If you can forget the politics it was a great year with lots of travel to Arizona, Cape May, Maine with Tessa and Leila, and South Africa.  We finished it up with six days in NYC with our 16 year old granddaughter Tessa.  Since she lives in Olympia, WA she hadn’t had a chance to…

We were up before sunrise to get to the Karoo for sunrise and our last full day of birding.  Karoo is low desert scrub. Aardvark hole We were looking mostly for LBJs and endemics.  We found 10 new species in the 1st 3 hours.  Pao describes these birds as “special, not beautiful”.  He only likes…

We left the Whale View this morning and our first stop was Table Bay Nature Reserve.  There were lots of White Pelicans, Greater Flamingos, waders and ducks.  We saw our 1st African Marsh Harrier.  We are in what is called Fynbos environment which supports tough, flexible plants and many beautiful flowers including over 60 varieties…

Woke up today feeling much better.  We are at the Whale View Inn overlooking False Bay in Simon’s Town. our room views from our balcony After a lovely breakfast at the Inn we drove along beautiful beaches around False Bay to Stony Point. False Bay Stony Point is all the way around to the end…

After breakfast we left KarMichael Farm for the Durban airport to fly to Capetown. A last clearer view from our room at KarMichael. Pond beyond the fence Along our drive to Durban There was an accident on the main highway we were coming in on and the highway was closed.  We didn’t know this soon…

This was the day we went to Sani Pass in Lesotho.  Lesotho is a high-altitude, landlocked kingdom encircled entirely by South Africa.  There are about 2 million people living in the country, most of whom live in extreme squalor.  They are ruled by a king who spends his time on the French Riviera. The pass we…

We left a little later today as  Greg had to come back from his parents’ house.  We had a packed breakfast.  Driving along we passed through pine and eucalyptus forests.  There don’t seem to be a lot of natural forests  The eucalyptus is grown specifically for supports in the mines and the pine is used…

As we leave St. Lucia we saw this on a telephone pole. Juvenile African Harrier Hawk The weather was coolish and drizzling but the temperature was pleasant enough.  We went to the Dlinza aerial boardwalk and got some much needed exercise after so much time in the van. Strangler Fig Millipede on the trail Fungi…

After that late night we started at 5:15 am and went to a jetty.  Got a nice look at a Green Twinspot.  Another adorable bird we couldn’t take a picture of.  These skulkers!  We did get these though. Southern Boubou Golden-tailed Woodpecker We came back for breakfast at our beautiful lodge. This sign is posted…

We started our last day at Umkhumbi Lodge with a morning walk around the camp finding a few more birds. Crested Guineafowl Then we went to False Bay where there was no water in the bay.  We did find a Fire-billed Finch, Olive Sunbird and Crowned Eagle. (these are links to images I found on google,…