January | 2025 | Mostly Birding

Yes, I know it’s the end of January and my last post was early December – what can I say …. life keeps getting in the way. Anyway, here I am in Australia and it’s bucketing down outside so time to get back to my blog.

I started out trying to select a total of 50 images that represent the places we have visited, the birds seen and wildlife encountered over the last 12 months but ended up with a much longer ‘shortlist’ so this time around I thought it best to split my annual Photo Pick into more than one post.

First up is –

The Places

It doesn’t feel as if we did much travelling during the year, perhaps because for the first time in many years we did not leave South Africa. However we made up for that with a number of local SA trips, some to places we visited for the first time, in the process finding out more about our fascinating country, which hardly ever disappoints…

The brief comments tell a bit of the story of each image.

Mossel Bay

Starting at home – as I’ve mentioned before, one of the pleasures of living on a golf estate with adjoining conservation areas is the daily walks I enjoy, along quiet trails that I regularly have to myself or along the bush-lined perimeter of the fairways once the golfers have left.

The varying climate and seasonal changes in the dominant fynbos present different aspects every day – here’s just one view of the sea taken from the nature trail

Paarl, Western Cape

A brief visit to Paarl was an opportunity to explore the surrounding areas and visit some of the lesser known wine estates. This view was taken on the well named Sonstraal (Sunbeam) road

Eastern Cape

Our visit to the Eastern Cape, described in one of my earlier posts, had several highlights…

Southern Cape

My weekly atlasing efforts during the year took me to many beautiful areas of the Southern Cape in the vicinity of Mossel Bay

Gouritz River at Die Poort, north west of Herbertsdale

Waterfall after good rains in the Robinson pass

Friemersheim

This village in the southern Cape has been the subject of a few posts in the past and our latest visit had more surprises which I will include in a future post. This charming cottage, decorated with murals in the style of the other buildings in the village, is a foretaste.

Verlorenkloof, Mpumulanga

We combined a visit to Pretoria with a few days spent at Verlorenkloof courtesy of our good friends the Pauws

Sutherland and Citrusdal

The historical town of Matjiesfontein in the Karoo was our first stop on the way to spending a mid-winter week at a hotsprings resort near Citrusdal – we stayed in one of the cottages run by the hotel and dined in the main dining room. It brought back memories of our previous stay here – some 40 years ago!

Our next stop was to spend two nights in the Karoo town of Sutherland, famous for recording the coldest winter temperatures in South Africa and for being the site of the South African Large Telescope or SALT for short, which we made a point of visiting

The week spent at The Baths near Citrusdal was a delight and one of the most relaxing weeks of the whole year

Prince Albert

My earlier post describes our long weekend in Prince Albert – this delightful Karoo dorp remains a favourite of ours

Hartenbos

I joined Andre and Geraldine a couple of times on their regular Sunday walks along the beach at Hartenbos

Cape Visit

In November we spent a memorable week and a half in the Cape as part of a long-planned family reunion with my siblings and some of their children from all over the world.