A Northern Cape melange

Near Prieska - in April?

The Easter weekend is South Africa's traditional weekend for a pilgrimage to the coast or to family residing further afield. The ensuing chaos is a SANRAL [South African National Roads Agency ie: toll co.] bonanza. 

N, Far E & SE attract more than their fair share of traffic - we avoid those sharp-ends like we would one prick too many.

Pofadder - near [standing water in the thirstland]

With that in mind, we chose to meander through the eye of the storm & cover portions of South Africa where somnolent ideals are still pedalled by big-sky dreamers ie: we'd head W / then SW / turn NW & return home via the rising sun. We also thought we'd camp. 

Wet weather was forecast for the weekend & so it was; most of the country gloried in soaking rains. There are few spectres more arresting than standing water in the desert.

We stopped at Kambro Farmstall for the night; roughly half-way between Johannesburg & Cape Town. Sebastian loved the working-farm bits & bobs - we braved a rare hour spent alone.

We thought we'd go camping...

Our travel-preparations usually drill down to the minutia, particularly when we camp. We find that an oversight is almost always exploited by the vagaries of Chance. Our toiletries' had been overlooked in the 'I thought you packed it' last-minute QC check. 

This wasn't awfully good news... 

Neighbours detest a peculiarly flavoured camper on a downwind day - we'd have to replace the kit - & we did, at Kimberley's North Cape Mall. 

The hole that is Kimberley is best enjoyed, in a blur, from 30 000 ft & at a cruising speed of 500 mph. We weren't that lucky, unfortunately. A catatonic queue for toothpaste & a roll-on is a tooth-grinding affair in our books; a look we sustained, in silence, for some time - at least until the rains started somewhere near Prieska. Sungazers were lost in the moment & so were we.

We imagine country-folk are deeply rooted in the land. Cookery, we assume, is a cottage industry central to this culture - ie: befrocked magicians, in homespun, conjuring up 5-star culinary marvels from little more than a small bag of brown sugar, fermented cactus-juice & some elbow grit. Sadly it isn't (always) true... 

Alisha auctioned off an arm & bought a jumbo-sized bag of 'buttermilk' rusks. One powdery mouthful, post a brief, but truly moving, opening ceremony, was enough to consign the balance to the darkness under the table. The dogs aren't talking to me.

All fired-up

A crowing cockerel had me up & about, one or two groans before sunrise. It's the only thing for it really. Before that, however, I was reminded why the roof-tent keeps its own company; a mean-spirited misanthrope at the best of times.

The rain's drip-drip had provided a salubrious, earthy tang to the immediate surrounds - the harbinger of all that is beautiful in this part of the world. 

Descending the tent's ladder, in pitch black, in flops & jocks, is no small feat. Rain-water had collected on the tent's fly-sheet overnight; the same canvas I steadied-on to avoid plummeting to my death after stepping onto 'a rung' which turned out to be thin air... There are few things more rousing than icey water on one's visage [& more] at 4:30 in the morning. This unexpected immersion was especially tickety-boo... I might have used bad words & let go. It was a brisk plummet to a stoic bounce down below; an involuntary start but a beginning nevertheless. 

Fracking? Here...?

From so humble a beginning, a new day - a tarried day spent traversing a slice of South Africa that we had, until then, largely ignored. As it turned out we'd left the best for last but before that, these: - If conceptual thinking divides us, 'Travel' must be the panacea, surely? Would history read more gently if we spent less time in committee & more time in the open air? In reality, sadly, the futility of greed, deceit, ideology & self-aggrandisement is, & will always be, a quixotic quest. 

The next leg of our odyssey turned coastal ie: roughly westwards, via the Bushman's Kloof Wilderness Reserve. We spent the night at Jakama Organic Farm... Clanwilliam's 'highly-rated' Ode to Joy!     

Jakama is exotic ugliness unfurled in the foothills and shadows of the Cedarberg Mountains. Cape Town's hipsters & skinny jeans descended on this Glastonbury for some sleep & love under the stars; erecting a favela of faux yurts & 'living-naturally' on green happiness. The more physically useful ran or cycled their 'new way to be'... 

  ... and those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. [Friedrich Nietzsche]

Meanwhile, for those of us not lost in personal discovery, the glampsite boasted cold-water showers, dank sites and exotic pine, blue-gum & wattle; an arboreal 'convenience' for those having troubles with their bowels - every tree a lavatree.    

