Our December trip through the Karoo, Staying at Transkaroo Adventures near Noupoort, and Prince Albert, both in the Greater Karoo added a few new specie photos. Both Poynton’s River Frog and Protea Canary were lifers, and Cape Clapper Lark i have seen before, but now managed to get photos of them.
New Gallery Added for Southern African Landscapes
New photos added for these species:
We visited the Indonesian Islands of Bali and Lembongan in August 2023. This certainly has been one of my favourite destinations that i have visited thus far. The islands are beautiful, the culture amazing but its the people that really make this special.
The trip consisted of three parts. The first, we were staying in a typical beach resort, and although we ventured out to some other sights this is really the type of holiday where you swim, drink cocktails and lounge around. Nice for a day or two, but not my type of holiday. Thank fully there was a small wetland park within walking distance and some good birding there.
The second part was into the interior of the island to Ubud, which is much more nature driven and more commercially driven with many larger markets. We stayed in a stunning villa on the edge of a green ravine, with stunning views. Initially we visited a number of the “must see spots” but soon realized that these has become very commercialized, sadly. Tegallalang Rice terraces is a good example where the actual attraction of the rice terraces and how they are irrigated is now second to the “Instagram activities” such as swings, bike cable rides, bottomless floors and swimming pools. Its an amusement park and not an attraction. But in my walks around Ubud I traversed other rice paddies, and had fantastic conversations with the local farmers and other people living there around their culture and life style. Ubud also provided me with one of my huge wish list birds, the Green Junglefowl. Easy to hear, difficult to see in the lush forest, but we did get some good views for a few minutes.
The last part of our stay was Lembongan, reached by ferry. This small island and its neighbour, Ceningan, is best explored by renting a scooter, and by far the best part of our trip. The freedom to be able to travel on your own on the island from one stunning beach to the next, passing by coffee shops, little bars and restaurants and having a host of massages was just the highlight of the time spent in Bali. Our host, Yoni, at Dini D’nusa was unbelievable in helping us organise everything we wanted, from scooters, various snorkel dives, and restaurants, not effort was too much. Another fantastic islander that we met was Rai from https://www.raiartspace.org/. Not only was his art inspirational, but he as a person gave me much food for thought on how we live our lives.
Naturally I spent some time out looking for birds 79 species of which 35 were new to my world list and some nice sighting of other creatures, including crabs, butterflies and dragonflies.
We visited Singapore in August 2023 for four days and divided the time there between general sight seeing and shopping in Orchard Road. Here are links to the main sight-sightseeing areas we covered. The Botanical garden and Orchid gardens was by far the highlight of the visit.
The visit allowed for some birding as well and 50 species were seen of which 35 were new world lifers. Below are a few of my highlight species:
Grootvallei Game Ranch is a game farm on the Boshoff Kimberley gravel road, in an area that transitions from Freestate grasslands into Kalahari grassland. Where we spent a few days in December 2022
Other Species Updated:
Recent trip to the Northern Cape visiting Upington, Keimoes, Kakamas and Augrabies Falls.
Updates from the December holidays trip to Hermanus and stay overs in the greater Karoo, including Prince Albert
New location Gallery has been added for Transkaroo Adventures
Some Species Photos updated:
New Species galleries added:
Our December holiday had us once again visiting the Eastern Cape, and this time an area that i had longed to visit for a long time, the Wild Coast. I wish we had more time to explore more of the Wild Coast, but as road conditions require many hours of travel we were limited to Dwesa Game Reserve and surrounds.
From Dwesa we moved down to Tsitsikamma National Park and the Storms River Camp, but with a huge family and friends Christmas gathering, there was little time to explore.
The trip ended at the usual haunt of Bornmansdrift farm in the South Eastern Freestate.
The trip added two new lifers to my tally, Mangrove Kingfisher and Cape Siskin, ending 2016 with 7 new bird lifers
At the end of November 2016 we made a trip up to Mapungubwe National Park to do the annual Birding Big Day in the park. Our accommodation was in the Honorary Rangers special camp in the middle of the bush with no fences.
2016 had seen one of the worst drought years in memory in South Africa, and Mapungubwe was no less hard hit. Grass for grazing was nonexistent, and we could see that the animals were suffering. But then during our stay the heavens opened up and the drought was broken. Overnight we had more than 70mm of rain, and it was amazing to see the Limpopo river turn from a dry bed of sand into a flooded river.
Birding was still excellent, and a managed two lifers in the park – Three Banded Courser, and a very special bird that i had been looking for some time, Pels Fishing Owl.
We set off on our annual holiday to Kruger National Park again this July.This year we decided to brave the busy south again, and once again, I realise that I like the area but not the crowds.
Staying our first few days in Berg-en-Dal the current drought just hit home again. The veld is bare of grass, but it almost seems asif the trees were staying green longer this year. Almost as if they new that they needed to provide food. Around the camp and up to Afsaal game was quite scarce in abundance, although we did see a good variety.
Up at Skukuza Golf Course there was a lifer waiting for me, and upon entry to the clubhouse I spotted the Lesser Jacana down on the lily pads on the dam. Almost too easy.
The next days at Pretoruiskop were quite good, with and excellent sighting of a Sable Antelope Bull. Camp birding was great as well with the biggest surprises being a Bat Hawk hunting every morning and night, and finding a family of Green Twinspot at the pool. Both these have never been recorded in the area on the Bird Atlas (SABAP2)
