Author: DMcA

One of my most recent discoveries for Cape Town bird photography (with thanks to M) has been Intaka island. This is a unique 16 hectare wetland and wildlife sanctuary located right at the centre of one of Cape Town’s most swish developments, Century City. For Brits, imagine London’s Barbican centre, at 5x the scale in a semi-tropical environment, with a 40 acre protected wildlife reserve at the centre of it. CC has fancy apartments, canals, neighbourhood shops, office blocks, and some great cafes and bars, plus a sizable conference centre, and magically also contains this peaceful oasis right at the centre.



Intaka is home to 177 species of indigenous fynbos plants and 120 bird species, so is a very significant resource. There are two main ponds: the largest one has a huge Cormorant and Sacred Ibis population, which I have photographed in detail before. On previous visits I never saw much interest in the smaller one. However, the occupants of this pond, although less visible are no less interesting, because you can sometimes see beautiful Malachite Kingfishers there,



Intaka normally opens at 7:00 am, but on a recent visit, I found you could buy a key to the gates and enter at any time. As a result, I came at 6:00 am on three successive days to try and catch the Kingfisher diving.



Trying to photograph a Kingfisher is difficult. Trying to catch it in flight is extremely difficult. You can wait up to 2 hours for one to arrive, and it might only be there for 2-3 minutes. They are also lightning fast. I eventually got several sequences at 50 frames per second of the Malachite diving from its perch into the water. From perch to water took 14 frames, or 0.3 of a second for the full flight. It was back on the perch equally fast.



I am a geyser of the older variety and my reaction time is around 0.3 to 0.5 seconds. So it’s physically impossible to capture this without some help. That help is the Olympus/OM system Pro Capture feature. This amazing capability (now copied badly, shamelessly and without any attribution by Sony and Canon), allows this kind of sequence to be frozen in time. The OM camera buffers up to 4 seconds of images (max of 99) without saving anything (the Sony is only 1 second). When you fully press the shutter button, the whole sequence is saved, so you can go back in time 4 seconds (actually up to 10 seconds at slower shutter speeds). I used 50 fps, and a buffer of around 35 images to capture the in-flight shots. BTW, 50fps is an impossible frame rate for Canon and Sony, which in practice manage only about 25fps for long bursts.



This album starts with a fairly ruffled looking Malachite in the middle of his wash and brush-up. Then two full sequences of diving for a tasty freshwater prawn including the “money shots” of it entering the water. These are followed by a sequence of him getting breakfast prepared, which consists of repeatedly whacking the unfortunate prawn against the side of the perch. The last two shots are of the Pied Kingfisher, which is less frequently seen at the pond and which I have never seen fishing. Did get it in flight though.



All of these shots were taken with the OM1 Mkii and the new 50-200 (100-400mm FFE) f2.8 lens – the “Little White”, with either the 1.4x or 22.0x teleconverters. I have never shot a Kingfisher in earnest before, and these are the best images I have ever got, so there are quite a few.





Touch or click any image to go to a lightbox view and then touch the full screen icon in the top right-hand corner to get the best viewing experience. For information on the shot and the location, be sure to click the little ‘i’ icon. And finally click the “heart” icon for photos you particularly like – this helps me understand which photos are more popular

For many years I only really photographed the majestic Sacred Ibis while in Cape Town. Recently however, I have been exploring other birds at the many wildlife reserves in and near the city. One superb location is the False Bay nature reserve, to the east of Muizenberg. This massive reserve includes the lakes of Rondevlei and Zeekoevlei as well as the huge waste water treatment works at Strandfontein.



The Strandfontein section is a particular paradise for birds and bird lovers, albeit with a slightly fruity atmosphere near the main treatment ponds. It has hundreds of Flamingos, Ibis, Egrets and Pelicans among other species in a peaceful and tourist-free environment. Critically, it’s possible to drive right the way through it, which makes for a very productive session every visit.



Another very productive area which was new to me this trip was the shoreline at the Kom – the natural lagoon that forms the heart of Kommetjie on the Atlantic coast. I have photographed Ibis on the lagoon shores, but there is a much more diverse bird population on the Atlantic shoreline. This is not at all easy to physically reach but with a long (800mm FFE) lens and a bit of scrambling it’s possible to get just close enough to capture the little buggers in flight.



There are also a few photos in this album from the wonderful Intaka reserve, more fully described in the next album of Kingfisher photos. Plus, I have added some shots of (mostly) dragonflies in flight taken at the beautiful Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape town.


On this trip I took my OM1 Mkii and the new 50-200 (100-400mm FFE) f2.8 lens – the “Little White”. As in Sri Lanka, it proved to be up to most situations it encountered even with a 2x converter taking it to 200-800mm FFE, and gave me enough confidence to take it to Costa Rica for three weeks and 70,00 images of bird photography.





Touch or click any image to go to a lightbox view and then touch the full screen icon in the top right-hand corner to get the best viewing experience. For information on the shot and the location, be sure to click the little ‘i’ icon. And it would be nice if you ccould click the “heart” icon for photos you particularly like – this helps me understand which photos are more popular