Strandfontein, Cape Town, March 2013

A light breeze brought the occasional stinky waft, but that was a cheap price to pay for a day at Strandfontein. Anyone who subscribed to the “Poop Week Special” on 10,000 Birds will know that where there is poo, there are birds, so the water treatment plant and settling ponds made for good watching. Greater Flamingos are the big draw, but they took their place, unobtrusively on the list with almost 70 others today.

A car is essential for getting to and around the site, but there are no regulations to prevent you from getting out and walking wherever you wish. The birds here are slightly aloof, so it is as well to use the car as a rolling hide. 

The approach road cuts off from Strandfontein Rd (at Google Earth ref; 34° 3'12.88"S 18°31'43.76"E) and it looks as if a residential development is imminent. A snake (Cape Cobra?) slipped quickly off the road at my approach and I stopped, hoping to get a look at it. Instead of the snake, I found a very approachable Cape (Dune) Molerat which was far too trusting to last much longer in the vicinity of a large snake.

Access to the water treatment plant is via a causeway between two man-made lakes. Cape Teal, Red-billed Teal and Cape Shoveler were seen in the lake to the left. On the right, a rustic frame held Great (White-breasted) Cormorant and Long-tailed (Reed) Cormorant. On the causeway itself, a few Blacksmith Lapwing “tinked” at me from the verge. As Usual, thanks go to www.xeno-canto.org for their permission to embed their sound recordings. 
                                 

Security personnel at the gate take name rank and serial number, but show no further interest unless you get stuck in the soft sand. A couple of my colleagues also visited Strandfontein today and fell foul of the sinky stuff. They were generously assisted by a couple of the security staff, but this is not usually part of their job description so play safe. I was sticking to the good roads in the attempt to avoid a hatrick of getting stuck.

The road leads towards a six-road junction that looks like the axle of a cartwheel (Google Earth ref; 34° 4'58.11"S 18°30'47.69"E). Any road taken from here will produce birds and the best route is the one that gives you the best light. Flamingos were very easy to find as were a good number of ducks. Each pan had its own birds that favoured the particular characteristics of that pan.

Some had sandbars that attracted Kelp Gulls to roost with the Great White Pelicans. Some pans were shallow and muddy and patronised by Little Stint, Pied Avocets and Wood Sandpipers. The road between the gate and the axle had a pan on the left which had attracted Barn Swallows and Plain (Brown-throated) Martins. I stopped here for a while, half-heartedly trying to get a shot of a hirundine in flight, but whole-heartedly failing.

At the southeast corner is an expanse of scrub and dune. An African Marsh Harrier and a Karoo Scrub-robin were seen here, but the Common (Rock) Kestrel stood out as the poser of the area.

The large numbers of some species were often made up from a number of roosting flocks that found space on sandbars, mudflats, road verges and banks of the pans. Gorged hirundines rested on the roads or roosted in the bushes of the dunes.

A Three-banded Plover was particularly faithful to a small patch of bark chippings. It looked as if it might have a nest, but it was in demure plumage indicating that it is still a juvenile. I recall reading somewhere that this plover has a duller non-breeding plumage, but I can’t find that snippet of information again to confirm. Another bird close by was showing the brighter plumage with red eye-ring and base of the bill.



Birds seen 69;

