Coot chicks - Intaka Island - Century City - Cape Town

17-11-2008 Intaka Island – Blouvlei

They have lots of birds to view from close up at their nature reserve.

• Moorhens and chicks

• Coots

• Ibis

• Heron

• Cormorants

• The Snipes were not there yet, but I saw a stunning photograph of them.

A must-view nature area in the center of a concrete jungle.

Birds spotted 12-11-2008

12-11-2008

• About eight flamingos were spotted in the South vlei.
  
• Two Greater Striped Swallows were buzzing around my office this morning.

Birds Spotted 10-11-2008

10-11-2008

Birds spotted:

• 2 Fish-Eagles
  
• 3 Yellow-billed Egret
• About 10 Whiskered Terns are still around (photograph)
  

Rietvlei birds 10-11-2008

10-11-2008
Birds spotted:

• Fish-Eagles 2

• 3 Yellow-billed Egret

• About 10 Whiskered Terns are still around
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Photograph Whiskered Tern flying over Rietvlei dam 10-11-2008

Bird Report 7-11-2008

Rietvlei 7 11 2008

Birds spotted:

Caspian Tern 2

African Marsh-Harrier 2

Banded Martins (breeding)

Pied Kingfishers are breeding in the bank of the South-vlei on the point.

Puzzled by frogs

Rietvlei 7 11 2008

About two hundred river frogs appeared in Santie's backyard pool, bordering on the vlei, after a 5 mm rain shower the night before.

They were identified as

Clicking stream frogs

Banded stream frogs

Common river frogs

We managed to catch most of them. The frogs were released into the vlei.

The question is

"How did 200 fully grown frogs end up in a fully enclosed, well maintained, backyard pool when there is no other water source within he enclosure?"

BIRD ID

05-Nov-2008

I spotted some birds (about 8) with black body, red beak, grey tail, black cap and white a stripe across the eye.

We forwarded a photograph to Trevor Hardaker from www.zestforbirds.co.za to confirm the ID of the bird. His reply was

There is no doubt that it is in fact a Whiskered Tern, which is in full breeding plumage. The potential confusion candidate, White-cheeked Tern, has a deeply forked tail and not a squarish ended tail like the bird in the photo and is also not quite as dark on the underside as is the bird in the photo.

Water Thick-knee nest

05-11-2008

The Water Thick-knee (Water Dikkop) nest in the boat-park contains only one egg.

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Birds at Rondevlei 4-11-2008

Tuesday 4 November 2008,

We visited Rondevlei for a fire-fighting course.

In South Africa Fire-fighting is an important element of Nature Conservation.

The following birds were spotted:

• A Klaas's Cuckoo

• A large colony of African Sacred Ibis

• Coots

• Yellow-billed Ducks

• Glossy Ibis

• Burchell's Coucal