The Wilderness area of the Garden Route region in the Western Cape Province is a top birding destination. The Lakes are home to a rich variety of water related birds ranging from cormorants, ducks, grebes, coots, and moorhens, to egrets, herons, crakes, rails and flufftails. African Fish Eagles are abundant and their evocative “cry of Africa” call can be heard many times a day especially during the breeding season. According to the SABAP2 (bird atlasing) project, the Lakes pentad (3355_2240) has a species list of 246 putting it on a par with the best pentads in the Western Cape.
The area between the coast and the Outeniqua mountains has a diversity of habitats that further boosts the number of species. On the Indian Ocean coast the iconic African Black Oystercatcher is a dead certainty while White-fronted Plover, Sanderling, and Cape Gannet, as well as several terns and gulls are not difficult to locate.
Between the Lakes and the mountains there is a strip of farmland that is home to weavers, bishops, lapwings, bustards, larks and pipits. Above the farmland is a strip of temperate forest. Forest birding is never easy, but if one gets to know the calls you will hear Chorister Robin-Chat, White-starred Robin, Green Wood-Hoopoe, Terrestrial Brownbul, Knysna Turaco, Narina Trogon, African Goshawk and Knysna Warbler.
Above the forest the famous Fynbos starts and covers the mountain slopes to the summits. The Fynbos is a very special biome as it contains over 10,000 species of plants, mainly indigenous to the Southern and Western Cape. It is also home to several endemic species of birds, such as Cape Siskin, Cape Sugarbird, Cape Bulbul, Orange-breasted Sunbird, Victorin`s Warbler, Protea Seed-eater and Cape Rockjumper. There are two species of Spurfowl in the Southern Cape: Red-necked, which frequents the coastal bush and Cape, which is a bird of the Fynbos.
If you still need more variety, the Little Karoo is a half hour trip over the mountains and here there are a number of species you won`t see on the coastal plain, like Chestnut-vented and Layard`s Tit-Babblers, Yellow-bellied Eremomela, Cape Penduline-Tit, Grey Tit, Karoo Chat, Large-billed -, Karoo-, and Cape Clapper Lark, Pririt Batis and Long-billed Crombec.
There are a few extremely rare species in the wider Southern Cape. Birds like Baillon`s Crake, African Cuckoo-Hawk, Black-chested Snake-Eagle and Wattled Starling have been reported once or twice only, while species like Wailing Cisticola, Marsh Warbler and Long-crested Eagle have made their appearance recently.
With 500 checklists submitted to SABAP 2, Alan Collett, your guide, knows the area intimately. He is keen to give you the sort of birding experience you want on a half or full day outing. The emphasis is very much on client satisfaction, so an outing can be tailored to meet the client`s needs.
