New Year's Day mission

01 January 2023 - Plettenberg Bay; Day 10

There were few New Years festivities in town as fireworks are banned, we were contended to see the New Year with champagne and watching the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. It was like being at a concert with all the live performances. Nevertheless, wishing all my family, friends and followers an epic 2023 - may it be all that you wish for and more.

I was the only one up to watch the first sunrise of the year, despite everyone else saying they would do the same - it was a gorgeous new day..

New Year's Day sunrise

First bird of 2023 was a Kelp Gull - not really surprising, But in the 90-minutes from sunrise to breakfast, I recorded 20-species from the apartment window. One of which was a Streaky-headed Seedeater

Streaky-headed Seedeater (Crithagra gularis)

one of the others was a pair of Swee Waxbill from our apartment window on the 1st floor. This was the only time I encountered this species on our holiday.

In these Blog posts, not all images are going to be magazine publishable, but often are a record of the events on the day and what can be seen in the places I visit.

Swee Waxbill (Coccopygia melanotis)

We spent some time at Sanctuary Beach (between Robberg and Beacon Isle Hotel) after lunch. Later in the afternoon, it was my New Years days mission to connect with the elusive Knysna Warbler that I had already heard a few times in the dense thickets near Lookout Beach parking. I heard it calling in the same area when I arrived, but now I had to creep/crawl off the walkway and into the dense thicket. It was hot, humid and sweaty and sitting on my haunches for extended times was back-breaking. I had to do my best to try and ignore the persistent mosquitoes, as I tried to keep my movement to a minimal. I then had to work out the habits of this skulker which I did. It remained static while calling and went on the move between calls. So, I had to look for the slightest movement in the gloom and try and track it from there. Often it would call from pretty close to me, but standing was really difficult in the dense thicket - due to the cramp from crouching, sweat running down my face and the thorns on the branches that grabbed at my clothes.

Eventually I managed to see where it was calling from and slowly got myself into a position whilst slowly lifting my camera at the same time. My camera struggled to focus in the gloom, despite me pushing the ISO to get a half decent speed. There was so much foliage in the foreground that I was forced to manually focus in the end and managed to snap the best image I have so far of this challenging Warbler