D’Aria Wine Estate, Durbanville.

The 20th of February was a warm and sunny morning at the farm. After everyone had assembled, we made our way to the edge of the dam, counting a few birds.

On our way back, we went through the car park to the pond, with trees that encircled it, where Cape Batis and Amethyst Sunbirds were seen. We were soon distracted by a Booted Eagle flying above.
Shortly afterwards we spotted a Cape White-eye in its nest – just the white eye poking out of the nest was seen!

As we made our way to the vineyards, we came across Swee and Common Waxbills in the long grass in between the rows of grapes. There were probably 100+ of them together, judging by the flocks of them!

We headed back to the dam via another route where we saw a Rock Kestrel flying by. That was not the only raptor we saw for the duration of the day, as we also saw many buzzards, mainly Jackal and Common/Steppe.

photographs by Zoe Lunau-Johns and Daryl de Beer.

Report by Zoe Lunau-Johns.