Tag: Cape Town

Black Crowned Night Heron

Post author By Rick Hughes
Post date 20 March , 2026

This is a juvenile Heron, photographed at Rondevlei. The water levels being fairly low, the birds are forced out into the open providing an ample opportunity for photography.

A tall upright bird with white underparts, black beack and grey back and wings. The eyes are amber and are circled with white feathers.
THe bird is standing on the edge of a reed bed.

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Richards Rambles

@rambler

Expect travel, flowers, stars, hiking, flowers, poetry, stories and did I mention flowers?
And anything that takes my fancy.
The Header Photo is of a cloudy sunset in the Robertson Karoo.
The profile picture is of a pin cushion with a double collared sunbird on the left and a bee on the right.

253 posts

7 followers

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Tags Birding, birdphotography, Cape Town, heron, rondevlei, westerncape

Table Mountain

Climbing Table Mountain

Table Mountain has many paths and routes to the top. Most are sensible, easy hiking. The Platteklip Left B is not one of them. The words on the rock should have warned me.

A brown rock with the words R U SURE?
IF NOT, U CAN GO BACK NOW

The approach is simple.

Four hikers walk along a path that traverses an almost vertocal; mountain wall.

Then it gets tense and the point of that warning becomes clear once you are committed, The thing is that you cannot easily go back easily once committed. Here is why.

An almost vertical wall of rock with a man climbing up a rock while another waits for him

Tags Cape Town, Hiking, Western Cape

Astro-photography Eclipse Moon Photography

Full Eclipse

Post author By Rick Hughes
Post date 9 September , 2025

In very bad conditions I photographed the recent full eclipse. There was lots of light pollution and a lot of aerosols so I was actually quite pleased with the results. I was using a high ISO setting so a lot of grain is visible.
Oh, and for those from the northern hemisphere, you will note that the mare appear to you inverted.

A partial eclipse just above the roof of a nearby building.

An almost fully eclipsed moon, a bright patch on top right of the moon

A full blood moon. Lots of grain because of low light conditions.

Tags Cape Town, eclipse, moon, Photography, Western Cape

Cape Town Photography Sunset

False Bay Sunset

Post author By Richard Hayes
Post date 1 May , 2025

Photo taken from Rooi Else across False Bay.
It is call False Bay because it sometimes fooled sailors of old looking for Table Bay.

A sunset photo with layers of cloud above mountains and the sea.
The entire image is shades ranging from red to purple.

Tags Cape Town, clouds, false bay, Photography, sunset

Clouds GIFs Photography Table Mountain

Stop Motion Photography

I have been trying to get clouds to look good using stop motion photography. This is the first time I have gotten reasonable results. I just forgot to level the camera. Next time!

A GIF of Table Mountain with filmy clouds passing over.
The mountain is flat on top and occupies the lower 10% of the image. Thin filmy clouds move from bottom right of the image to top left.
The sky is a cerulean blue

Tags Cape Town, clouds, gif, GIFs, Photography, stop motion, Western Cape

Astro-photography Astronomy Cape Town Photography Table Mountain

Floodlit Table Mountain

Post author By Richard Hayes
Post date 6 November , 2024

On special occasions, the Council switches on huge spot lights and lights the front face of Table mountain. Tonight is one of those nights.

Table mountain is shown in the bottom third of the photo. I havent fiddled the white balance so the mountain is a green colour which is quite nice.
The rest of the image has stars in a black background
The top cable car station is visible on the flat top of the mountain

Tags Cape Town, Mountains, nightphotograph, Photography, Table Mountain, Western Cape

Astro-photography Eclipse Moon Photography Western Cape

Eclipse over Lion’s Head

Post author By Richard Hayes
Post date 10 October , 2024

A lunar eclipse happened some time back. The images show Lion’s Head and the night hikers lamps. Lions Head is part of the Table Mountain National Park. Lion’s head is a popular hike and is done regularly at night especially when there is an interesting astronomical event happening as in the images below.

A red/orange moon sets over the shoulder of a mountain. Hikers head lamps can be seen on the mountain.
City lights are also visible

The moon and palm trees. LIon's head not visible.

Lions head, a red/orange moon and in this case Scorpio is faintly visible.
More city lights and a crane is visible.
Hikers lights are visible on the mountain

Tags Astro-photography, Cape Town, lions head, Photography, Riviersonderend, Western Cape

Birding Cape Town Photography

Intaka Island

Post author By Richard Hayes
Post date 13 September , 2024

Intaka Island is a wetland and bird sanctuary resulting from a requirement to preserve an existing wetland and provide water purification.
You can see the website here:
We recently visited the sanctuary and enjoyed the peace and serenity offered by the place despite being in the middle of a built up area of Cape Town.