'Your body is a forest.. thick.. scented.. wild' [anon].    

We left before first light - of the happy broccoli that is - not the sun. 

Bushman's Kloof

Earlier that afternoon we'd stopped somewhere near the Botterkloof Pass - the Bushman's northern keeper. Meld the fragrance of a rainswept Karoo to these forbidding mountains & it's difficult to imagine YHWH is far away. We were, however, low on fuel, food & drink. That mud fell on me; my motley crew 'desperate' at the time. Retail-conveniences in the Karoo, on Good Friday, are fat-chance. Fortunately Clanwilliam offered some relief, if nothing else. 

Clanwilliam - so much potential: cheap & nasty everywhere; beggars belief..

Talking about relief - listen to this. Post falling out of the nest (see above), I'd availed myself of the  facilities for the day's 1^{st -wi.} What used to be (in my 20s & 30s) a single poster headline & the good stuff scribbled above the trough, is now all the ads & some contemplation through the nearest open window. 

To amuse myself, whilst hanging about, I assessed the audible traverse time of vehicles on the freeway nearby. 34 seconds for a sedan outta the north [ave.] & 58 seconds for one headed north from the south - a function of the northerly wind methinks; the Karoo, Africa's pre-eminent sounding-board. It's a geographical pin-drop but a loud echo on the tin.

Velddrif on the Berg

Fast-track to Saturday - a full dance-card scratching the nether ends of the West Coast including whirls through the hamlets of Velddrif, Langebaan, St Helena Bay & to the West Coast National Park. Fish in tins might advance the common good, per the Omega 3 fad, but I find little romance in discarded fish-offal - a constant that permeates the West Coast. That said, the villages are quaint & the people quirky. 

Broad-bills @ 60x [close...]

Langebaan, & for our purposes here - the West Coast National Park - South Africa's only non-estuarine tidal lagoon - protects approximately 30% of the country's salt-marsh habitat. 


What you may not know, however, & please pay attention class, is this: - Over the last few decades there has been a 40% [approx.] decline in Zostera capensis, the local seagrass. That has had a cascading (-) effect on the invertebrate biomass - & the wading birds that eat them. There are fewer birds today than there were yesterday & probably more today than there will be tomorra - & a similar act plays out most everywhere else. 

Fortunately, in the intertidal zone [betwixt high & low tides], lurks a small gastropod  - the Assiminea globulus. This endearing operculate keeps a lid on the losses, & is the favoured prey of the Curlew Sandpiper - hence the prevalence of said sandpiper going about it's business on the sandy substrate. Unbelievably, the invertebrate biomass peaks in October & February which coincides exactly with the 'fattening comings & goings' of the annual shorebird migration. Clearly an evolutionary co-inky-dink... 

Langebaan - West Coast NP

As beguiling as the Curlew Sands are, & especially in aggregation before their impending departure - for the birding cognoscente, time is a thief; more is... better. More effort, however, isn't. 

Crawling on the meniscus of the littoral zone, to see shorebirds, is a dirty business & not considered pucker. Nobody likes a wackadoo.

To solve this conundrum, the authorities have appended three 'long-walk' bird-hides to the general offering. Armed with a map & an overnight survival kit, birders who complete the trek & who are still in good spirits, are rewarded with close-up (?) views of wading birds poking [in the sand]. At Geelbek ['the hide'] those views improve from 2-hours before the rising (semidiurnal) tide ie: the birds come to ya as the tide comes in. 

Hidden betwixt the Curlews were two avian chefs-d'œuvre - the Broad-billed Sandpiper & a Lesser Yellowlegs - aptronyms of their more endearing features & the raison d'etre for this, the most southerly leg of our journey to the ends of the earth. In attendance with us the very individual who first discovered the Legs some weeks before - her Pesach meal, a formal sit-down btw., cooling its heels, at home, in Cape Town. Rare birds tend to have an extraordinary impact on otherwise functional people. In our case we'd driven across the country for 'a glimpse will do'.   

Witsand Nature Reserve - late evening

We headed north one-up, not two - & miserable for it. Such are the vagaries of birding. I won't prattle on about the details; suffice to say we had a blast despite the 'something fishy'. We did, however, hand over hard-won loot to the proprietor of our scheduled stop in Citrusdal; a misnomer btw. - 'Detritusdal' the more appropriate handle. One look at the 'kampterrein' [a farmyard with roaming, defecating livestock] & we turned tail - I did, at least. Alisha is tougher than the eye suggests. I won the day, however, a rarity in itself. 

