On the Way to Nieuwoudtville 28 Aug

A long drive today, but to start the day our hosts offered to take us to a nearby quarry to see the Black Eagle - exciting stuff.  

Breakfast was wolfed down, bags stowed and off we went. The quarry turned out to be an interesting stop.
 
Both the male and female eagles were showing, plus a nest with a eagle chick in it.

This is the femaile taken with the iPhone through a telescope - digiscoping.

Only a silhouette of the male sitting on a sign at the quarry rim.

 

Apparently they may have had two chicks but typically the weakest one gets thrown out of the nest leaving just the one.  You may just be able to see the chick.

 

There were also a number of other species seen here including Rock Kestrel, African Black Swift and Yellow-billed Kite amongst others. 

So, a somewhat delayed start to our drive, but all in a good cause. Just out of town we see some blue crane and a call to the driver brings us to a halt for this photo opportunity.

Our driver is very good stopping at all requests where possible even reversing for us to get the best views.  Including of these Blue Cranes, which are the National bird of South Africa.

 

Back to the van and our next stop is a wetland birding site at the Berg Estuary. While the van stopped on the side of the road our guide went off to get the key to the bird hide. It seems we had stopped somewhere we shouldn't have because a police car cruised past and shouted at our driver through a megaphone - novel method of traffic policing not seen before. One shop, the Library and the Municipal offices later he finds there is no key - in fact there is no hide there anymore. But there is a boardwalk so we venture out across that.  The birds don't seem to be bothered about us being there. 

Eric is waiting to scamper along the boardwalk, although he does think it looks in a poor state of repair.

The weather is sunny and even warmer than yesterday.  

The wetland is a good spotting site,
 

 
we see both Greater and Lesser Flamingo,

Greenshank, Black-winged Stilt, Yellow-billed Duck,
 
Pied Kingfisher - back end view of it hovering before diving to catch a fish,and then coming up again with it in its beak,
 

 
 Ruddy Turnstone, Little Egret,
 
Purple Heron,
 
Shoveler,

Teal, White-throated Swallow - conveniently sitting on the boardwalk,
 
plus quite a few more smaller birds. 

We also saw this African Black Harrier overhead.

Our next stop was a small diversion, to a place called Aurora, where there was the possibility of flowers. After bumping over approximately twenty kilometres of dirt road that seemed to have more ridges in it than a corrugated iron roof, Aurora turned out to be a non-event. Luckily we spotted this baby tortoise crossing the road at one point along the way, stopping to let it past
 

and we also saw Leucospermum (below) and some wild Gladioli.

 

Next stop - lunch at Citrusdal. As you may have guessed from the name, we are now travelling through the citrus belt of South Africa. The orchards are full of trees laden with various oranges, lemons and nargee (a sort of clementine). Packed lunch today, at a picnic site in a lay-by - but with a view from the escarpment down to the plains.

Eric examines lunch options.

We still have an hour or two drive to our final destination through very different surroundings.

 

We passed this church twice and each time took a photograph, the tree seemed to be leaning at a weird angle in both of them (the first time we thought it was an optical illusion).   So maybe it really was leaning.
 

Carry on through more citrus orchards and past this canal used for bringing water to the agricultural plots, 

 
but with a four kilometre detour into a wooded valley.
 
Why? you may ask. Well - it's to look for three specific species of Canary, but all we saw was this spooky old tree (Eric decided to stay in the van as it looked too scary). 

To be fair, there were lots of little birds flitting around but we were provided with all too short-lived glimpses to allow for positive identification (even for our SA guide).  We did hear some of the sought after birds calling though.

Flying overhead was a Booted Eagle.

 

Next we pass through the flat plains of very poor sheep grazing land, Namaqualand habitat, which supports about 1 sheep per two or three hectares. 

Here the ground is dotted with termite mounds, which, as they are built up and then collapse, over time has had the effect of creating a green and brown mosaic of slightly differing soil composition.  Some better photos illustrating this effect ae to be found later.

We then ascend 3000 metres onto the Namaqualand plateau to reach our B&B in Nieuwoudtville - which was the source of a few minutes debate about possible pronunciation options.  For ease, although not quite correct, people were pronouncing it Newtville.

Our housing for the night was in a number of individual cottages that had been refurbished as each one came on the market, and scattered about the town/village. Meals being served at a central restaurant also owned by our host. 

 

The ceiling of the restaurant, which was originally a blacksmiths, is decorated with flags of various nations including Eric's favourIte.

The cottages were of varying sizes and still maintained their old world charm, if a little rustic, with various artifacts of days gone bye; 

and very little heating (we are now at 1000 metres and the temperature has dropped significantly - ten degrees at that time).

Eric fancies trying the Red Horse chewing tobacco but decides against it. 

Eric helping to prepare the flour for toast in the morning. 

Prior to dinner we have a look around the gardens and spot a new bird, the very smart Southern Masked Weaver.
 

Plus a Cape Sparrow.

Dinner over -  it's to bed after a pretty tiring day. 

West Coast National Park

Urgent update - we forgot to mention we saw a giraffe yesterday. It was on a private game reserve so we are not sure if it really counts.

