1-day Cape Peninsula Birding Tour

Cape Town, one of the world’s most beautiful cities, is located near Table Bay on the northern extremity of the stunning Cape Peninsula. This morning we will fetch you from your Cape Town hotel and spend the day taking you to some of the peninsula’s top birding sites. We will try to find a lot of the localized endemics (of which there are many), and we will also see flamingo, pelican, and other waterbird spectacles, plus we will enjoy fantastic botanical garden birding in idyllic surroundings.

The exquisitely colored Orange-breasted Sunbird is actually quite common in fynbos throughout the Cape.

We start the day at the famous Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. Here it is quite easy to find some important fynbos endemics such as Orange-breasted Sunbird and Cape Sugarbird. Other fine birds like Cape Spurfowl, Lemon Dove, Southern Boubou, Spotted Eagle-Owl, Cape Canary, Forest Canary, Cape Robin-Chat, Karoo Prinia, Swee Waxbill, and a whole host of other excellent birds abound. European Honey Buzzard, a very rare bird in South Africa, is actually regular on the slopes of Table Mountain in late summer. Many other raptors are possible in the garden and at other sites we will visit during our peninsula day trip, including Verreaux’s Eagle, Black and Rufous-breasted Sparrowhawks, African Goshawk, Jackal Buzzard, Forest Buzzard (endemic), Rock Kestrel, Peregrine Falcon, and others.

Forest Canary is fairly common on the Cape Peninsula.

The Constantia greenbelts near Kirstenbosch can often prove more productive for a number of forest species, such as Rufous-breasted and Black Sparrowhawks, African Olive Pigeon, African Paradise Flycatcher, Amethyst Sunbird, Cape Siskin, and the introduced Common Chaffinch. African Wood Owl is possible; however, it would require a really early start or a late finish. An additional day greatly increases the chances of finding difficult raptor species such as sparrowhawks/goshawks and Forest Buzzard.

After an early lunch we will visit a wetland, either Rondevlei Nature Reserve or Strandfontein Bird Sanctuary. Here we should find wildfowl such as Cape Teal, Cape Shoveler, Maccoa Duck, South African Shelduck, and many others. There is a multitude of waterbird species to keep us entertained, including Greater Flamingo, African Spoonbill, Great White Pelican, African Oystercatcher, African Swamphen, Water and Spotted Thick-knees, various shorebirds, African Marsh Harrier, a host of heron species, Little Rush, African Reed, and Lesser Swamp Warblers, and many more. Less-commonly seen species include Little Bittern (summer), Malachite Kingfisher, African Snipe, and Blue-billed Teal. In the surrounding fynbos we may find Cape Grassbird, Grey-backed Cisticola, Yellow Bishop, Fiscal Flycatcher, and Bokmakierie, as well as Red-faced and White-backed Mousebirds.

We will visit a colony of African Penguins (one of only three mainland colonies of this southern African endemic), and nearby we should be able to find all four of South Africa’s marine Cormorants (Bank, Cape, Crowned, and White-breasted) and good numbers of the beautiful African Oystercatcher.

The striking African Oystercatcher.

Although not typically included on a birding day tour, for those who are interested we may then carry on farther down the peninsula to the spectacular southwestern-most tip of the African continent, Cape Point. From this “end of the world” spot we should see Cape Gannet, a large breeding colony of Cape Cormorant, African Oystercatcher, and quite a number of interesting terrestrial birds – Cape Grassbird, Cape Siskin, Bokmakierie, and Cape Bulbul are exciting possibilities. When conditions are right a sea watch can produce decent numbers of seabirds, including Cory’s, Great, and Sooty Shearwaters, Shy and Black-browed Albatrosses, White-chinned Petrel, and jaegers.

The guide for day trips is allocated only after you have booked, as all of them are run as private trips. But we always use the country’s top birding guides.