Larry Sweetland
Formerly 'Larry Wheatland'
De Hoop, Swellendam, Bontebok + a VERY nice surprise
Our next stop was De Hoop. Jacana spent a fair bit of time here, and this site is covered well in his trip report on BF. Entry is free with a wildcard, but camping is expensive at more than 25 quid a pitch per night, though the kitchen has a cooker and freezer (no fridge). The tent next door was trashed by a known troublesome baboon during our stay, but luckily he left ours alone and just went through our bin. The only 'bother' we had was from a particularly feisty Cape Francolin with her trainee brood of 'hottentot buttonquails' in tow. She waltzed right up to us when we were sitting in the mouth of our tent eating breakfast, jumped onto my knee, and pecked a great big bite out of my hand-held mouth-bound butty.
I discovered while checking in, that all you need to do to see Southern Tchagra here is go back to your car to get your forgotten passport, leaving bins at reception, walk back through the gap in the compound wall, and a Southern Tchagra will fly directly at you, swerving round your belly, and land in the first little bush on the right next to the wall. It will then stay there while you walk right up to the bush and peer in at it. No tape, no patience, and no bins needed. Easy, presumably every time. I had two more encounters with the species, including 2 together, out in the low fynbos (Which surprised me) along the track that leads out towards the sea, well before the Die Mond/Koppe Alleen fork.
On the first evening, a highlight came a few hundred metres in the Die Mond direction past the fork mentioned above. Jacana kindly posted details of his Brimstone Canary sighting at De Hoop, and I nearly wrote jokingly in an earlier post 'thanks Jacana, I'll go and check if it's still there'. This is where we finally saw a lone Brimstone Canary, and I'm guessing it's not too far from Jacana's spot? So Jacana, it's still there! It was great to finally see one, and a relief that it was pretty distinctive, though definitely confusable with a certain plumage type of Yellow Canary (described earlier) if the latter is not seen very well. We went on to see 2 Denham's Bustards on our way back to the 'village'
One drawback of how De Hoop is set up, is that the area I most wanted to bird the next morning was outside the exit gate, which is closed until 7am. I spent the earlier part of the day birding the low fynbos on the track to the fork, hoping for larks, but had no luck. I spent a fair bit of time over the next couple of days unsuccessfully looking for Cape Clapper Lark in this area. The area did produce a covey of 15 Grey-winged Francolins, 3 Namaqua Sandgrouse, Jackal Buzzard, and Cape Grassbird. The track out to Koppe Alleen produced a Black Harrier.
Once out of the gate on day 2, we headed towards the Portberg section of the park, but turned left towards Malgas at the fork. We were on a mission to look for larks. 2km past the junction and we were hearing Agulhas Long-billed Larks, which proved to be pretty common by voice in the area. It wasn't long before great views were had of this striking species. Plenty of Red-capped and Large-billed Larks around too, but no sign of any clappers. We returned to the junction and found the long-bills to be in evidence here too, as we headed towards the Portberg parking area.
The parking spot by the buildings at the base of the Portberg has scrub, eucalypt plantation, and a dry stream bed next to it. This site can produce Knysna Woodpecker, Greater and Brown-backed Honeyguides and Black Sparrowhawk, The rest of the morning was spent concentrating on looking unsuccessfully for these. The best value was provided by following up tapping noises that led to a Cardinal Woodpecker (much darker and more densely marked than the ones we'd been seeing further north), and a pair of Olive Woodpeckers. Additional value was provided by 2 Lesser Honeyguides. The whole area was swarming with busy Cape Sugarbirds and sunbirds, including both spp of double-collared.
As the day heated up, 17 Cape Griffons hit the air, shortly followed by a Martial Eagle. The griffons have a colony on the Portberg, and a trail runs up the southern slope of that mountain. Striped Flufftail occurs there, but I realised that it would be pointless for a numpty like me to go looking for it. Any half-decent birder though, would presumably find them an absolute doddle without a tape, with a little patience, but maybe ought to make sure they have enough provisions, and permission to remain in the country for long enough, just to be on the safe side.
