During the week that it spent in Mossel Bay, the gull moulted into its striking breeding plumage.
From sunrise on Monday, 7 February 2022, people started gathering at strategic spots along the shoreline of Mossel Bay in the Western Cape. Many had binoculars slung around their necks and were carrying cameras of varying sizes.
Their actions were strange. One moment they were gazing out to sea or scanning the beach and harbour with their binoculars, the next they were on the run to a nearby vantage point, hiding behind anything they could find and pointing their cameras at the object of their interest. At other times they stood around talking animatedly and checking their phones, then after receiving some signal rushed to their vehicles and drove to another spot where they repeated the procedure. This continued for the rest of the week, with the initial groups being reinforced on a daily basis by new arrivals.
The first views of the gull, in the freshwater pool on Santos Beach.
So, what was going on? It wasn't paparazzi stalking a celebrity aboard a yacht, but twitchers gathering to see and photograph the latest addition to the southern African bird list. And as luck would have it, I was initially responsible for starting the scramble to see the Laughing Gull, a first-time vagrant to our shores.
It all began with a trip to Santos beach with my daughter Geraldine and son-in-law André for a late afternoon swim on Sunday, 6 February. We parked and then walked towards the beach; ever on the lookout for birds, I noticed that there were about a dozen gulls drinking and bathing in the freshwater pond that forms in the middle of the beach at the stormwater outlet.
Denne historien er fra May/June 2022-utgaven av African Birdlife.
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Denne historien er fra May/June 2022-utgaven av African Birdlife.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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EXPLORING NEW HORIZONS
Keith Barnes, co-author of the new Field Guide to Birds of Greater Southern Africa, chats about the long-neglected birding regions just north of the Kunene and Zambezi, getting back to watching birds and the vulture that changed his life.
footloose IN FYNBOS
The Walker Bay Diversity Trail is a leisurely hike with a multitude of flowers, feathers and flavours along the way.
Living forwards
How photographing birds helps me face adversity
CAPE crusade
The Cape Bird Club/City of Cape Town Birding Big Year Challenge
water & WINGS
WATER IS LIFE. As wildlife photographer Greg du Toit knows better than most.
winter wanderer
as summer becomes a memory in the south, the skies are a little quieter as the migrants have returned to the warming north. But one bird endemic to the southern African region takes its own little winter journey.
when perfect isn't enough
Egg signatures and forgeries in the cuckoo-drongo arms race
Southern SIGHTINGS
The late summer period naturally started quietening down after the midsummer excitement, but there were still some classy rarities on offer for birders all over the subregion. As always, none of the records included here have been adjudicated by any of the subregion's Rarities Committees.
flood impact on wetland birds
One of the features of a warming planet is increasingly erratic rainfall; years of drought followed by devastating floods. Fortunately, many waterbirds are pre-adapted to cope with such extremes, especially in southern Africa where they have evolved to exploit episodic rainfall events in semi-arid and arid regions. But how do waterbirds respond to floods in areas where rainfall - and access to water - is more predictable? Peter Ryan explores the consequences of recent floods on the birds of the Western Cape's Olifants River valley.
a star is born
It’s every producer’s dream to plan a wildlife television series and pick the right characters before filming.