We left without so much as a by your leave & ended back at the point from where we had started earlier that morning: in Clanwilliam - fortunately not at HappyTown but at one of the local B&Bs. Unfortunately, the sun had set & holiday darkness, in the Cape, closes restaurant doors it seems... Perhaps there was something fishy in our demeanour? Either way, we snacked on a carb & sugar-induced nightmare of 'will tomorrow never come?'.   

Klein Pella - south of the Orange River near Pofadder

As it happens, the sun did rise & we tootled 'up-coast' as far as Springbok before turning further inland, to Pofadder, where we spent the night. 

There are few [seriously!], if any, more aesthetically appealing vistas in all of South Africa than those on offer in & around Pofadder; a backwater town servicing vagabonds & providing some religious succour to the local farming community. The birding is quintessential & the portions of peace & quiet, generous. A brief glimpse of a Black-footed Cat didn't hurt either. 

Imagine our chagrin, if you will, when we were confronted, early next, by a monstrosity that can only be described as a spit in the eye & an affront to Shangri-la. Before I get to that - a small taste of progress, further west, at Aggeneys; a mining town built to exploit the region's base metal riches. In its defence, & for what that's worth, it does as the tin threatens - mine. Even so, a mountain of overburden dumped adjacent ancient rock formations, as yet untarnished, is sad & an ice-block of pee in a crystal glass of spring-water, on a hot day - depreciating...

Aggeneys - (100t dump-truck on the top-left for scale. See it?)

The monstrosity, alluded to earlier, bears its fangs on the N14, nearer the western shores of Upington. Colloquially, this Decepticon is called the KSO Tower - or the Khi Solar One. This mega 'community-upliftment project' [a solar-power-tower-solar-thermal-plant (yessir)] focuses solar energy on a boiler some 200m overhead.  This pot-o-water superheats steam to a skin-wrinking 500-odd degrees Celsius - the energy which drives a turbine. The resultant 50 MW is sold to Eskom on a 20-year 'the public pays pay more for it' deal. For the purists, the plant covers 140 hectares, boasts a tower some 205m high, utilises 4000 heliostats covering 575 000 square meters of mirror surface & is a first for Africa. 

Hardly impressive, really. Kids have used similar technology [ie: the sun & a magnifying glass], for eons & with some success. Ask the ants.

KSO - Upington

KSO was developed by Abengoa, a Spanish company; the same company which initiated insolvency proceedings in 2015. 

Handed to & owned by Khi Solar One (PTY)Ltd in 2015, an entity, in turn, owned by Abengoa (*51%), the IDC (29%) and the local community in their Khi Community Trust (20%), KSO is the first tower plant in Africa to operate around the clock on solar energy only. It's a bold claim. 

Goodie-gumdrops & a boon for the Spanish Empire. 

BTW. in 2014 a crane 'accident' killed 2 & injured more; blood & tears the playthings of power-brokers. Unrelated, but equally snazzy, is a Johannesburg civils group nobody's ever heard of / from before. Here's the fun bit - this same entity utilises a gmail address for official business; a frugal exercise, ... obviously.  

Old-school

KaXu Solar One, situated 40 km NE of Pofadder & built away from the public eye, is owned by the same entities involved at KSO with one exception [a different community - ie: a different trust]. It's the largest solar plant of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. 100 MW [not really] of concentrated solar power [CSP] is 'on record' at the plant. KaXu's specs mirror those employed at KSO but are operated on a larger scale. There are, however, some interesting departures at KaXu. The mirror surfaces are parabolic ie: fancier, more expensive; and most obviously, there's no pot-o-water overhead. 

Are these plants long-lived? They don't appear to be. Muerto [deceased] by 2035 we're told.  Eviva España!

What of the price tag you say? KaXu sets interested consumers back an estimated $900m & was financed offshore, mostly; although some scraps were offered to local entities incl. Firstrand & Nedbank. Abeinsa, owned by Abengoa, was 'awarded' the construction of the plant. At $10m per MW Spain must be thrilled. For context, the South African renewable energy target for 2030 is 17800 MW...    [KaXu + KSO] = 150 MW. We're a little short, I think... 