Back at the vlei area of De Hoop there were lots of birds. Big numbers of waterbirds, especially Crested Coots and an impressive density of Great Crested Grebes on egg-filled nests. Others included Cape Shoveler and Southern Pochard, along with Great White Pelican and various herons and waders including 3 Water Dikkop. The campsite itself can produce Knysna Woodpecker, though not for us.
Other birds seen at De Hoop included Pearl-breasted Swallow, Red-faced and Speckled Mousebirds, Cape Weaver, Cape Bunting, Bar-throated Apalis, African Pipit, and Horus and White-rumped Swifts. There were particularly big numbers of Capped Wheatear, Bokmakierie, Fiscal Shrike and Fiscal Flycatcher.
Thanks to Chowchilla's helpfulful contribution here, we decided to visit Swellendam. We liked the look of the backpackers, and ended up staying for 2 nights there, hoping mostly to see Chowie's Black Sparrowhawk. The town has plenty of plantation around it, and the backpacker's is at the edge of town, a short walk from some remnant indigenous forest with trails to a waterfall etc. About a year ago a big fire destroyed lots of the plantation, but it still looked good raptor country.
The sound of a Tambourine Dove late in the dawn chorus got me out of the tent pretty sharpish. I had no luck spotting this bird during our stay, which was often calling from the plantation over the stream at the bottom of the garden, but I did jam a female flying through the garden at one point. The area was in fact great for pigeons in general, with Namaqua, Cape Turtle, Red-eyed and Laughing Doves, Olive, and Speckled Pigeons all being seen around the backpacker's. There were Brown-hooded and Malachite Kingfishers, Swee and Common Waxbills, Lesser Honeyguide, Greater Double-collared and Amethyst Sunbirds, Neddicky, copious Black Saw-wings, and even a Cape Siskin, all in or within 1km the garden. The indigenous forest additionally produced Cape Batis and Bar-throated Apalis.
It was, however, eyes to the skies. There were plenty of Steppe Buzzards here, these and Yellow-billed Kites never being far from being in view. Great views of a Honey Buzzard fairly low over the garden was presumably the rarest find, and there was also a good match for a Forest buzzard over the indigenous patch, and a couple of Jackal Buzzards. A Rufous-chested Sparrowhawk was twice seen circling from the garden late afternoon. Looking up at the sky also produced circling White Storks and a pair of White-necked Ravens. Finally, while in the garden fairly early on the last morning, a sharp alarm note made me turn in time to catch a Black Sparrowhawk fly upstream well below the height of the canopy, clutching prey. Cheers Tony :t:.
On the 20th we moved just down the road to Bontebok NP. The main draw for me here was Cape Clapper Lark, and pretty much the whole park looks like heaven for it I should imagine. There are huge flat expanses of low fynbos mixed with grass, and the same habitat on slopes and slightly higher plateaux too. Looking for this bird is starting to remind me of looking for the evil Ground Parrot, but I'm having even more trouble with this annoying little skulker. In fact seeing the words 'Clapper Lark' and 'common' in the same sentence over and over in The Book is becoming less than funny.
Passing through the entrance gate involves driving under telegraph wires which extend into the distance. There were medium sized birds on the wires, lots of them, that did not compute. I wasn't really looking at them, and I think I filed them under 'pigeon', but in the end something wasn't right and I had to focus on them and look at them properly. Imagine my surprise when I had to face the fact that they were Amur Falcons. Ok, not all of them were Amur Falcons. 5 of them were Lesser Kestrels, but I did count one hundred and ninety seven Amur Falcons. According to the range map in my field guide they shouldn't be any nearer than a long way east of here, so this added to this gobsmacking surprise. (It's not THE very nice surprise though).
