An amble in the Harold Porter Botanical Gardens

On our drive back from the garden route, Chrisèl and I stopped off at the Harold Porter Botanical Gardens.

This garden is full of happy memories for me. It is where I came after my Matric exam results came out and I wanted to reflect on where I was going in life (after a walk to the top of the beautiful Luiperd's Kloof.)  It's also where I came bird watching shortly after I took it up as a hobby (and was rewarded with sightings of ground woodpeckers which excited me greatly.) It's also where I spent time with Ally and friends on the Kleinmond Camping Weekend when we met for the first time.  

So it was lovely to revisit it again and admire many of the beautiful flowers in bloom.

The tea house.

Proteas is full bloom.

My favourite photo of the day.

After a relaxing amble in the gardens, we drove on to Gordon's Bay via the gorgeous coastal road.  Surely this must be one of the most scenic drives in the whole world.  Its views were sublime as always.  Of course, we stopped off to take lots of snaps. And to celebrate another leap.

Meeting Ally

We met in the little camp site in Kleinmond, about an hour and a half out of Cape Town. I went camping with Julian and Ivor and met Ally for the first time accross an old rusty fence. We chatted a bit, then hit it off on new year's eve, thanks to a sea gull that left us a feather on the beach.

Click here for details of our first meeting and our early relationship.

My first two years birding in the Cape Provence (South Africa)

During my last couple of years at school, I developed a really strong passion for bird watching.  This was first ignited by Tony Verboom, a very close school friend of mine, who took me off on one of his birding trips. We spent the morning in a local swamp, crawling on our bellies, getting knee deep in mud and thoroughly filthy in our pursuit of lesser spotted thing-a-me-bobs.  And I absolutely loved every minute of it, especially when a beautiful osprey flew over our heads.  From then, I lived and dreamed birds and cycled to the local birding spots every weekend in pursuit of new species (or ticks as we call them) in order to increase my  life list.  I also joined the Cape Town bird club and went on some great hikes with them.

Here are some of the new birds I saw in my first couple of years in the Cape and surrounds.

Rondevlei

• Avocet
• Little Bittern
• Redknobbed Coot
• Reed Cormorant
• Burchell's Coucal
• Black Crake
• Cape Shoveller
• Cape Teal
• Redbilled Teal
• Yellowbilled Duck
• Little Egret
• Yellowbilled egret
• Purple Gallinule
• Egyptian Goose
• Spurwinged Goose
• Dabchick 
• Great Crested Grebe
• African Marsh Harrier
• Blackcrowned Night Heron
• Blackheaded heron
• Grey Heron
• Purple Heron
• Sacred Ibis
• Malachite Kingfisher
• Pied Kingfisher
• Moorhen
• Eastern White Pelican
• Blacksmith Plover
• Kittlitz's Plover
• Ringed Plover
• Curlew Sandpiper
• African Spoonbill
• Blackwinged Stilt
• Cape reed warbler
• Cape weaver
• European sedge warbler

Uilenskraal

• Bartailed Godwit
• Kelp Gull
• Giant Kingfisher
• Knot
• Grey Plover
• Whitefronted plover
• Ruff
• Sanderling
• Little Stint
• Caspian Tern
• Sandwich Tern
• Whimbrel

Devil's Peak

• Black Eagle

Kirstenbosch

• Cape batis
• Sombre bulbul
• Cape canary
• Paradise flycatcher
• Rameron Pigeon
• Spotted prinia
• Cape sugarbird
• Lesser doublecollared sunbird
• Malachite sunbird
• Orangebreasted sunbird
• Alpine Swift

Rietvlei

• Osprey

Betties Bay

• Levaillant's cisticola
• Neddicky
• Cape rock thrush
• Ground woodpecker

Cape

• Cape gannet
• Cape Bulbul
• Cape bunting
• Jackal Buzzard
• Steppe Buzzard
• Cape Cormorant
• black crow
• Pied crow
• Water Dikkop
• Cape Turtle Dove
• Laughing Dove
• Redeyed Dove
• Cattle Egret
• Greater Flamingo
• Cape Francolin
• Greenshank
• Helmetted Guineafowl
• Hartlaub's Gull
• Hoopoe
• Rock kestrel
• Blackshouldered kite
• Orangebreasted longclaw
• rock martin
• sand martin
• Speckled Mousebird
• Spotted Eagle Owl
• Feral Pigeon
• Rock Pigeon
• Chestnutbanded Plover
• Crowned Plover
• Whitenecked raven
• Cape robin
• Bokmakierie
• Southern boubou
• Fiscal shrike
• House sparrow
• Cape sparrow
• European starling
• Redwinged starling
• Little Swift
• Swift Tern
• Cape wagtail
• Cape whiteeye
• Diederich Cuckoo

Karoo

• Pririt batis
• Mountain chat
• White stork
• Whitefaced Duck
• Whitethroated canary
• Karoo chat
• Greybacked cisticola
• Fairy flycather
• Greater Kestrel
• Redcapped lark
• Palewinged starling
• Cinnamonbreasted warbler
• Rufouseared warbler