11 February 2017
A beautiful day to be a birder...
Written by Jax, February 12 2017
Guide Summary and Photographs
On today’s trip, we saw many different bird species and a Sunfish. Whilst waiting to board the boat through the harbour and all the way to Franskraal beach, we were greeted with the sight of hundreds of Cape Cormorants. The Sunfish was our first sea creature sighting for the day and we spotted him on the way to Uilenkraalsmond. He stayed close to the surface for a bit before disappearing and then reappearing a little further off from the boat. We also managed to spot a couple of Cape Fur Seals lounging in the shallows, with one sticking his flippers in the air for quite some time, allowing the process of thermo-regulation to take place.
The visibility was exceptionally clear today as we made our way along the coast and we were able to see the rocks on the ocean floor quite nicely. We also picked up a piece of Sea Bamboo which many of our clients sampled before we head towards Dyer Island. Here we had a look at the birds on the island and then stopped by the seals at Geyser Rock. The one Bank Cormorant nest on the keel of the Prince Port is not looking to great, having fallen off slightly, but the rest look to be well tended to.
After this, we made our way into the open sea where there were many different seabirds. The first being some Cape Gannets including some juveniles. After this we saw a White Chinned Petrel, many Sooty Shearwaters and two tern species. Terns are really graceful when they fly and also make a very distinct noise, making them a lot of fun to observe. We also had quite a few seals in the open water today.
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