We stayed 2 nights at the lovely riverside camping area, giving me two dawns and plenty of extra less likely time to try and find the lark. I set to it right away, but after a couple of hours of trying to flush one out of the fynbos I was politely informed by one of the park officers that wandering about off the roads or walking trails wasn't allowed at Bontebok. Fair enough, but unfortunately I figured that this would reduce my chances of seeing the lark from very small to approaching zero. Getting up before the lark to walk the roads had it's rewards, including views of Spotted Eagle Owl and Fiery-necked Nightjar, but on returning for breakfast after my second early start, unclappered, I was ready to admit that it was time to move on. This was a shame, because a more patient individual would presumably be rewarded by the spectacle of a displaying bird, perhaps near the start of the next austral spring.
The camping area produced fabulous views of a group of 3 Brimstone Canaries, which we watched feeding low at the grassy fringes, and which Nicky photographed. Karoo Scrub-Robin, Cape Robin-Chat, Southern Masked and Cape Weavers, a very large tortoise, and little stripy mice were all ludicrously tame around the tent. At one point, while sitting cross-legged against the side of the car, I felt something pushing its way into the rear of my arm pit, and discovered that it was a mouse. A Malachite Kingfisher even landed on the barbecue. The river was great for swimming, and also had African Black Ducks and overhead African Fish-Eagles. 2 Tambourine Doves, and African Reed Warbler were seen by the riverside.
Out on the open fynbos, Cloud Cisticola was fairly common, with Grey-backed and Levaillant's also present. At least one Quail Finch was seen there a few times, but only in flight. Black Harriers were regularly quartering the landscape, African Stonechats added colour to the bush tops, and there was the occasional flushed Cape Longclaw to get the heart racing.
And now the surprise:
After that final breakfast I was hoping to go on a slow drive before it got too hot around some more low fynbos on our way out, but Nicky had other ideas, suggesting that the short walk up the Aloe Hill trail behind the riverside camping area would be a nice thing to do. 'Are you insane?' I thought. 'There's far too much vegetation up there for clapper larks. That is why we're alive isn't it? To look for larks?'
Once on the walk I started to come to terms with it all being rather pleasant, with a nice view over the river. We did the walk anti-clockwise, and I was surprised to discover that the trail came out of the tall scrub into low vegetation at the top of the little hill. I started thinking,' hmmm, larks' again, and much to my surprise, near the top of the hill, a small bird took to the air from under my feet that was certainly looking pretty good for a lark on first impression. I started to raise my bins, but even before I had the bird in them, the cogs started to creak and whirr, and there was something very wrong going on here, and the bird was clearly not a lark. In the split seconds that followed, things started to crystallize, but it wasn't until I had it in the bins that it clicked that this was a familiar sight in many ways, from other similar encounters with this bird's kind. The bird was still in the bins when the euphoria hit me like a serious phat one, as it hit home that I was looking at a Hottentot Buttonquail! The bird dropped into cover not that far away, and I turned to Nicky and said 'Do you know what that was?' She just smiled and said 'Buttonquail'. As it turned out she'd gone through the similar thought process of initially taking it for a lark too. Now, if you're reading this and about to go to this part of SA, this hill top might be well worth a bash for this bird, as if it's sticking to this hill, it's a comparatively small area in looking-for-these-things terms, and I guess it might not be alone either. Good luck.
On our way out of Bontebok yesterday we saw that the Amur Falcons had all gone, with the same lone Fiscal Shrike on the wire which could be forgiven for thinking 'did that really happen?' I'm typing this the day after the buttonquail, and still on one hell of a high, but as it turned out, there was even more jam to come before yesterday was over.
572 BRIMSTONE CANARY
573 AGULHAS LONG-BILLED LARK
574 TAMBOURINE DOVE
575 Honey Buzzard
576 BLACK SPARROWHAWK
577 HOTTENTOT BUTTONQUAIL B
B
:king:
some of Nicky's pics: 1. and 2. Brimstone Canary, 3. Yellow Canary in it's most obvious form for comparison.
