2011 AGM

The Birdlife Berg River bird club is undergoing big changes in 2011. 

You are hereby invited to attend our annual AGM to find out about our expansion into other wildlife areas, not only birds and contribute towards how the club goes forward in the new year.  We would love to see you there and hear what you have to say.  We promise a short AGM with minimal speeches but also the opportunity to find out where the club is headed in the new year.  Do come and bring any friends who are nature lovers.

DATE:  Saturday 15th of January 2011

TIME:  2.00pm

VENUE:  Otter's Bend, Dassenberg Rd, Franschhoek

FOR MORE INFO: Contact Robyn at franschhoekbirdclub@gmail.com

RSVP as soon as you can

Little Stone Cottage - a Trogon paradise

Birdlife Berg River have had their first weekend outing to Little Stone Cottage on the Robinson Pass between Mosselbay and Oudshoorn.  What a wonderfully relaxing, tranquil weekend it was, filled with good company, good food and great birding.

We left from Franschhoek on Friday morning and stopped to collect an adequate supply of fresh mountain water from our special mountain-side spring before starting the long trek.

We took the route over the Franschhoek Pass, onto the N2 and before long we were in Crane Country.

After a while we took a break to stretch our legs and came across this lovely raptor feeding in a field.  It seemed to be a juvenile of some sort but we are still unsure of what it is.  Anyone have any suggestions?

Update: - I have been told by a very realiable source that this lovely raptor is a juvenile Jackal Buzzard.  I'll take your word for it, Callan, thanks.

Juvenile Jackal Buzzard ?

We were on our way in good spirits, making good time when suddenly we came across a line of cars... well let me say that again, a very long line of cars, hundreds of cars to be exact.  

 There were 2 stop and go's on the way and we were in the que, adding at least an hour and a half to our journey.  Of course, being birders, we jump at any opportunity to look for birds and we were able to while away the time easily enough.

It took quite a long time but eventually we arrived at Mosselbay where stopped off to eat "Mossels" at the sea food restuarant on the beach... what a treat.  We then headed off to our final stop and reached Little Stone Cottage past 5pm.  It is such a wonderful little place and our club where immediately enchanted with it.  Before long the tents were up for Cecile and Cynthia who had opted to camp outside.

As it was quite late, we put the fire on and got ourselves organised.  Cynthia (from the USA) had brought along the makings of her favourite camp-snack , Smores - melt marshmellows, put block of chocolate onto Gram Crackers (or equivelant found in SA like Marie biscuits) and put melted marshy onto the choccy and close with another biccy and squash together.... eat and enjoy and careful of the mess.

The next morning I took a walk early on but didn't see too much so waited for the group before heading off on the walk along the stream and the forest looking for the elusive Narina Trogon, the bird we all wanted to see.  Of course, there were plenty of Knysa Loeries to make our hearts glad.

We had a lot of fun in the forest and even managed to have a swing Tarzan style... well the boys did anyway....

After the "Big Tree" there is a large Yellowwood that had a Scaly-throated Honeyguide hiding in its branches.  We went back 3 times to have a look for it and heard it calling incessently but to no avail, it never showed itself to us and we moved on, all dejected.

At the end of the beautiful forest path we found this lovely raptor sitting peacefully in a large tree.  We think it is a Forest Buzzard.

Back at the cottage, we had put out food for the local birds and pretty soon the Cape Robin-chat and Olive thrush were flitting in and out grabbing cheese and bread.

 The fork-tailed drongos were out in force and were not at all shy of flying around us.

We are always happy to find our club logo bird, the Cape Rock Thrush and there were quite a few around.

We found many other wonderful birds and thoroughly enjoyed the lovely walks all around the cottage, up the hill, down the river and through the forest.  We enjoyed each others company and one of our members Johann, made a fantastic lamb potjie for us for Saturday night dinner.  We spent the night indoors as it had got quite chilly and played charades, screeching with laughter and having a great time. 

And the high-light?  Well of course, it could only be one thing!  The bird we had wanted to see above all others.... the Narina Trogon, the shy elusive bird found in only a handful of places and not one we would get to see again for quite a while.  Joeline and Marius are firm friends with their local celebrity and knew exactly where to find them and how to call them out.  And... success!!!!  We found our prize.  A beautiful light emerald green back and shocking red front with bright yellow bill was sitting in full view on a bare branch, being very obliging and allowing us to have a great look before it disappeared into the forest.  We were so pleased!  I was so excited at seeing it that I forgot to take a pic so I went back later and with Marius's help, found it again and managed to snap this little pic before it flitted deeper into the thick foilage.

What a gorgeous bird and it is a HUGE tick on my life list.  Just then, my camera batteries went flat!  Thank heavens not before I managed to get this pic.

We left LSC after another long walk at 11am on Sunday morning and went via Oudshoorn and the R62 to avoid the stop and go's.  We went through the Robinson Pass, the Huis Rivier Pass and the beautiful Tradouw Pass before eventually getting to the Franschhoek Pass and home.

The end of a wonderful weekend, emensely enjoyed by all who joined us.  Hopefully another good one will be coming up soon.  Join us!