White-faced Whistling Duck 8, Egyptian Goose 65, Spur-winged Goose 25, Yellow-billed Duck 120, Cape Shoveler 300, Red-billed Duck 80, Cape Teal 65, Cape Francolin 8, Little Grebe 15, Great Crested Grebe 1, Eared Grebe 2, Greater Flamingo 700, Cape Gannet 5, Great (White-breasted) Cormorant 125, Long-tailed Cormorant 45, African Darter 2, Great White Pelican 9, Grey Heron 3, Black-headed Heron 6, Purple Heron 2, Little Egret 1, Cattle Egret 160, Glossy Ibis 60, Sacred Ibis 200, Hadada Ibis 15, Black-shouldered Kite 2, African Marsh Harrier 2, Jackal Buzzard 1, Eurasian Kestrel 1, Purple Swamphen 10, Eurasian Moorhen 30, Red-knobbed Coot 60, Blacksmith Plover 60, Common Ringed Plover 40, Three-banded Plover 6, African Oystercatcher 5, Black-winged Stilt 50, Pied Avocet 100, Wood Sandpiper 5, Little Stint 80, Ruff 1, Hartlaub’s Gull 40, Kelp Gull 300, Caspian Tern 35, Great Crested Tern 30, Speckled Pigeon 10, Ring-necked Dove 7, Little Swift 4, Speckled Mousebird 1, Common Fiscal 1, Pied Crow 15, White-necked Raven 2, Plain Martin 60, Barn Swallow 140, White-throated Swallow 15, Cape Bulbul 20, Tinkling Cisticola 2, Zitting Cisticola 4, Karoo Prinia 4, Cape White-eye 1, Cape Scrub-robin 1, European Starling 200, Southern Double-collared Sunbird, Cape Wagtail 80, African Pipit 1, Orange-throated Longclaw 3, Cape Canary 1, Cape Sparrow 8, Cape Weaver 8.

Black-headed Heron

Strandfontein, Cape Town, South Africa

Despite having just landed in a place described as “the fairest cape”, my first port of call was the sewage works at Strandfontein, just over the dunes from the beach road that skirts False Bay, Cape Town.

The Cape Argus, a huge cycling event, was in progress, so I had to take the long way round to get there and arrived at about 10.30.
The drive along the approach road produced some Black-necked Heron which often feed on rodents in the thick rank vegetation here.

 I usually visit Strandfontein straight from the flight and get changed out of my uniform somewhere discrete. The plane doesn’t land until about 09.00 so I have never been here early enough to have to wait for the guards to come on duty. A causeway between two deep ponds enables early birders to start before the security barrier where one is required to sign in before moving into the settling lakes. This morning Egyptian Geese, Cape Shoveler and Cape Teal were to the left with more shoveler, White-breasted Cormorants and an African Darter to the right.

Beyond the security post, directly ahead (Google Earth ref; 34 04’46”S 18 31’10”E), are the buildings and workings of the plant, to the right a small barrier allows access to the birding areas. Greater Flamingos skittered across the surface of the water to get airborne and flew between ponds mading a wonderful sight against the backdrop of the Table Mountain massif.

As often happens when I go birding straight from a flight, I get lazy. Eurasian Swallows were present in good numbers, but I stopped paying them too much attention after I had identified them to my satisfaction. I later realised that at least two of them were White-throated Swallows. The two species are superficially similar, pale beneath with windows in the tail. Female Eurasian Swallows have shorter tails and I might well have missed a lot of white-throats.

The flamingos were in most ponds in small flocks of up to 20. Most were in deep water and may even have been swimming. Only in the roosting and preening birds could the classic silhouette be seen.

The first junction is marked by a small building at the hub of a pinwheel of pans. The lakes around the hub are numbered P1 to P6 anticlockwise. The pans to the south, closest to the bay are named S1 to S8 from west to east. I turned left (south) and found a pan with Great White Pelican, and lots of Spur-winged Geese along with the flamingos, cormorants and shovelers.

I had lost track of the pan numbers by now, but stopped to watch a small flock of Ruff and compare their size with the huge Cape Gull (split from the Kelp Gull).

Then I made a foolish mistake. I turned to the east along a road running parallel to Baden Powell Drive, the R310. This took me around into the scrub and dunes behind the plant where it became difficult to turn around. I felt sure that by continuing, the road would lead back to the plant and I would be able to get back on track, but then my car sank into the soft sand. Only the causeway at the entrance has a prepared surface, the rest are gravel and sand roads. This one had me truly trapped. A Karoo Scrub-robin popped his head up to see what the swearing was about and a Jackal Buzzard that was perched nearby moved back from the tirade, but hung around to see what developed. Without letting the narrative get too dramatic, I tried and failed to dig myself out and decided that I had to find help.