Our next stop was De Hoop. Jacana spent a fair bit of time here, and this site is covered well in his trip report on BF. Entry is free with a wildcard, but camping is expensive at more than 25 quid a pitch per night, though the kitchen has a cooker and freezer (no fridge). The tent next door was trashed by a known troublesome baboon during our stay, but luckily he left ours alone and just went through our bin. The only 'bother' we had was from a particularly feisty Cape Francolin with her trainee brood of 'hottentot buttonquails' in tow. She waltzed right up to us when we were sitting in the mouth of our tent eating breakfast, jumped onto my knee, and pecked a great big bite out of my hand-held mouth-bound butty.
I discovered while checking in, that all you need to do to see Southern Tchagra here is go back to your car to get your forgotten passport, leaving bins at reception, walk back through the gap in the compound wall, and a Southern Tchagra will fly directly at you, swerving round your belly, and land in the first little bush on the right next to the wall. It will then stay there while you walk right up to the bush and peer in at it. No tape, no patience, and no bins needed. Easy, presumably every time. I had two more encounters with the species, including 2 together, out in the low fynbos (Which surprised me) along the track that leads out towards the sea, well before the Die Mond/Koppe Alleen fork.
On the first evening, a highlight came a few hundred metres in the Die Mond direction past the fork mentioned above. Jacana kindly posted details of his Brimstone Canary sighting at De Hoop, and I nearly wrote jokingly in an earlier post 'thanks Jacana, I'll go and check if it's still there'. This is where we finally saw a lone Brimstone Canary, and I'm guessing it's not too far from Jacana's spot? So Jacana, it's still there! It was great to finally see one, and a relief that it was pretty distinctive, though definitely confusable with a certain plumage type of Yellow Canary (described earlier) if the latter is not seen very well. We went on to see 2 Denham's Bustards on our way back to the 'village'
One drawback of how De Hoop is set up, is that the area I most wanted to bird the next morning was outside the exit gate, which is closed until 7am. I spent the earlier part of the day birding the low fynbos on the track to the fork, hoping for larks, but had no luck. I spent a fair bit of time over the next couple of days unsuccessfully looking for Cape Clapper Lark in this area. The area did produce a covey of 15 Grey-winged Francolins, 3 Namaqua Sandgrouse, Jackal Buzzard, and Cape Grassbird. The track out to Koppe Alleen produced a Black Harrier.
Once out of the gate on day 2, we headed towards the Portberg section of the park, but turned left towards Malgas at the fork. We were on a mission to look for larks. 2km past the junction and we were hearing Agulhas Long-billed Larks, which proved to be pretty common by voice in the area. It wasn't long before great views were had of this striking species. Plenty of Red-capped and Large-billed Larks around too, but no sign of any clappers. We returned to the junction and found the long-bills to be in evidence here too, as we headed towards the Portberg parking area.
The parking spot by the buildings at the base of the Portberg has scrub, eucalypt plantation, and a dry stream bed next to it. This site can produce Knysna Woodpecker, Greater and Brown-backed Honeyguides and Black Sparrowhawk, The rest of the morning was spent concentrating on looking unsuccessfully for these. The best value was provided by following up tapping noises that led to a Cardinal Woodpecker (much darker and more densely marked than the ones we'd been seeing further north), and a pair of Olive Woodpeckers. Additional value was provided by 2 Lesser Honeyguides. The whole area was swarming with busy Cape Sugarbirds and sunbirds, including both spp of double-collared.
As the day heated up, 17 Cape Griffons hit the air, shortly followed by a Martial Eagle. The griffons have a colony on the Portberg, and a trail runs up the southern slope of that mountain. Striped Flufftail occurs there, but I realised that it would be pointless for a numpty like me to go looking for it. Any half-decent birder though, would presumably find them an absolute doddle without a tape, with a little patience, but maybe ought to make sure they have enough provisions, and permission to remain in the country for long enough, just to be on the safe side.
