Vernon Chalmers Photography: Bird Photography Table Bay Nature Reserve, Woodbridge Island

24 June 2021

Bird Photography Table Bay Nature Reserve, Woodbridge Island

Purple Heron in Flight Diep River Woodbridge Island Vernon Chalmers Photography

Between all the rainy days forecasted for this week today was probably the best weather and light of the week. I only left my studio after 10:00 due the poor light and some cloud cover.

The weather (and the light) cleared up quite nicely by the time I got down the Diep River, Woodbridge Island on my usual walk down to the Table Bay Nature Reserve. During the walk I was fortunate to observe and photograph the rare (for here) purple heron. There was a pair, but I only mange to get an extreme long range shot of one of them.

I was greeted with all the usual birds with lots of common starlings around. I manage to capture a few Cape cormorants and eventually walked to the reserve. Here I saw many Cape spurfowls, yellow-billed ducks, Southern masked weavers and a few grey herons. On my return I photographed the 'sprinting' common moorhen along the Diep River and one of the two resident pied crows.

The highlight in the reserve - and my morning - was the successful stalking of the fidgety Karoo prinea - a rare small bird for me down here. I've only seen them a couple of times in the last ten years around this area.

Birds of the morning: