Pretty Ducks, Edible Flowers and Birds, Birds, Birds: Strandfontein

I have so darn many photos from my South African safari that it's easy to miss some real goodies in trying to throw a lasso around the whole thing. Flamingos are real lens hogs.

With those Vargas girls in the foreground, it's hard to look at anything else, but there are so many other things to see at Strandfontein!

The marshy dikes were rich with bulbs, all in frenzied spring bloom.

We saw these enormous caterpillars in several places on the Cape. All I could do was enjoy them, without being able to put a name other than "Roscoe" on this creature.

Glorious thing. And don't miss the beetle halfway down the stem.  You'd swear it was a hummingbird-pollinated flower, but it's probably after sunbirds.

Her name is Ruth, but we were all calling her Rootie, as her family does, halfway through the trip. She has the same tendency to go plunging in after things that I do. So we were up to our necks in wild gladiolas. Fantastic!

Rootie set this shot up and I poached it. Sour figs, as purchased, and the ice plant flower that becomes a sour fig when it goes to seed! The plant, Carpobrotus edulis,  also known as sour fig, highway ice plant, Hottentot fig, or pigface, creeps prostrate across sandy dunes, and it's quite common. We saw  chacma baboons eating the flowers and developing fruits. I was concerned about the sour fig harvesting until I saw how many of the plants were on the dunes. Reading a bit, I learned that it's a horrid invasive in California and the Mediterranean, creating ice plant deserts on dunes. It's given to invading on disturbed sandy soil. I still think it's cool that somewhere back in time, somebody figured out you could dry the seedheads and get a delicious treat out of them. Wonder if anyone eats them in California? Perhaps we need to graze more.

Wild pelargoniums reminded me so very much of my wooly rose-scented friends of yore. They were aromatic, but nothing like the scented ones I grow. 

It's not hard to see why Strandfontein has such fabulous bird life. That's a bay right there, and the wetlands are the silver line inland, near the horizon.

 The fillymingos don't have far to fly to get to the rich lagoons.

Those vertebral bumps again! I love seeing skellingtons under all those feathers. 

 And the sudden spread of brilliant salmon wings,

which seem somewhat modest for the size of the bird, until you remember this bird is all neck and legs and featherlight hollow bones. Try this: cover up the neck and legs with your finger, and those wings are in perfect, gooselike proportion to the body size. Plenty.

Greater crested terns, Hartlaub's gulls, and Egyptian geese rest on a platform seemingly built just for preening and roosting.

Levaillant's cisticola sings monotonously from a shrubby lookout 

while his mate hauls cattail fluff to a hidden nest.

The little marsh warbler (yes, its name is little marsh warbler, and no, I'm not capitalizing it) who eluded us for minutes on end finally and inexplicably popped out for a portrait!

Everywhere, yellow-billed ducks (sort of the Cape equivalent to a mallard) sprang quacking from the reeds.

Like the mallard, a supremely beautiful bird to be so common. Lucky, we are.

And out in the lagoons, the pink showgirls preen. We bade farewell to Strandfontein and headed for the southernmost point on the African continent, to gaze out over the southern ocean and dip our toes in it, too. You have to do that when you're in South Africa!

I'm going again in September 2016, and I'd love to have you along. 

Click here for details.

Harold Porter Botanic Garden Birding--South Africa

After our windbeaten and odiferous visit to the cormorant/penguin colony at Betty's Bay, we were delighted to take a stroll in the Harold Porter Botanic Garden on our way back to De Noordhoek Hotel. It's September 19, 2015, and we're still on our flower and bird safari in the Cape region of South Africa!

These looked really familiar--pretty sure I grow the blue daisies back in Ohio. I didn't know they were from the Cape though!

I love how their periwinkle plays with the cerulean sky.

A southern double-collared sunbird feeds at a tubular heath.

Harold Porter is a gem of a garden, with rugged mountains towering above. I wanted to go scale them to see what was growing on their slopes. Always prefer my flowers on the hoof and wild, but it sure is fun to read the labels in a garden. And the birding here was easy and good. 

This looked like it might be related to our bee balm, or Monarda. Anyway, it was a mint, with that square stem and balled head of tubular flowers. 

Still trying to get the perfect sunbird shot. It will always elude me.

A Cape batis sat quietly in the shade. I love these weird little birds, with their dapper coloration and staring eyes. South Africa has so many delightful birds you've never heard of. Batis? Whazzat? This.

Find the Cape white-eye in this minty confection. These hyperactive little nectar-lovers are ubiquitous. I had just about learned their call by the time we left South Africa. It's good for a birder who relies on her ears and can be somewhat cocky about it to be immersed in a new world where every call is foreign. It reminds you how you started.

In the grass, swee waxbills plucked tiny seeds.

The Mr. and the Missus. She doesn't have the bee beard.

Still shooting sunbirds...

aaand he turns around!

Rotten picture, but oh those bands of flourescent scarlet-orange and electric blue!

On the way to the hotel, Leon spotted a seasonal specialty: sour figs! They're actually a juicy dried fruit of a sprawling wild ice plant (Aizoaceae) with 2" flowers. Leon loves them. He bought a bag and handed them around, with instructions to bite the stem end off, squeeze the sticky jelly-like innards (with figlike tiny seeds) into our mouths, and throw the rest out the window.

Of the group, only Rootie and I dug 'em, and we figured out over the next few days how many we could get away with eating before there were...consequences. Rootie even bought a jar of the jam to put in our yogurt in the morning. That turned out to be quite consequential. Yum, though! So delicious, unexpectedly savory and salty-sweet. This year we'll buy more!

I adore eating wild foods, and wild food, heretofore undreamt of, from South Africa, so much the better. 

If by now this is starting to sound like a trip you'd like to take with me, know that I'm going again in 2016!  Trip dates: Aug. 24-Sept. 9, 2016. Details and link coming soon.

Think about it!