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Day Tours 1-day West Coast Birding Tour As usual, this is a very full day of birding. We will drive north from the beautiful city of Cape Town. Our first stop will be at the tiny Tienie Versveld Wildflower Reserve, an excellent stakeout for the unique Western Cape subspecies of Cloud Cisticola. Here it is also usually easy to find the stunning Orange-throated (Cape) Longclaw, Common Quail (in spring), Large-billed Lark, several waterbirds often including South African Shelduck, and good numbers of other fine birds. This tiny reserve hosts an endemic plant species and a plethora of other stunning flowers.
We will then head to the extremely interesting fishing town of Yzerfontein for the tiny, beautiful and localized Chestnut-banded Plover, two endemic cormorant species, and others. Yzerfontein is an excellent site for the West Coast endemic Heaviside’s Dolphin. We will continue northwards to the West Coast National Park, which has fantastic terrestrial endemic birding as well as a huge lagoon, which is one of Africa’s primary shorebird stopover sites. Sought-after species we can find include BLACK HARRIER (and also African Marsh Harrier), Grey-wing Francolin, Cape Penduline Tit, Southern Black Korhaan and many others. Ostrich is common. Shorebirds (waders) include impressive numbers of Red Knot, Curlew Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Curlew, Little Stint, Bar-tailed Godwit, Greenshank, Marsh Sandpiper, Grey (Black-bellied) Plover, Greater Flamingo and a host of others. Several shorebird species such as Common Redshank that are generally vagrants to South Africa are actually regular here at the Langebaan Lagoon in the West Coast National Park. We can also visit a freshwater wetland within the national park for a suite of new species including African Rail (with luck), Black Crake (with luck), several waterfowl, Brown-throated Martin, Eurasian Sand Martin (late summer), reed-associated warblers and many more. Time permitting, we can look for Sickle-winged Chat, Cape Long-billed Lark, Cape Clapper Lark, Secretarybird (with luck), Blue Crane (with luck) and other birds to the north of the West Coast National Park on the Columbine Peninsula, before heading back to Cape Town. The West Coast National Park is a 1 hour drive (if travelling directly) from Cape Town, and the Berg River Estuary, which is the northernmost place we will visit if we have the time, is 1.5 hours’ drive direct. But we will be birding all along the way instead of driving directly!
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Itinerary: Duration: 1 day Limit: 2-12 Date: as required Start: Cape Town End: Cape Town Price: on request Price_Includes: Guiding fees Vehicle hire and fuel Price_Excludes: International & domestic flights Transfers Personal Insurance Meals Entrance fees Accommodation Alcoholic Beverages Gratuities Laundry Service Personal expenses such as gifts
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© 2008-2010 Birding Ecotours · www.birdingecotours.co.za was updated March 2010 |
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