We left Pretoria early morning on 14th September for the long drive to New Holme Farm near Hanover. This is a great place to stay & convenient, as it is approximately half way between Pretoria & Pearly Beach. After a pleasant evening, we left at dawn with Eastern Clapper Larks calling from the veld We had heavy rain for the first few hours, but it cleared, once we got over the mountains & we arrived at Pearly Beach early evening.
Part of a huge feeding flock of Cape Cormorants.
The coastline opposite our house.
We spent the next few days in & around the house, only going for short walks along the coast. It is spring here & some species of flowers are blooming. Astonishingly over 1,300 species of plants are found in & around Pearly!
Southern Right Whale
Sea watching was very poor, with only a couple of Giant Petrel sp. noted. It seems all the winter visitors have moved on & the summer visitors have not yet arrived. There are plenty of Southern Right Whales around though.
Southern Rock Martin sheltering from the wind
on the side of the house.
Delana & myself with our gold medals for
photographing over 500 species of birds
in SA within a year.
The good news is that with every day I am feeling a little better & can walk a little bit further, albeit very slowly! The bad news is that my third cycle of chemo starts on 23rd!
On the 21st September Jacqui, Stavros & Kyla came around for dinner & a good time was had by all.
My third cycle of chemotherapy went well on 23rd September. Oncologist says my liver is getting healthier & the chemo appears to be working.
Clare at our little bar!
Plenty of whales in the bay.
Clare arrived from the UAE for a short four night stay. Great to see her again. It has been a while! An evening sea watch on 24th produced: 84 Gannet; 2 Giant Petrel sp.; 151 Arctic Skua (roosting on the sea) & 40 Common Tern. The evening was spent with Clare catching up on all the family news.
An amazing display of local fynbos.
It was cold!
All the plants are from the Cape Floral Kingdom.
The next day we drove to Stanford to visit the Flower Festival. For the third year running they won the gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in London. It really was an amazing display & an enjoyable day out.
Northern Giant Petrel
On 26th September did a morning sea watch: 1 Northern Giant Petrel & 2 Giant Petrel sp. In the early afternoon
Delana, Clare & myself did a little walk along the beach without seeing much, although several Southern Right Whales were offshore.
The 27th was rugby day! We went to the Whale Brewery to watch the match.
Till the next time!
It was time to say goodbye to Clare after a very brief visit on 28th September. We had lunch in Hermanus before putting her on the shuttle to the airport. It had been great to see her again but all too brief.
One can see here both the internal teleconverter
built into the lens & the external teleconverter
which is attached between the camera body
& the lens.
Did an early morning sea watch from the verandah on 29th, but nothing of consequence seen. Taking photographs of sea birds from here is a little problematic, as there is a road & coastal fynbos between me & the birds, which means the distance is great. So I had a think! What would happen if I stacked two 1.4 teleconverters together to give me more reach? I attached one 1.4 teleconverter to my Canon D90 body & then attached my EF 200-400mm lens which already has a built in 1.4 teleconverter & it fitted together! Obviously one looses light when one does this, but you can increase the ISO on modern cameras to compensate for the loss of light. This set up gives me a 15x magnification so I will try it out this evening to see if I can get any decent photos. The problem will be the sharpness of the photos.
The evening sea watch was a bit of a non-event. Raging gales, but no birds at all! So I still don't know if this set up actually works.
Cape Sugarbird: the odd bird is
around the village, but most are still
in the hills.
The last day of the month saw me sat on the verandah sea watching; but yet again no birds! Lots of Southern Right Whales in the bay, but none were breaching for photos.
I am feeling pretty good at the moment. I still get tired, but I can walk & lead a relatively normal life. I have been constantly ill for a long time & it is great to be more or less back to normal. Long may it continue.
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