to greet non-verbally or politely be quiet and ignore the humans to focus on the birds? Of course then I had to wonder if human-spotters are a thing, someone who watches those who watch and makes observations of the groupings humans form part of or split from?
While walking in the veld in Rocherpan there were grasshoppers galore escaping before me as I made my way through the shrubbery, this made me think of an observation that my mother had made - that when she grew up and you walked across a field your feet would disturb hundreds of grasshoppers and now you hardly see grasshoppers in the parks around Durbanville.
The nature reserve has a picnic spot with braai facilities but do remember to check with the reserve for availability of wood before you arrive as you must not bring wood into the reserve. Besides the 1.2km walk we did there is also a 7km hike around the whole reserve. At the main camp there are self-catering eco cabins, a pool, a putt putt course, and a 4x4 route to the beach.
Spotted on day two were a European bee-eater, yellow-billed kite, mole snake, African oystercatcher, two tortoises, a family of Cape teal and a few examples of the "fat mouse" (Steatomys pratensis) which has a long fat body and a short tail.
SUNDAY
On our last day we woke to a misty morning with boisterous waves to welcome the day, the previous morning there had been tame little waves and this lead to an early morning conversation about onshore and onshore winds.
In summary, offshore winds are winds blowing from land to water and onshore winds are winds blowing from water to land.
As a result of the onshore wind was the presence of Kelp Gulls who had been not been in attendance the previous days. They were foraging on the shoreline - in the seaweed and shallow waters. We also spotted Ruddy Turnstones for the first time in the shallows with the gulls - they are a "small, stocky shorebird with bright rusty upperparts and and bold black-and-white pattern on head and neck" according to eBird.
MYSTERY BIRD
While in St Helena Bay I spotted a pink-headed Kelp Gull, I posted it to the Birdlife SA FaceBook page and received a number of suggestions of where the pink plumage might have originated - that the bird had eaten a seal, that the iron ore works in Saldanha had left its mark on the bird or that its diet like that of the flamingo had affected its plumage. Do you have an suggestions?
Heading home we decided to enter the West Coast National Park from the Langebaan entrance where we spotted five Angulate tortoises before getting to the entry gate. We stopped at the Seeberg Hide first where we came across some members of the Cape Bird Club who had had a bird spotting weekend in Velddrif. Notably they had a very young birder with them who was learning the ropes and quite verbally excited and put off some of the older, staid birders. Personally I enjoyed someone visibly excited about birding rather than the very dowd behaviour in hides. (I am certain I am in a minority.) It was lovely listening to the patient older woman teaching him to look at the parts of the bird and to think about what he is seeing to assist identification, it seems that the Cape Bird Club has quite a programme for youth and birding. While comparing notes with the patient birder she reported to have seen a gull whose whole body was pink while in the reserve - curiouser and curiouser.
At the Geelbeck Hide were tiny crabs in the grey mud and the tide was too high for waders to explore, so we left there only spotting a few flamingo and two pied avocets in the shallows on the approach to the hide.
Spotted on day three was a double-coloured sunbird, one dead tortoise in the field (not on the road), four dead snakes on the road, 11 tortoises in and around the reserve, three mongoose, four "koringkriek", nine koppie foam grasshoppers and one ladybird.
GLOSSARY
Strandveld - Strandveld vegetation is a type of Fynbos vegetation that's found in the coastal regions of the Western Cape, South Africa. It's a thick, leafy belt of vegetation that grows between the ocean and sandstone cliffs. The word "Strandveld" is Dutch for "Coastal Bush".
Velddrif - "veld" is open, uncultivated country or grassland and "drif" is ford in English, a flat area of a river or stream which can be crossed by walking
Verlorenvlei - Lost "vlei"
Vlei - a shallow minor lake, mostly of a seasonal or intermittent nature
Yellow rolling fields Heading out to the West Coast Seaside mists bring joy
Do you have a go-to place that gives you joy?
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