They are mostly seen along the coast line or at the wetlands, but by a stroke of luck I managed to get close to this one grazing on the grass at a shopping centre. Its partner made a fast get away when I sneaked up to take the photo, but somehow this one waited until after the shutter clicked before taking to the sky.
Sacred Ibis
And today in the southern hemisphere we are having our shortest day of the year, so enjoy and don’t forget it is midweek, half way to the weekend.
A familiar every day scene in our area is the ordinary Hadedah Ibis. I have in the past posted photos of this bird on my blog so I won’t bore your with another. Of the Ibis species the Sacred Ibis is not seen here regularly. Actually it is an exception to see them here as we are quite a distance from the sea shore where they are present in large numbers mixing with the gulls. However, much to my surprise, when we arrived at dog training on Wednesday morning there were two Sacred Ibis happily grasing in the field where the training is done. I admit not a great photo as I was trying to control two dogs at the same time as trying to get in a photo, but I was determined not to miss the opportunity available.
A Sacred Ibis
Have great evening, here it will be rugby and cheese fondue to warm the cold winter’s evening.
Once we reached the top of Slangkop our going, due to the flatness, became a breeze. Where the trail became rocky it posed no problems or difficulties as on many of the other trails I have done in the past. The view from the top of Slangkop reminded me of that way back hit of Barbara Streisand “On a clear day you can see forever”.
Looking down towards the Soetwater (Sweet water) recreational area one gets a beautiful view of the light house. It is a pity that the light house itself is somewhat spoilt in appearance as it is currently being repainted and surrounded by scaffolding. Nevertheless it still looks attractive as a light house should.
Being a great admirer of natural flora in the wild I was a bit disappointed in the little that was to be seen, but it is the wrong time of the year for the mountain flora to come forth in all its splendour.
From the summit we continued our hike across the mountain in a slow descend until we reached the road toScarborough. This was probably the most difficult part of the trail – hard and black!
Actually we were quite happy to about a kilometer of absolute easy going on this stretch. Leaving the easy track we entered the thickness of theCapeFynboswhich in parts dwarfed us in size.
Here the trail was extremely narrow, sandy again and thanks to certain of the under growth many, like me, who wore shorts ended up with well scratched legs at the end of the day. In spite of the height and density of the Fynbos we still had a nice view of Slangkop and its kranz facing Soetwater.
After about thirty minutes we left the bushy trail behind us as we reached the Soetwater recreational park where we were greeted by the sea, rocks, kelp and flocks of the Kelp gull and the Sacred Ibis.
Took our morning refreshment break here at Soetwater and then continued on our route back to Kommetjie.
Most of the trail was on dry sea sand, but we had board walks towards the end which made for easy going. On the final stage of the hike we came upon many black sea lizards basking in the sun on the hot rocks.
Speaking of rocks I was amazed at how many red rusted rocks were present amongst the otherwise standard grey and black rocks of the coast line.
At the conclusion of our hike this Sacred Ibis came flying overhead almost if complementing us for completing the twelve kilometers trail we have done while saying good bye.
That then wraps up another hiking adventure. Have a super weekend.