On the plus side, the EIA was conducted by Savannah, a Johannesburg-based company - & wholly-owned by women. This then girl-power at its best [I know...]

Alisha's boy doing what Alisha does... [not really]

Once the shock had worn off, we continued eastwards & powered down for the night, under open skies, at the Witsand Nature Reserve - 'home of (the) ... Kalahari sands'.  

There are few, if any, more aesthetically appealing vistas in all of South Africa than those on offer in & around Witsand. Trust me.  

More in the next...

Dreamcatcher - Flock at Sea AGAIN!

For an enchanted moment, the ship must have held its breath. 

Plucked from a fairy-tale, somewhere forward of the port bow, a Sooty Albatross took to the skies, soared into view and hovered like an evangelist on the draught of the collective inhale. I remember turning wordlessly to Alisha, partners in wonder; and shared a dream, a lifetime’s second that will endure for as long as we care to look up. I can still hear the incredulous silence; the flash of confirmation; an out-pour of emotion – screams of backslapping laughter. Our small crew; we happy few, riding shotgun high on the fore of deck 12, danced on the clouds. We drew in big gulps of it; a wild, spontaneous joy that had come suddenly to the air, unaware of ourselves for one strange Tuesday morning hour.

Well done Birdlife SA

From the viewing decks of the MSC Sinfonia, on the 25th of April, and somewhere between 06h30 and 09h30, Birdlife SA’s Flock at Sea AGAIN!, steamed into legend. Save for a single, jaded personality who’d seen and done it all, every soul out on deck, fore or aft, wrote down something new, something special. Strangers rose above the station of their tags and became friends; and for the shortest time Flock at Sea was a murmuration of common purpose. It’s likely we’ll never see the same again & that’s okay.

I know the Light-mantled Albatross was a stampede, literally for some, but for me, at least, that first permanently smiling, white-ringed Sooty was better, much better – an unsullied trend-setter & the axis in time for the other specials before & after. Blue Petrel, White-headed Petrel, Grey Petrel; and a myriad of albatrosses were the supporting cast – each worthy of more and, in time, perhaps, the centrepiece of their own tale in the retelling of it. Kerguelen (Kerr-ghee-lynn) Petrel was seen but we missed those. Someone said Oi (a gadfly mutton) but the Grey-faced Petrel hugged the slippery slopes of mystery and was not seen either.

It’s no surprise that Wednesday was ordinary and proved a disappointment for many. The colder & darker seas that had held us enthralled were a distant night’s cruise away. The chumming attempt – a double-header serving of frozen fish-canapés, scheduled for 9 am.(why?) and dragged off the stern much later, was wholly unsuccessful, logistically fraught at (‘a slowed..’) cruising speed & a bumbling farce of broken crates & parted towing ropes. A mass-produced boogie-board with mermaids or dolphins (who doesn’t like dolphins?) – child’s play really, would have skimmed rather than drowned the offering. Mea culpa - a strategic blunder & a distraction away from the front of the boat where the cool birds hang out. Only a fool trips on what's behind him ... (anon).

Seabirds ridge-soar on the updrafts created by the ship’s superstructure & cruise-ship Captains like to steam into the wind which may be why reported specials from the forward decks included White-faced Storm Petrel, Salvin’s Albatross and Salvin’s Prion... Chalk those up on the black-board of despair too!

So, like a good marriage, we’d started off with a bang - a titillating hoedown straight out the blocks; and a hangover of distraction and supposed missed opportunity not long after. That kept us up & out on the cabin balcony way into the tea hours. The Sinfonia (‘Sin-fore-knee-ah’ - apparently…) blazed into the wistful night, its running-lights lighting the glassy sea for all the squid to see. 

Curiosity kills the squid we learned. Storm Petrels including Leach’s, Wilson’s and Black-bellied skipped, hopped, swooped – an aerial flaying / dismembering of the hapless cephalopods in nugget-sized bites! Albatrosses bullied the light-tripping stragglers further out but it was a pair of White-headed Petrels that held us enthralled; leap-frogging their way, on shuffle, at the starboard’s street-lit delicatessen – snatching antipasti off the surface. 

On the following night, the excursion’s last, the keen & the restless stood shoulder to shoulder at the railings of Deck 6; I assume to express their sympathies for the protagonists in their Squid Games struggles. 