Back at the vlei area of De Hoop there were lots of birds. Big numbers of waterbirds, especially Crested Coots and an impressive density of Great Crested Grebes on egg-filled nests. Others included Cape Shoveler and Southern Pochard, along with Great White Pelican and various herons and waders including 3 Water Dikkop. The campsite itself can produce Knysna Woodpecker, though not for us.
Other birds seen at De Hoop included Pearl-breasted Swallow, Red-faced and Speckled Mousebirds, Cape Weaver, Cape Bunting, Bar-throated Apalis, African Pipit, and Horus and White-rumped Swifts. There were particularly big numbers of Capped Wheatear, Bokmakierie, Fiscal Shrike and Fiscal Flycatcher.
Thanks to Chowchilla's helpfulful contribution here, we decided to visit Swellendam. We liked the look of the backpackers, and ended up staying for 2 nights there, hoping mostly to see Chowie's Black Sparrowhawk. The town has plenty of plantation around it, and the backpacker's is at the edge of town, a short walk from some remnant indigenous forest with trails to a waterfall etc. About a year ago a big fire destroyed lots of the plantation, but it still looked good raptor country.
The sound of a Tambourine Dove late in the dawn chorus got me out of the tent pretty sharpish. I had no luck spotting this bird during our stay, which was often calling from the plantation over the stream at the bottom of the garden, but I did jam a female flying through the garden at one point. The area was in fact great for pigeons in general, with Namaqua, Cape Turtle, Red-eyed and Laughing Doves, Olive, and Speckled Pigeons all being seen around the backpacker's. There were Brown-hooded and Malachite Kingfishers, Swee and Common Waxbills, Lesser Honeyguide, Greater Double-collared and Amethyst Sunbirds, Neddicky, copious Black Saw-wings, and even a Cape Siskin, all in or within 1km the garden. The indigenous forest additionally produced Cape Batis and Bar-throated Apalis.
It was, however, eyes to the skies. There were plenty of Steppe Buzzards here, these and Yellow-billed Kites never being far from being in view. Great views of a Honey Buzzard fairly low over the garden was presumably the rarest find, and there was also a good match for a Forest buzzard over the indigenous patch, and a couple of Jackal Buzzards. A Rufous-chested Sparrowhawk was twice seen circling from the garden late afternoon. Looking up at the sky also produced circling White Storks and a pair of White-necked Ravens. Finally, while in the garden fairly early on the last morning, a sharp alarm note made me turn in time to catch a Black Sparrowhawk fly upstream well below the height of the canopy, clutching prey. Cheers Tony :t:.
On the 20th we moved just down the road to Bontebok NP. The main draw for me here was Cape Clapper Lark, and pretty much the whole park looks like heaven for it I should imagine. There are huge flat expanses of low fynbos mixed with grass, and the same habitat on slopes and slightly higher plateaux too. Looking for this bird is starting to remind me of looking for the evil Ground Parrot, but I'm having even more trouble with this annoying little skulker. In fact seeing the words 'Clapper Lark' and 'common' in the same sentence over and over in The Book is becoming less than funny.
Passing through the entrance gate involves driving under telegraph wires which extend into the distance. There were medium sized birds on the wires, lots of them, that did not compute. I wasn't really looking at them, and I think I filed them under 'pigeon', but in the end something wasn't right and I had to focus on them and look at them properly. Imagine my surprise when I had to face the fact that they were Amur Falcons. Ok, not all of them were Amur Falcons. 5 of them were Lesser Kestrels, but I did count one hundred and ninety seven Amur Falcons. According to the range map in my field guide they shouldn't be any nearer than a long way east of here, so this added to this gobsmacking surprise. (It's not THE very nice surprise though).
