Sugarbirds

One of the big photographic targets for the trip was the Cape Sugarbird – Mick and I had seen many images of these fantastic birds on equally fabulous flower heads and were very keen to try and get something similar. Whilst I don’t think I managed anything quite as wonderful as the very best images that you find when doing an internet search, I came away quite pleased.  

We had two opportunities – the first at Kirstenbosch under unfortunately overcast skies, and the second at Harold Porter botanical garden which is quite near the Stony Point penguin colony. This was a lot better as we had the benefit of early morning sunshine hitting the protea-carpeted slopes. One thing I would say is that whilst you are guaranteed birds at these two locations neither of them open early enough for the very best light. For that I think you would need to be out in wild Fynbos habitat, but I do not know how accessible that is. The layout of paths and so on at botanic gardens did make it relatively easy to find a decent shooting position.

So here are a few of the images that I returned with. It was surprisingly difficult to get a shot containing the entire tail! Even though there is very little Sugarbird on view, I think my favourite image is the first one with just the head poking out of a cluster of Proteas.