Author Archives: Tara

Don’t Lose Your Lens Caps

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We’ve all been there.  You have your camera gear at hand and on your way to a birding hotspot when all of a sudden a bird unexpectedly flies overhead.  You scramble for your camera, rip off the lens cap and set it down somewhere and frantically try to get your shot.  Then you get so busy looking through the shots to see if any of them are good you forget to put the lens cap back.

Long after you’ve moved on, you realize the lens cap is gone and you aren’t sure where it went.  How annoying!

These nifty gadgets could solve that problem and at $5.99 for a pack of 5 are not expensive.

 

Even better, get a pack with spare lens caps – once you click on the link there are more sizes on the page.

 

Road Trip Through South Africa’s Cape Provinces

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South Africa is so easy to travel around by rental car.  We usually use Avis and get the Super Cover for peace of mind although we have never had any issues with them.  I always found the best prices on the South Africa site but you should check a few options like the USA & UK sites as well to see if there are any specials on.  Distances are great and towns can be few and far between so it’s best to top up your fuel tank each time you pass a major town.

We did the trip from Cape Town to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in 3 days with a 2 day break in Oudtshoorn to check out some of the attractions there.

Cape Road Trip

The scenery on this route isn’t that interesting but we did make excellent time as the terrain is flat and easy to drive and there wasn’t much traffic.

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We left Cape Town very early in the morning and drove hard to Birds of Eden so we could have as much time as possible there.  It was so amazing, we went back in 2014 so I have good coverage of Birds of Eden.     2014 Part 1      2014 Part 2

We stayed there until it closed, then drove to Oudtshoorn arriving very late at night at a small guesthouse.

 

 

Advanced Digiscoping

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As I posted earlier, you can use a smartphone with your guide’s scope to get a shot of a bird you can’t find with your own camera.  Some people take the art of digiscoping to a much higher level and buy gadgets to attach a smartphone to a scope like this one.

I don’t recommend attaching your adaptor to a guide’s scope unless you have hired a private guide as it’s not fair to the others in your group.  You could always buy your own scope but they are not cheap!

Here’s how the pros do it.

 

 

Eco-Lite Mini-Trip: World Of Birds, Hout Bay, South Africa

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Eco-lite Mini-trips are for everyone!  Families with small kids, busy business travelers who need a break or eco-tourists who want to see the birds up close to be able to recognize them in the bush!

OVERVIEW

World of Birds is the largest bird park in Africa and one of the few large bird parks in the World.  Over 3 000 birds (and small animals) of 400 different species are uniquely presented in more than 100 spacious landscaped walk through aviaries, allowing you the most intimate closeness with nature.   A tropical garden setting in the Hout Bay Valley
is the environment in which the aviaries are spaced over 4 ha of land, framed by the back of Table Mountain, the Twelve Apostles, Constantiaberg, Chapman’s Peak and Little Lion’s Head. A paradise for nature lovers and photographers, the World of Birds is one of Cape Town’s premier tourist attractions which no visitor should miss.

HOW DO YOU GET THERE?

The Hout Bay Fishing Village and Fishing Harbour just 10 km outside Cape Town can be reached either along the scenic routes of the Coastal Drive via Camps Bay and Llandudno or via Kirstenbosch and Constantia, or on the way to and from Cape Point Nature Reserve via the spectacular Chapman’s Peak Drive.

HOW MUCH IS IT?

Entrance fees are:

Adults R95
Children R45
Pensioners and Students (with card) R55

HOW LONG SHOULD YOU SPEND THERE AND WHAT SHOULD YOU SEE?

We spent a couple hours there leisurely wandering through the aviaries.  It looks like it has grown since we were there in 2009 so maybe allow 3 hours.

VALUE TO CONSERVATION

World of Birds Wildlife Sanctuary is an independent institution.

Preservation, breeding, education and research projects undertaken by World of Birds can be supported through
The Wild Bird Trust (Reg. No. T834/91)

(Wild Birds & Small Mammals Preservation, Education & Scientific Research Trust)

WHERE TO STAY NEARBY ON POINTS

Numerous options are in Cape Town.