We stayed 2 nights at the lovely riverside camping area, giving me two dawns and plenty of extra less likely time to try and find the lark. I set to it right away, but after a couple of hours of trying to flush one out of the fynbos I was politely informed by one of the park officers that wandering about off the roads or walking trails wasn't allowed at Bontebok. Fair enough, but unfortunately I figured that this would reduce my chances of seeing the lark from very small to approaching zero. Getting up before the lark to walk the roads had it's rewards, including views of Spotted Eagle Owl and Fiery-necked Nightjar, but on returning for breakfast after my second early start, unclappered, I was ready to admit that it was time to move on. This was a shame, because a more patient individual would presumably be rewarded by the spectacle of a displaying bird, perhaps near the start of the next austral spring.
The camping area produced fabulous views of a group of 3 Brimstone Canaries, which we watched feeding low at the grassy fringes, and which Nicky photographed. Karoo Scrub-Robin, Cape Robin-Chat, Southern Masked and Cape Weavers, a very large tortoise, and little stripy mice were all ludicrously tame around the tent. At one point, while sitting cross-legged against the side of the car, I felt something pushing its way into the rear of my arm pit, and discovered that it was a mouse. A Malachite Kingfisher even landed on the barbecue. The river was great for swimming, and also had African Black Ducks and overhead African Fish-Eagles. 2 Tambourine Doves, and African Reed Warbler were seen by the riverside.
Out on the open fynbos, Cloud Cisticola was fairly common, with Grey-backed and Levaillant's also present. At least one Quail Finch was seen there a few times, but only in flight. Black Harriers were regularly quartering the landscape, African Stonechats added colour to the bush tops, and there was the occasional flushed Cape Longclaw to get the heart racing.
And now the surprise:
After that final breakfast I was hoping to go on a slow drive before it got too hot around some more low fynbos on our way out, but Nicky had other ideas, suggesting that the short walk up the Aloe Hill trail behind the riverside camping area would be a nice thing to do. 'Are you insane?' I thought. 'There's far too much vegetation up there for clapper larks. That is why we're alive isn't it? To look for larks?'
Once on the walk I started to come to terms with it all being rather pleasant, with a nice view over the river. We did the walk anti-clockwise, and I was surprised to discover that the trail came out of the tall scrub into low vegetation at the top of the little hill. I started thinking,' hmmm, larks' again, and much to my surprise, near the top of the hill, a small bird took to the air from under my feet that was certainly looking pretty good for a lark on first impression. I started to raise my bins, but even before I had the bird in them, the cogs started to creak and whirr, and there was something very wrong going on here, and the bird was clearly not a lark. In the split seconds that followed, things started to crystallize, but it wasn't until I had it in the bins that it clicked that this was a familiar sight in many ways, from other similar encounters with this bird's kind. The bird was still in the bins when the euphoria hit me like a serious phat one, as it hit home that I was looking at a Hottentot Buttonquail! The bird dropped into cover not that far away, and I turned to Nicky and said 'Do you know what that was?' She just smiled and said 'Buttonquail'. As it turned out she'd gone through the similar thought process of initially taking it for a lark too. Now, if you're reading this and about to go to this part of SA, this hill top might be well worth a bash for this bird, as if it's sticking to this hill, it's a comparatively small area in looking-for-these-things terms, and I guess it might not be alone either. Good luck.
On our way out of Bontebok yesterday we saw that the Amur Falcons had all gone, with the same lone Fiscal Shrike on the wire which could be forgiven for thinking 'did that really happen?' I'm typing this the day after the buttonquail, and still on one hell of a high, but as it turned out, there was even more jam to come before yesterday was over.
572 BRIMSTONE CANARY
573 AGULHAS LONG-BILLED LARK
574 TAMBOURINE DOVE
575 Honey Buzzard
576 BLACK SPARROWHAWK
577 HOTTENTOT BUTTONQUAIL B
some of Nicky's pics: 1. and 2. Brimstone Canary, 3. Yellow Canary in it's most obvious form for comparison.
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