Ceres & Tankwa Karoo

Birds: 10/10
Scenery: 9/10
General tourism value: 5/10

Day 1: Drive from Cape Town to the Tankwa Karoo, via Bain's Kloof and Ceres. Overnight in private farmhouse.

Day 2: Explore the Tankwa Karoo before returning to Cape Town via the Hex River Valley.

Overview:

This tour will give you the opportunity to see 20-30 southern African endemics, including many of the Karoo endemics.

Starting the day with a scenic drive via Bain's Kloof and Theronsberg passes to Ceres, we will stop to search for fynbos birds including the rarest of the fynbos specials, the Protea Canary, a scarce and unpredictable inhabitant of mature proteoid woodland. The mountains are excellent for raptors and there is a good chance of seeing Jackal Buzzard and Black and Booted eagles. Beyond Ceres, the average annual rainfall gradient drops steeply from 1 200 mm in the Ceres Mountains to as little as 50 mm in a broad valley of unrelenting aridity beyond the mountains, the Tankwa Karoo. Here you will be exposed to a whole new community of birds adapted to these harsh conditions, many of them nomadic and unpredictable in occurrence.

The additional 20-30 southern African endemics we can see here include Namaqua Warbler, Fairy Flycatcher, Long-billed Crombec, Yellow, White-throated and Black-headed canaries, Larklike Bunting, Mountain, Ant-eating, Sickle-winged, Karoo and Tractrac chats, Pale-winged and Pied starlings, Bokmakierie, Pale Chanting Goshawk, Rufous-eared Warbler, Southern Grey Tit, Cape Penduline Tit, Yellow-bellied and Karoo eremomelas, Karoo Robin, Karoo Long-billed, Spike-heeled, Red-capped, Thick-billed and Karoo larks, Karoo and Southern Black korhaans, Ludwig's Bustard (winter), Namaqua Sandgrouse, Pririt Batis, Cape Bunting and Ground Woodpecker. We will pay special attention to finding the most elusive Karoo bird of all, the Cinnamon-breasted Warbler.

Overnighting in our own private rustic Karoo farmhouse we will take a night drive to locate the many small nocturnal animals of this region while a traditional braai (barbeque) or poitjie-kos (pot-food) meal cooks for us on an open fire. We will continue our Karoo birding throughout the next day, before returning to Cape Town.