Who will forget the crowd’s roar when that diving Great Shearwater resurfaced squid in hand…

Two more probable newbies buzzed the bow on Thursday morning in typical small shearwater fashion – their fly & flow routine characterised by a shallow, rapid wing-beat; a glide the tailpiece. 

Subantarctic Shearwater (x2) [P. elegans] from Chatham & the Tristan da Cunha group and its previously considered conspecific, the Little Shearwater [P. assimilis], more at home elsewhere in the Antipodes, both made it onto the high-5 list. Puffinus elegans was the 1st to show and despite the name, the Subantarctic Shearwater is unrelated to the puffins / auks - the only similarity being that they are both burrow-nesting seabirds. Puffinus assimilis, boasting a whiter face, with the demarcation line between black and white passing over or through the eye rather than below the eye as it does in P. elegans, beat a hasty retreat across the chop a little later.

Naturally, an event of this magnitude was not without its controversy both out at sea and in the planning of the event itself; and in the interests of fair play and constructive criticism I want to deal with both. 

That does not abrogate from an excursion which was generally well organised and mostly sensible. The fact that people queued for extended periods to board the ship, is entirely the blame of MSC; a company renowned for bumbling farce and a laissez-faire attitude to service both on & off the ship. We paid R150 pp to fast-track our boarding – money well spent. Chalk that up to experience and our son Sebastian’s (2 yrs.) disregard for good form.  

Russian - owned trawlers in SA waters

The great albatrosses of the genus Diomedea are well known for their complex series of age-related plumage changes. Most adults, unlike other birds, continue to change, becoming progressively whiter as they age. The larger southern-breeding Diomedea exulans (Wandering) and the smaller Diomedea dabbenena (Tristan) from Gough Island (extirpated on the main Tristan group more than 100 yrs. ago) are especially difficult to distinguish in the field – some say impossible to separate reliably and yet genetic evidence confirms that the Tristan Albatross is distinct. 

Most accept that males are larger and have deeper bills than females, with less of a slender saddle behind the nail. From there it gets tricky – some evidence points to Tristan retaining the penciling on the underparts for longer, relative to the upperparts, which results in a more prominent breast band. Sexing & aging the bird against known age-related plumage progression, is currently mooted as a reliable field characteristic for separating the two species. Those criteria are soon to be published & peer reviewed.

Based on the field characteristics proposed by an apple-picking, ex-civil servant, now MBE, author of Seabirds: An identification guide, co-founder of Zegrahm and with more than 150 excursions to the Antarctic under his belt, two birds we saw in his company were Tristan Albatross. Whilst not at odds with the Director of the Fitzpatrick Institute, the 1st A-rated ornithologist in SA and for 2 decades in charge of SANAP’s seabird research in the Southern Ocean, their views differ, some would say, fundamentally. Cynics will say that the species have been split to afford the geographically-distinct populations more protection (i.e. funding) & those of us not included in the gag are simply on the trail of the impossible, looking for clues that don’t exist. 

Point to the sky & some poor sod sees an alien… 

I’m not buying it. I am, in fact, front & centre in Peter’s camp.

In other, less-savoury news, Wandering & Tristan Albatross expel, (from their nasal tubes), a mixture of saline secretion from their salt glands [all seabirds have them] & some stomach oil stained pink from the food they eat. This liquid dyes their feathers as it moves past their head, an unfortunate codicil in the Handbook of aerial snorts. It may be satisfying (gesundheit) but the aerodynamic forces associated with flight are applicable, even out at sea. Imagine, if you will, flying into an odoriferous spritz of pink sauce from an aerosol can…& you get the picture. Why the Royal Albatrosses don’t have the same staining is a function of the morphology of their bills. The Royals have larger, more bulbous nasal tubes. This fortunate adaption enables the Royals to vent their own versions of pink sauce with more expertise & as a consequence, further away from their fuselage i.e. no staining.

As for the event one or two things come to mind; some positive - others negative. I usually don't mention specific people by name & I won't do so here either. Notwithstanding, one particular individual of the organising committee was in constant touch with people, new & familiar. Her informal, more personal words of welcome, well received! I might have missed the others but that’s the point… I noted the same person's FB post [shortly after docking] – a simple word of thanks for the broader community's support. That too is important. I look forward to something similar, in a nicely worded email, from Birdlife SA, soon.

