The West Coast

Birds: 8/10
Scenery: 7/10
General tourism value: 6/10

Day 1: Drive from Cape Town to Saldana Bay, stopping at Tienie Versveld Nature Reserve and the West Coast National Park. Overnight at Oranjevlei Guest House.

Day 2:Drive from Saldana Bay to Lamberts Bay, stopping at the Berg River Estuary, Rocher Pan, and Verlorenvlei, before returning to Cape Town in the late afternoon.

Overview:

Located approximately 120 km north of Cape Town, southern Namaqualand is famed for its spring (September) flowering displays of many annuals, particularly daisies. The arid and rather bleak terrainis incised by a series of wetlands, which, in the austral summer, hold the greatest densities of shorebird on the entire eastern Atlantic flyway. In the spectacular Langebaan Lagoon of the West Coast National Park, palearctic waders abound, particularly Curlew Sandpiper, Grey Plover, Turnstone, Knot and Sanderling. Resident shorebirds, including African Black Oystercatcher, White-fronted Plover, Kittlitz's Plover and the scarce Chestnut-banded Plover supplement these. The marshes and sedgebeds are home to African Marsh Harrier as well as skulking palustrine specialists, including Red-chested Flufftail and African Rail.

The National Park also incorporates five islands, supporting nearly a quarter of a million breeding seabirds. Most of the Benguela-endemic seabirds, including African Penguin, Cape Gannet, Bank, Crowned and Cape cormorants are easily seen here. We will visit Bird Island in Lambert's Bay, to view the spectacle of a dense breeding colony of Cape Gannets, and an opportunity of face-to-face encounters with these birds.

The terrestrial vegetation surrounding the wetlands, and the open cultivated fields that constitute the matrix they lie in, support a variety of species that are not always easily seen elsewhere. The most absorbing amongst these are the Black Harrier, Southern Black Korhaan, Capped Wheatear, Thick-billed, Red-capped and Cape Long-billed larks. Other common species include Pied and Wattled starlings, Bokmakierie, Karoo Robin, Cloud Cisticola, Yellow Canary and White-backed Mousebird.