Our new accommodation has a new take on a stable door.

Just a central opening with bars. It seemed a bit like a prison cell door. We half wondered if breakfast was going to be served through the slots!

We were due to have a lie in this morning as breakfast was at half seven to leave for today's outing at half eight. Last night we realised that despite checking the hotel room carefully before we left the last accommodation, we had left both the converter plug and iPhone charger behind - disaster.

There's one other person with a suitable charger we can borrow (we still have the cable), plus the South African guide offered us a power pack to borrow.  Not ideal but might work.  We can only hope! 

As the other phones were charging we used the spare one for the morning alarm, and as you may have guessed, unknown to us, we used the iPhone that had not automatically re-set for the time zone for our morning alarm.  Thinking we had oodles of time, we were just about to go for a stroll around the property when there was a knock on the door. Were we coming for breakfast as it was five to eight? After an initial panic it all worked out OK in the end as we managed to have our breakfast and get away at the allotted time - phew!  But not a good impression to give our new travelling companions perhaps.

There was a Malachite Sunbird nesting in the quadrangle of the B&B

We started the official day's tour by visiting the Seeburg Viewing Site. 

Eric's doing some research about our location.

 

 This was a good place for seeing the landscape
 

and some of the famous South African flora.

and some of the birds;

A Bokmakierie - a pretty bird with a melodious song.

 
 Prinia
 

 Sunbird


Eric's learning a lot today. Looking out over the lagoon.

 

The next stop is at the Postburg Section. This is a privately owned part of the reserve run in conjunction with the other part of the National Park, but is only open to visit during the 'flower season' of August and September. Although it has been very dry here for a few months, which is not promising for a good floral showing, conveniently the rain we had as we arrived in South Africa has brought a riot of colour out over vast areas of the Velt. 

Some random stops for views give an idea of how spectacular the display is

 

 

 

Next scheduled stop is at this place

 

As you obviously realised it is pronounced - Oatcake - or at least that's what Eric heard it as. 

This time the lookout is back over the lagoon towards Langebaan where we were staying. 

 

 Panoramic view

Travel on next to the Atlantic coast side for our lunch stop. 

It is a sunny Sunday and there are lots of people come to see the flowers. After having our fill of the floral carpets, we had lunch at the beach. Climbing to the top of a limestone bluff helped us work up an appetite. 

Cor, I needed a sit down after all that exertion.
 

Views from here were good too, and we saw some Cape Fur Seals and Penquin in the sea,
 

plus some different flowers on the rock. First one is a close up of the centre of a flower.
  

 
 Interesting insect here - some form of Ladybird we think.

 Of course, on the way the different destinations we stopped off at various points along the way if one of the guides spotted anything interesting. Luckily our driver is very understanding of all these stops and starts. Well for the moment anyway.

Some more flower meadows

 
 It almost looked like it had been snowing here.



 We also managed to see the 'highly sought after' Black Harrier.  

 

Plus Eland, Springbok, Bontibok, Mongoose and...Mountain Zebra

Springbok

 

Mountain Zebra in the colourful landscape

 

 Following on from this we returned inland, to a bird hide overlooking a waterhole. 

That's a bit of a mouthful

View from the hide.

There were some Red Knobbed Coot,

Moorhen, Little Grebe, and Kingfisher.
 

Plus some Brimstone Canary, Cape Bunting and Cape Weaver





 

and an Ostrich that looked like it was swallowing a tennis ball each time it lifted it's head up from grazing. It was incredible to see Ostrich running, they seem to go very fast indeed, and it looks very comical. 

 

Another two hides to visit before we head back to the B&B.

First the Geelbecki Hide.

View of wetland from the walkway

 

Along the boardwalk to the hide we saw this - should be able to remember the identity but have seen so many new things today that the memory won't take anymore for the moment - to be checked later against original photo!

Firstly from the back

 

then the front.


as well as a Blacksmith's Lapwing.


This was also a weird digi-scoping shot of something unidentifiable from the photo

From the hide we had good views of Flamingo, Plover, Avocet, Godwit and Ruff on the edges of the lagoon
 

 

There was also a Plover chick with its mother seen from the back of the hide.

Then it's on to the Seeburg Hide.

 

A longish boardwalk through some interesting vegetation.

Looks like an interesting bush...

worth a close-up.

From the hide - More Flamingos, both Lesser and Greater, with some African Oystercatcher and Gulls in the foreground;


Shoveler Duck,
 

White-fronted Plover,
 

Cape Teal (with a flotilla of baby ones)

and quite possibly a Roseate Tern, but more likely to be a Common Tern. Have to add some excitement by thinking it's the rarer one at first.

Two slightly different views of the Tern.  It was a long way away.

Back to the B&B for a 'check sightings for the day' meeting before heading in to town for dinner. Pizza for one and Chicken cordon bleu for the other. Then write up the blog as best we can and await tomorrow's adventure (a bit of birding, a bit of botany, and a lot of travelling to our next destination, which is about 300km away).

Spotted in the front garden just as we arrived back from dinner was this cute little Steenbok.

There may now be a few days pause in the blog entries as our next B&B has no Internet.