Deck 11 - MSC Sinfonia

The demographic of birding has changed. People are getting younger – young families in the field are not uncommon. Although the Flock concept is world-class and should be SA’s equivalent of the UK’s Bird Fair & the delivery of the itinerary fine – detailed planning for families was almost entirely absent. Insufficient attention was given to families with young children and, let’s not forget, the use of the boat was exclusively Birdlife SA’s. 

I imagine MSC was difficult to deal with but that does not detract from ensuring that activities for children are thematically appropriate and at times when the birding was expected to be at its best i.e. early morning and late afternoon. The MSC’s usual activity-program [i.e children] was woeful to say the least. Many good birders missed out on the birds they hoped to see – employed elsewhere, supervising children, during the times inconsistent with the MSC program. Birdlife SA fell woefully short & missed an opportunity. The same applies for the older kids [we have a handful]. 

The same embarkation room-drop should have included a Flock at Sea AGAIN! information booklet 

Birdlife SA lanyards / tags should have been part of the room-drop on embarkation. Queuing for lanyards and name-tags, after the MSC's boarding process, was outrageous. Worse than that, handing them back at the end of the excursion, was simply unforgivable. The same room-drop should have included a Flock at Sea AGAIN! information booklet with some basic information & that includes (inter alia):

1. Guide biographies
2. Guide-specific timetables / station postings
3. Speaker / lecturer biographies
4. Planned-for bird-related activities e.g.: chumming schedules
5. A full guest-list published at the back of the booklet
6. Simple ID references for the expected specials
7. The Flock at Sea ‘Organising Committee’ – biographies, photos and station on the ship

          etcetera…

An evening birdlist, cruise-tracking map & other matters of interest / ID debates etc. would have been a welcome slider in the MSC’s evening newsletter. The same published list of species seen should have been displayed prominently, in public, at the end of each evening and a full excursion list emailed to participants at the end of the cruise. Communication on these principal issues was poor to say the least - particularly for frustrated parents who needed more information to plan their day’s viewing...

The event’s themed penguin dinner would have been more fitting as the closing social, up on the open deck, on Thursday evening, at a single sitting for the entire ship’s company. Restaurants, including the buffet should have been closed for the duration of Thursday’s social. The Captain’s Dinner is a tradition & should be respected; and not thematically overlapped – i.e. the excursion’s opening social.

Out on the viewing decks, whilst most of the Guides were adequately attentive, communication across the decks was understated and birds called once were not consistently called again. Guests move stations… often.

Deck 8 - MSC Sinfonia

Although the guiding standards were okay - as expected - some identification howlers & particularly from the bushveld-based – guides will forever go down in infamy. We’re a fallible, sensitive species… Be gracious. Two Guides stood out for me – both seasoned seabird professionals with an eye for detail. One was asked to vacate his seat from atop a bollard on Deck 8 by an unsmiling, ill-mannered security officer and the other latched onto Alisha’s 'Subantarctic Shearwater' with professional ease.

The Zest Guides were almost always stationed elsewhere unfortunately – their followers legion, no doubt; their ability indisputable. That said, I’m sure Barry was missed; an icon in local sea-birding circles and one of few to have seen Light-mantled Albatross before the rest of us had that honour. It’s on an excursion like this one that we’re reminded of the fleeting nature of life & of other special times – Barry featured prominently on many other pelagic-excursions which we were fortunate enough to be passengers on; one of which is still remembered by most on board, all these years later.

Recognised for his outstanding contributions to ornithology and awarded the Gill Memorial Medal Award, Birdlife SA’s highest accolade, I was saddened to see the poor turnout at Professor Underhill’s lecture later that evening; the excursion’s last. A slot immediately before or after the AGM would have been more appropriate.

If the seabirds were the chief protagonists in an unscripted show; the entertainment was found behind the rail; on two legs. 

