Midweek Visit to Strandfontein Ecology Park

With schools having an extra break due to all the Public Holidays Earl and I were able take a midweek visit to one of Cape Town’s best kept secrets – now politely named False Bay Ecology Park.  The 34 settling ponds cover 306ha and attract myriads of water birds, the flamingoes being the main drawcard.   On Wednesday they were on almost every pond.

Flamingoes and gulls 

A disturbance set them to flight

Adult and Immature Flamingo feeding

False Bay alongside Baden Powell Road in the background

There are a number of duck species here too.  The yellow-billed duck is my favourite.  They are so photogenic.

Yellow billed ducks with Egyptian Goose

Yellow-billed duck swimming

Cape Teal in reflective mood

Glorious Day for a Swim

Red-billed Teal

Female Cape Shoveller

Spur-winged Goose

We were pleased to see quite a few Little Egrets about too.

Little Egret Fishing

The Cattle Egrets are common everywhere and even when not in breeding plumage they are rather beautiful.

Non-breeding Cattle Egret

The Purple Swamphen is a magnificent bird with its iridescent colours of purple, blue and green.  They obviously like the sunshine and we saw quite a few of them on Wednesday.

Peeping out to say hello

Those long widely spaced toes help when walking on reeds

Aren’t I gorgeous

Sometimes swimming is required.

Common Moorhen taking a swim too

A selection of birds – Sacred Ibis, Kelp Gulls, Blacksmith Lapwings and Black Oystercatchers

We had never seen malachite kingfishers here before so it was a thrill to get one this day.   We watched it fish but didn’t manage to get very good photographs – this is the best of a bad bunch.

Malachite Kingfisher

We spent  three wonderful hours in this bird paradise and didn’t see another car.  What a great afternoon!