PHOTOS

Here is a day we spent exploring this wonderful bird park where we got a close glimpse of many African species we normally wouldn’t get to see up close. Originally published on Feathered and Free which is now being merged to MTTW.

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Sunrise & Sunset Calendars Help You Plan Birding Excursions

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Most birders will want to be up before dawn to head out to the birding location so how do you find out when sunrise is?

TIME & DATE WEBSITE

Type in the nearest town.  In this case I will search Santa Marta, Colombia to get an idea of sunrise & sunset in El Dorado Reserve.  Here are the results for March 2016.  You can check any month and year with the drop-down boxes.  Looks like if you want to see Santa Marta Parakeets, you will need to leave the lodge by 5am to be in position by 6am.  If you want to try for the parakeets coming in to roost for the night, be in position by around 3pm to maximize birding time as this location is up a very bumpy road so you need to take your time.

Sunrise

African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus)

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The African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus), also known as the jackass penguin and black-footed penguin is a species of penguin, confined to southern African waters. It is also widely known as the “jackass” penguin for its donkey-like bray, although several related species of South American penguins produce the same sound. Like all extant penguins it is flightless, with a streamlined body, and wings stiffened and flattened into flippers for a marine habitat.

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African Penguins are found in the coastal areas of southern Africa.  They are easily seen at Boulders Beach, about an hour’s drive south of Cape Town.

Af Peng

LEARN MORE ABOUT AFRICAN PENGUINS

Wikipedia

Birdlife

Animal Fact Guide

Biological Diversity

VIDEOS

This is a fantastic video which depicts just about every activity in an African Penguin’s life (and I do mean EVERYTHING)!

And here’s some information about conserving them.

 

Day Trip Around The Cape Of Good Hope

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You can do this either as a guided tour or on your own in a rental car.  Driving is easy around South Africa once you get away from the cities and we chose this option to have more control on where we went and how long we stayed there.

The distance isn’t that far, you will have around 3-ish hours of driving time plus what time you spend along the way.  We stopped at Boulder Beach to see the Africa Penguins, then took the scenic drive out to the Cape of Good Hope and stopped at World of Birds on the way back.

Cape Good Hope

So we got up early and headed to Boulders Beach in hopes of beating the tour groups.  We did pretty well, had nice close views of the African Penguins!

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We headed south towards the Cape of Good Hope.  This is where we ran into the tourist crowds again.  It was especially funny to see the baboons jumping on some of the cars.  There are signs everywhere telling people not to feed the baboons (we didn’t) but apparently some people did.

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After walking around a bit, we headed back up towards the World of Birds as we wanted to have enough time for lunch and a good look at the birds.

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Emergency Digiscoping With A Smartphone

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As I was reminiscing about our trip to Cristalino back in 2012, I was thinking about the one photo op that got away.  As we were on top of the Canopy Tower, our guide (we were put with 6 other tourists) managed to get a rare Hawk-headed Parrot in his scope view.  It was REALLY far away, nestled in one tree out of a million trees.  The guide had seen him fly in and had very keen eye sight and was able to locate the bird which seemed like a miracle to me.  I lined up with the other people in the group to have a look through the scope which actually gave a decent view of the parrot.  Of course I wanted a photo but try as I might, I just couldn’t find the exact tree with that bird!  All the trees were blurred into each other in a sea of green.

What I didn’t know back then, but found out in a later trip to Costa Rica is that I could have used my iPhone to get a photo of the bird through the scope.  I had seen professional photographers attaching their DSLRs to a scope but had never thought about putting a smart phone up to one.  In Costa Rica, even normal tourists (as opposed to dedicated birders) like to see Resplendent Quetzals.  Most of them only had standard point & shoot cameras incapable of getting a good shot of a Quetzal in a distant tree so they were holding their small cameras or smartphones up to the guide’s scope!  The photos won’t be great but at least you have SOMETHING!

In case you find yourself in this situation, here is how it’s done.