At the call of Light-mantled Albatross the fleet of foot, caught on the wrong side of right, careened off the rails, vaulted over - deck-chairs, open-gaped staff & birders too slow on the double-back; a scarpering swarm of ants on a hot-tin roof aimed at all points of the compass. One got lost in the mayhem and crashed down the stairs, briefly stunned before another mad dash in the wrong direction. Another skittled across the plush decks down below – over & under tables, Italian-built furniture unmoved by the kinetic energy of bare feet slapping the planks in a race against the fly-by. Time slowed & still they fell like panna cotta off a hot spoon…

Elsewhere rails built for one accommodated a string of birders 5-deep. Views of the seas, the usual canvas for seabird-activity; & especially for the vertically-challenged out back, were an impossible dream. One gentlewoman demanded the immediate installation of a grandstand on Deck 8 – the MSC crew less than complimentary in reply & although my Italian’s rudimentary at best, ‘stronza’ was a bit strong… 

Another exuberant dumpling, a rainbow of radiance & accustomed to the finer things in life, demanded a hand-hoist up to a platform from which she’d have uninterrupted views of the surf & serf down below. Hands, many coarse, hairy, unfamiliar hands, pushed her from below, white-knuckles long hidden in the bottom's sag – others groaned above – hauling, bug-eyed, against the earth’s gravitational pull. The core of her remained unmoved, in suspended animation, four feet off the deck. When her knees had passed her quivering chins she called time or she or they would likely have split a seal & sprung a leak. 

As for myself, a round of $-denominated drinks [Made in South Africa], keeled over in a funk & landed in my lap; an ice-like vice in Monday evening’s gale when the chill factor was close to inversion. But more than that & in addition to the birds of that incredible Tuesday morning, we will remember this cruise for the people; people who banded together, at some expense, to secure the exclusivity of the Sinfonia & the freedom of travel that support allowed; people who volunteered their equipment to those whose optics might not have been quite up to the task; for the patience of strangers assisting those who struggled to get onto birds and for the dedication of the many, both young & old, who held vigil at the rails, hour after hour, in the hopes of sharing something new; something special.

Flock on! AGAIN & AGAIN…

Bush diving for tail

Daddy's boy

We joined the other foot soldiers & travelled down to Cape Town for the piper's Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin (Cercotrichas galactotes); the sub-region's 1st-confirmed sighting ie: a giga. The fact that the bird subsequently proved less inspiring than inversion on a cold morning, is a short story for another time.

Sebastian, our son & a month shy of his own airline seat, tagged along for the return flight. Ever his mother's child, the boy will live-on in the memory of those passengers close-enough to poke. His is an extended arm of genius; rare in boys this young.

Where one journey hides an end..  seek 

For those who don't know, a giga describes an ornithological observation no less astonishing than sightings of the marginally rarer unicorn. This catchall brings out birders, birdwatchers, the curious & the kind of people who think genius is Africa's gnome in the bottle.

Late Tuesday the scrub robin showed in ugly spurts. An addendum to the afternoon featured an over-zealous bumpkin - a local power-doughnut who claimed some sort of crowd-funded social validation; solace, perhaps, for having being excluded from the shampoo aisle some time ago. Apparently the bird's 'evening roost' had revealed itself to this luminary mid-morning the day before; a harebrained hypothesis of coincidence if ever there was. We were living the dream ... & returned next morning for better views. 

Kung-fu master

Southern Africa's birding Elder greeted the field's company early on Wednesday morning - an emotive trigger for the sheep & a soloist on Snowy vs. Dimorphic; a mechanical, banal debate lost in translation not long after both egrets were all but belittled. Fortunately as the weather worsened the day heated up.

Enter crouching dragon; easy tiger... Here's how the saga fluffed its actors.

The bird was partial to a hidden scrape in the earthy arena of three small trees, a short flit away from where some of us sheltered against the Gents - the local hang-out.

Somewhere between 'Where is it?' & 'Where did it go?' a human wall of hand-holding oohs encircled the trees until the object of their desires flashed a semi. Clearly The Wall liked what they saw. The more fluid joined the bird in the trees - tai chi masters playing twister in the leafy bric-à-brac. Entwined like squid at an orgy they clung, swung & swayed in the stiffening breeze. From the nearby olive-branch some useful simpleton played a call - a simulated 'we come in peace.' ..

Time aged - Dreamtime's beginning of knowledge...

The Great Exodus from the bush was awesome. A tsunami of flaccid panic & chaos. In the lead - cock robin. Close behind; the pursuit. The fans flushed fast, scattered widely - then followed, baying like the Hounds of Baskerville. Lickety-split the robin goosed into the scrub nearest us; exposed itself once and went down. A babel uproar... The pursuit lost the scent & milled about, bummed - stiff-legged.

For some time I've been aware of a split along a new dividing line. There are those who take the field in quiet contemplation. Then there are those who live in a world obsessed with virtual / #social simulation. These people think initiative & responsibility are optional condiments on a greasy plate of chips.