Birding with Rein

We hired a birding guide and went out to several hotspots. He picked us up EARLY at our hotel.  Not the most chatty fellow along the drive to our first location, so we weren’t sure how the day would go. We all warmed up to each other as we got in the groove of birding on a very drizzly morning. We were at the dunes first and got to see the ocean which felt nice! That’s where this photo was taken of us.

We then drove to find the owl. And our last stop for shore birds was a place they store water when there is an abundance- so it did remind us of other birding hotspots that are often water filtration or reclamation spots. It was a very long day but highly productive- we saw about 71 different species!

When he dropped us back at the hotel, he said we had been good company - so that was nice to hear. We can be a bit intense in our birding pursuits, but he was a serious but fun birder as well. A good day indeed!

Oh, we both bought rain hats here on our second day. They are coming in very handy! I call mine my Vera Stanhope hat - it was a British crime series I loved, and she always plopped on a green hat like this one. I had to get purple of course.

Here are some of the best photos

Yellow wagtail

Black-tailed godwit


 Great crested grebe


Northern lapwing


Bluethroat- for once, a bird with a name that is perfectly fitting! It was so unusual looking and sort of reminded Chris of a frigate with the red pouch.



Sedge warbler


Tawny owl. This was our second stop, a quick one just for the owl, after a long morning at the dunes. Fortunately the owl cooperated and got itchy and had to scratch so we got its face.


Northern wheatear

Red-crested pochard. This reminded Chris of the way kids dye their hair unnatural bleached blond. Cute duck!

Pied avocet



Lesser whitethroat- with the interesting addition of a tick on its bill. We have never seen this before. Rein said it is actually common.

Dunnock

Common chiffchaff. We think it is at time of posting anyway. A lot of the birds were what one of our guides back on our first trip to South Africa called “little brown jobs” so it can get confusing. The chiffchaff was a VERY vocal bird which we heard everywhere almost constantly but they were not always easy to spot.



Common chaffinch. Not to be confused with a chiffchaff 😵‍💫