South Africa Bird Tour Day 1 – Cinnamon House
Although we arrived on October 5, 2025 the official start of our Red Hill Birding bird tour began on October 8. As previously mentioned we arrived a few days early to recover from the long flight and to explore Cape Town.
The first three nights of the tour we stayed in the Cinnamon Guest House which was a small hotel set within a residential area several miles north of Cape Town.
Karen and I lucked out as we had a gorgeous view out of our window. You can see Table Mountain in the back right and if you look closely you can see some of Cape Town at its base. Just behind Cinnamon House was a large marsh with lots of birds!
As we looked down from our room at the sandy shore between Cinnamon House and the marsh we spotted a lifer digging in the warm sand – a pair of Cape Spurfowl.
Flying back and forth over the sandy shore was a bright flash of red. It was easy to identify with our binoculars and I had to get a picture of our first Red Bishop.
The tour group (8 participants) met in the lobby with our guide Josh Engle at 4 PM. After introductions and preliminaries we headed out back to the marsh to look for more Lifers. We accumulated 17 lifers just in a few hours while at our hotel! One of my favorites in the marsh was this colorful Little Grebe.
Farther back in the marsh we saw some White-backed Ducks chasing each other. As Josh foretold, this was the only time we saw this species.
Similar to our American Coots, there were several Red-knobbed Coots swimming in the blue (reflective) water. Not only did they have a red knob on the top of their head their eyes were also bright red.
The Scared Ibis was seen everywhere we went in South Africa until we hit Kruger National Park. These large birds we easy to spot and slow enough so I could get some good BIF shots of them, like this one over the marsh. It is called a Sacred Ibis because the ancient Egyptians believed it symbolized the Thoth, the god of knowledge and wisdom. They mummified thousands of them with their dead royalty.
After observing the activity in marsh we walked around the neighborhood in search of more bird species. I don’t know what the neighbors thought of 10 people walking past their house with binoculars and big cameras, but at least nobody called the police on us. White-backed Mousebirds were plentiful in the neighborhood and if you look closely at the picture below you’ll see its long tail trailing out to the left.
There were a variety of doves and pigeons on the roofs in the neighborhood, all of them Lifers. Take a close look at this Red-eyed Dove, as it lives up to its name.
We circled back to the Cinnamon House and found a Cape Weaver working on its nest right by the front door. During the course of the trip we saw nine different species of weaver, usually make a nest similar to this one.
After a great dinner at a local restaurant we headed back to Cinnamon House and went to bed by 9 PM (2 PM Chicago time). We were up early the next morning and off to our first National Park. More on that trip next time.
CLICK HERE to see all the posts about our South Africa Bird Tour. Karen and I have had the opportunity to travel to many interesting places in search of birds. If you would like read about some of our other Bird Tours CLICK HERE.
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