Penguins, not Bunnies

Boulders Beach, Simon's Town, South Africa

Easter Monday and it's African penguins, not bunnies, that are the sight to see along the  Simon's Town beaches. We walked to Seaforth Beach and then to Boulders Beach, only a mile or so from the marina, for great views of these cute little critters as they carry on their penguin lives without a care for the onlookers that flock to see and photograph them. By the way, they're also known as jackass penguins because of their bray-like call.

The Boulders Beach penguin colony began back in 1984 when a single pair nested on the beach. In 1985, there were two nesting pairs that bred successfully. By 2002, there were 3,500 penguins and 1,100 breeding pairs. The effects of a oil tanker spill in 2000, that could have devastated the colony, was minimized by the work of hundreds of local volunteers. Boulders Beach falls under the auspices of South Africa's National Parks and as such, the penguins are protected. There's an award-winning, entertaining video entitled City Slickers, that tells the tale of South Africa's newest penguin colony.

A tightly meshed, fenced boardwalk meanders along the hillside where many penguins nest above the shore. We spotted several in the bush making nests and sitting on nests. The fencing keeps the penguins in and the dogs and predators out.

Despite the fences, there were all sorts of signs warning motorists to check under their cars before leaving the parking lot and to watch for penguins on the road. There were also signs warning visitors not to touch penguins … they can bite!

Rather than bore you with more text, take a look at some of our favorite penguin photos ...

Hanging with the Birds - Bird Island, Algoa Bay

About 35nm east of Port Elizabeth and only about 7 nm from the sand-duned shore of Algoa Bay, lies a small group of islands and rocky outcrops known as the Bird Island Group. It's a protected area and home to South Africa's greatest colonies of Cape gannets, African penguins, roseate terns, Antarctic terns and kelp gulls. There's a seal colony nearby on Black Rocks and consequently, the population of great white sharks abounds in this area as well. We weren't planning to go for a swim.

Actually, we hadn't planned to stop here at all. We'd read about it, but we were aiming for Port Elizabeth. Sometimes when you're sailing (as with other life adventures) you bloom where you're planted and we were planted for the day at Bird Island and it was quite a lovely place. There are birds absolutely everywhere. Rafts of them floated all around the boat, seeming to chat amiably and ignoring us for the most part.

It was alternately overcast and sunny throughout the day. On the boat, we could hear the din of the huge colony of gannets ashore. They seemed to be busy preening or perhaps nesting. They're very social birds. Some would fly off for a lunch break presumably, while others would land midst the flock with a modicum of discontent and squawking from those already settled in.

The jackass penguins were all around the boat, but they were hard to photograph. They're particularly agile and very camera shy. As soon as I appeared on deck with my camera, they seemed to vanish below the surface in seconds. They're called jackass penguins because of the way they bray, much like a donkey. They're also referred to more correctly, I guess, as South African penguins.

The Bird Island Lighthouse is stunning … at least from a distance. Historically, a wooden lighthouse was erected in 1852. It was a pretty remote area with little means of communication. After 1906, this improved a bit when carrier pigeons took messages from the Port Elizabeth Lighthouse to the Bird Island Light. Work on a stone lighthouse began in 1872. The lighthouse has now been fully automated. The last permanent lightkeeper left Bird Island in 1968. Maintenance is now performed periodically by a technical staff which arrives by helicopter.

Southern Africa - It's for the birds!

The diversity of its geography and eco-systems provides all of southern Africa with a wonderful environment for more than 500 bird species. It wasn't hard to spot them. In fact, sometimes it was hard to ignore them. Here's a sample of the birds we've seen in the past few days. The red bishop, a weaver so-named because red is traditionally the color of bishop's robes, flitted around in the reeds at the waterhole in Mlilwane. He was easy to spot because of his scarlet red color, but it was hard to capture a good photograph as he danced from reed to reed, then hid in the marshes.

I've talked about weavers previously. We saw village weavers at Mkhuze. They are the most industrious, creative, energetic birds we've ever seen. In Mlilwane, we saw lesser masked weavers who prefer to build their nests over water. Despite the heat and humidity, these little guys worked dawn till dusk plucking blades of green grass from the marshy area around the mudhole at Mlilwane rest camp.

Starlings are not usually my favorite bird. They're raucous, ill-mannered and not particularly pretty. Not so for this violet-backed starling I spotted in a tree near our hut at Sandzela.

This trumpeter hornbill was distinctive as he sat high up in a tree surveying his surroundings at Mkhuze. He was quite far away and the photo is not the best, but I wanted to share it anyway.

The little African pied wagtail we saw at the mudhole at Nisela in Swaziland  reminded us of the willy wagtails in Australia.

Red-billed oxpeckers spend their time riding around on the backs of other animals, picking off insects. The animals don't seem to mind and the oxpeckers get free lunch.

These lesser striped swallows gave me a run for my money at the Nsumo Hide in Mkhuse.

Beautiful European rollers were abundant in Mkhuse.

This white-fronted bee-eater was magnificent on the Shallows Trails at Mlilwane.

Midst the herons and egrets and Egyptian geese at the Mlilwane waterhole, we saw this single thick-knee water dikkop. Strange looking bird. He's got Betty Davis eyes.

No, we're not twitchers, but we do enjoy seeing different birds and then my identification-itis kicks in and I have to figure out what they are. I'm sure we'll see more  on this trip and I'll share with you later.