On Sunday 21st of March, Adel and I took a drive out to Meerensee, just before Hermanus, to look for a rare bird that had been reported there for the past week.
Meerensee is a fantastic holiday housing estate situated on the most beautiful beach. Walking on the softest seasand imaginable, there is nothing but sand and sea in each direction and the cold waves were so refreshing. The lagoon is part of the Bot River estuary and is quite empty at the moment so not as many birds as one would like but still, enough to keep us busy. Greater Flamingo, Swift and Caspian Tern and lots of our local African Black Oystercatchers to be seen. And then, the special fellow, the Eurasian Oystercatcher. Not often found in South Africa, it is worth the drive to see this little guy (or girl). We walked all along the east side of the lagoon without spotting it and then were told by some other birdwatchers that it was on the opposite side. We walked all the way round and found more birders, kitted out with spotting scope (!) and they had just found the bird. We were able to get a look at it through the scope as it foraged along side a whole bunch of Common Whimbrels. As we were walking away from the bird after getting our fill of looking at it, it came flying overhead from behind us and we could see it very clearly with its white underbelly and white half-wing. It has almost the same call as our local oystercatcher and that is what drew my attention as it flew past. What a lovely fellow.
Another birder, Per Holmen took this photo of the same bird a few days previous to our visit. There is only one of them that we know of at the moment so it is quite sure to be the same bird that we saw. Lovely isn't it?
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