Cape Town - We recently took a drive out to the West Coast National Park on the Langebaan lagoon with the idea of seeing the spring flowers. They are really something of a natural wonder and last year I was fortunate enough to take a hike through the Postberg section of the reserve, walking for hours through what seemed to be an endless carpet of natural colour.
Although not able to hike on this trip, we had high hopes of seeing some of the natural splendour and perhaps to get some pictures of the bontebok, wildebeest, ostriches and eland.
It was a gloriously warm and sunny spring morning, a welcome change after heavy rain during the week, and although the queue at the gate caused something of a delay it wasn’t onerous, the advantage perhaps of getting out there on a week day.
This park is one of my favourites, with plenty to see and a wide variety of land and seascapes ranging from the placid waters of the lagoon on the one side to the pounding surf beating against the beach on the other.
The park plays host to a good number of game species so you are more than likely to see something of interest as well as the flowers during the spring. In fact even while waiting on the roadside for the queue to diminish we were able to watch a buzzard soar on the sea breeze, riding the wind with effortless grace while we cooked on the rapidly warming tarmac. There are days, I am sure, when we all wonder what it would be like to be able to soar like a bird.
Our passage through the gate was speeded up because we had had the foresight to print out and complete the required forms available online from the SAN parks website (www.sanparks.co.za/parks/west_coast), and after little delay we were on the road, watching eland, ostriches and bontebok on our drive through the park to the Postberg section. This part of the park is only open to the public during flower season, but even when it is closed there is plenty to entertain within the park proper.
Once we reached the peninsula that is the Postberg, we started to get a real view of how magnificent the flowers are. It is difficult to describe the absolute abundance of blooms and colours, although to be fair I don’t think the experience is quite the same from a vehicle as it is when walking. Perhaps being on foot simply magnifies the scale of this wonder – it is enough to make you feel rather insignificant, not unlike the effect of looking up at the myriad stars of a cloudless night.
As we drove it became clear that there was an unusually large number of gulls flying over the swathes of coloured daisies. Not one or two birds, but probably hundreds of them were swooping and gliding in veritable clouds. Their behaviour was obviously related to some natural phenomenon but we struggled to work out what.
As we passed through the park the birds were a constant presence and it appeared they had to be feeding on something that had become available in large number. Eventually we stopped and got out of the car for a closer look but still couldn’t fathom the reason.
We hunted among the flowers and tried to watch the birds more closely. It was obvious they were taking something on the wing but what could it be?
Then finally we spotted the cause: thousands upon thousands of flying ants (termites), taking to the wing in nuptial flight.
As we watched numerous kinds of gull swooped past, feasting on the hapless insects, and then, even more remarkably, about half a dozen yellow-billed kites joined the fray, catching the bugs in their talons and then bending in the air to pick their dinner from their claws. It really was most remarkable. They are adept predators, quite capable of capturing small vertebrates, but here they were gorging themselves on tiny insects.
You can only imagine that perhaps the combination of abundance and the highly nutritious calorific value of the termites made their efforts more than worthwhile. All quite a sight to behold and I spent ages trying to capture this unusual behaviour with the camera. It all really took our minds and eyes away from the flowers.
But then again, that is nature for you. You head out looking for one thing and discover another miracle as if by accident. It is simply a case of being prepared to take heed of what the natural world throws at you and being ready to notice when something rather unusual occurs.
After years of walking and driving through various parks I have never seen anything quite like this spectacle, though, and it turned a casual drive into something of a red-letter day.
Sunday Argus