Juvenile Spotted Eagle - Owl

Thanks to Jill and grandson Oliver for sending us this lovely pic of a juvenile Spotted Eagle Owl, taken on their property in Franschhoek.

Ringing at Paarl Bird Sanctuary today

Quite a good days ringing this morning, despite the fact that it is very cloudy, cold and with light drizzle every now and then.  The Southern Red Bishops are busy changing into the breeding gear, some more than others.

There were plenty of warblers, Little Rush, Lesser Swamp and the migrant African Reed Warblers are back!

After the ringing, I took the opportunity to drive around the sanctuary to see what else was there.... and there was lots.  A lovely big pelican, sitting all by itself to start with.

And a White-throated Swallow was waiting for me when I came out of the hide.

At the Kingfisher dam, I found a lone Purple Swamphen, I haven't seen one for a while.

There were plenty of gulls, hartlaubs and grey-headed.  This guys looks very handsome.

And there were flocks and flocks of Cape Canaries, all over the place.

On one of the back pans, I found a whole group of Greater Flamingos... so beautiful.

Chicks and young birds are everywhere.  The white flamingos above are juveniles and I came across an African Black Duck with a clutch of babies...

and then I came across Mrs Blacksmith Lapwing who tried her best to hide her 2 fluffy balls.  I struggled to  get my camera to focus on them as they are so well camaflaged.

On the way out of the sanctuary, I almost drove straight past about 20 male Pin-Tailed Whydahs and about 20 females.  They were deep in the grass, feeding with Cape Canaries and Swee Waxbill.  I have never seen so many males together.  Some of them were immatures just coming into their male breeding plumage.

All in all a great days birding... even with the security risk, it is still a wonderful place to go birding.

Val de Vie visit

I love it when birders are happy to brave the bad weather for a spot of birding... Thanks so much to Cynthia and Jill who joined us this morning when we went with the Tygerberg Bird club to Val de Vie.

A young student living on the estate had to organise an event for a school project and he organised a bird census for the estate.  Well done Jeremy Collins. 

Our first stop was to investigate 2 huge Hamerkop nests.  There was plenty of birdlife all around these nests and it was a good start to the morning.  Aparently there was a Hamerkop seen but I didn't get a pic of it, however, I did see one at our Fish Eagle site earlier this week which I managed to photograph.

We drove around the estate and stopped at some spots to walk around but the weather wasn't being very friendly. We found the first Cape Hoopoe of the season as well as the first Greater Striped Swallows.

I was happy to see some Crowned Lapwings which I hardly ever see down here in the Cape.

We found Red-capped Lark and African Pipit at the Polo fields, 3 banded plover, water dikkop, spurwing goose and the members of the Tygerberg Bird Club were very excited to see Jackal Buzzards a couple of times.  Our resident Fish Eagle even came flying overhead to say hello to them.

At the stream we found African Black Duck and on the little dams we found lots of Yellow-billed Duck and a mom with her babies...

and beautiful African Darter in deep black breeding colours, first time I have seen him like that.

We spotted 59 birds in all and while doing the bird list back in the Lifestyle centre, someone spotted a Giant Kingfisher sitting at the top of someones house.

A great mornings birding, despite the weather. 

Black-crowned Night Heron

Jill Heistein has been telling me about her daily walks to the picnic dam across the road from her house for many months now.  She sees a wide variety of birds there including weavers and water birds.  Recently she was lucky enough to spot this Black-crowned Night-heron while out walking with her grandson, Oliver, who took this lovely photo.

I have never seen this bird in Franschhoek so will be keeping a beady-eye out for it.  Perhaps we can have a little gathering at this picnic dam one day in Spring.

Bird Ringing at Wild Flower Garden

Saturday morning, Robyn and Adel and our guest, Felicity Ellmore, went bird ringing in the Wild Flower Garden.  It was a wonderful warm day and the birds were buzzing all around us. 

We ringed about 50 birds, most of them White-eyes.  I can't believe there are still White-eyes that I have not ringed yet. One of the White-eyes had some feathers missing from the top of beak.  Not sure why.

We also caught our first Yellow Bishop, still in non-breeding colours.

We also caught a very handsome looking Southern Masked-weaver and he had a strange mark in his eye.

A cheeky Speckled Mousebird was hanging around but refused to fly into the net so didn't get to ring him.... this time!

I have started my own personal bird blog so feel free to have a look at it here.

Lynedoch Winter List

Last Saturday (7th of Aug), a 3-person team set off to do the winter bird list at Lynedoch Eco Village as a follow-up to the Summer list we did in January.  In total, we listed 30 birds, 17 of them the same species as in January but 13 of them were totally different  birds. 

Thanks to Jill Heistein for joining us for the morning.

There was much nest-building by the Cape Weavers in full breeding face flush

 and Southern Masked Weavers in full face mask.

Lots of Cape Sparrows, something we don't see in Franschhoek so much anymore.

And there were plenty of White-backed Mousebirds to keep us entertained.

 Cape Robin-chat, my namesake.

 We stopped off at Spier after the listing to add a few more birds to our atlasing card and found this sleepy African Darter on the water.

And we took photos of the weavers nest for the ADU's virtual museum (for more info on this new interesting website, click here).