The plant site had three big strong chaps to whom I will be eternally grateful. They dug and they pushed and they shook their heads. They returned to the plant for planks and levers and eventually, after much grunting in Afrikaans and revving in English, the car moved back out onto firmer ground. Thanks guys!

Following my humiliation, I reversed back to the most recent junction and noticed a Spotted Dikkop (I believe the fashion is Thick-knee these days, but I am a terrible stick-in-the-mud (or sand, whichever)) standing completely still on the corner. It waited while I took its picture, then began walking very slowly back into the thin brown vegetation at the roadside. It stopped and began to crouch. Between its legs, I noticed a single egg. The egg and the bird were perfectly camouflaged except for the dikkop’s bright yellow eye, legs and bill. I pulled back to allow it some personal space and it settled.

My wanderings had led me away from the main area of pans so I returned to the tracks more travelled and found my way blocked by a gull and tern roost on the road between P3 and P2. The works are right beside False Bay and lots of gulls are attracted here to roost away from the beach. In front of me were Hartlaub’s Gulls and Great Crested (or Swift) Terns.

To my right a much larger roost in the middle of P2 held a bigger selection as well as a Little Stint working the margins. I had to pull back and find another way round to get a better light direction on the bigger roost. There I found Sandwich Gulls, Common Terns, Cape Gulls and a couple of Common Greenshank along with more representatives of the road roosters.

Strandfontein is a popular spot for Cape Town’s birders and any that you come across are welcoming and helpful. If you wish, you may get out of your car at any time, but the birds prefer you to stay in the vehicle. If I have one piece of advice for you it would be to stick to the main roads (I am embarrassed to admit that this is the second time that I have got stuck in the sand in Cape Town). It took over two hours to get back onto firmer ground this time. Last time I was ably assisted by 12 young men from the squatter camp nearby. I have been extremely lucky in my foolishness. Baden Powell Road, the R310, runs along the north edge of False Bay towards Muizenberg. Strandfontein Road runs north from Baden Powell and the entrance to the works is through a litter-strewn approach on Zeekovlei Road at Google Earth Ref; 34 03’12”S 18 31’45”E.

Species seen; 53

Little Grebe 60, Great White Pelican 6, White-breasted Cormorant18, Long-tailed Cormorant 8, African Darter 1, Grey Heron 1, Black-headed Heron 6, Cattle Egret 45, Sacred Ibis 40, Hadada Ibis 20, Glossy Ibis 2, Greater Flamingo 200, Egyptian Goose 120, Spur-winged Goose 60, Cape Teal 60, Yellow-billed Duck 20, Red-billed Teal 25, Cape Shoveler 200, Black-shouldered Kite 2, African Marsh Harrier 1, Jackal Buzzard 2, Common Moorhen 2, Red-knobbed Coot 300, African Oystercatcher 1, Black-winged Stilt 80, Pied Avocet 400, Water Thick-knee 1, Blacksmith Lapwing 4, Common Greenshank 2, Little Stint 4, Ruff 45 ,Cape Gull 400, Hartlaub’s Gull 120, Sandwich Tern 20, Great Crested Tern 35, Common Tern 200, Speckled Pigeon 5, Red-eyed Dove 1, Ring-necked Dove 4, African Swift 60, Plain Martin 80, European Swallow 150, White-throated Swallow 2, Cape Longclaw 1, Cape Wagtail 30, Cape Bulbul 4, Cape Robin-chat 5, Karoo Scrub-robin 1, Levaillant’s Cisticola 1, Karoo Prinia 2, Pied Crow 15, Common Starling 25, Mossie 6.


Strandfontein, Cape Town, South Africa