{"id":41249,"date":"2013-06-25T09:13:15","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T07:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=41249"},"modified":"2024-06-17T14:34:03","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T13:34:03","slug":"snowy-sheathbill-in-south-africas-eastern-cape-province","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/snowy-sheathbill-in-south-africas-eastern-cape-province\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowy Sheathbill in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Is this the Eastern Cape? Take me home,<\/p>\n

please<\/p>\n

…!<\/p>\n

If there’s anything more stressful or tedious than a domestic flight, generally, then it has to be a domestic flight to the Eastern Cape, specifically. The hour’s flying time has unwary visitors buffeting in the 20 knot ‘onshore breeze’ well before most succeed in wrestling their seat-belt from under the frame-hugging buttocks of the unwashed behemoth in the adjacent seat. Squawking toddlers, wielding saliva-encrusted plasticrattlers& routinely allocated the seat behind, play whack-the-bald spot,a rather miserable game for the receiving passenger in front.. This & teeth-decaying flatulence from the aforementioned behemothtends to abrogate from the majestic mountains of the Drakensberg seen from the window-seat’sporthole of hopeas the plane heads south.<\/p>\n

Vegetation, trees especially, are aslaid backas the local people, a function of the prevailing ‘onshore breeze’ (ie: gale) rather than by design or attitude. Seasoned travelers to the Eastern Cape’sBuffalo City(East London & surrounds) observe, wistfully, thedepartures’ loungeon their way out to rentals from thearrivals-hall..<\/p>\n

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A suspension bridge joins the island to the ‘mainland’<\/p>\n

Occasionally circumstance negates free-will and obligation dictates action. A Greater (Snowy) Sheathbill, an ‘assisted’ vagrant to these shores, was recently reported from the Eastern Cape’s Mazeppa Bay; a fishing hamlet a ‘short drive’ [30 minutes byconcorde] away from the aptly namedHole-in-the-wall,another fishing hamlet. In the Eastern Cape a ‘short drive’ is anything closer than theHubble Telescope,the taxman’s pineapple spy way up in the sky.. Ask aSlummies(East London) inhabitant for directions to Mazeppa Bay & you’ll be told it’s in the ‘Kye’ (Kei) a ‘short drive’ away. Don’t ask.<\/p>\n

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G. Sheathbill – Mazeppa Island ‘Point’ June 2013<\/p>\n

A common inhabitant of the Antarctic most, if not all, Sheathbills are considered ship-assisted vagrants to these shores. Sheathbills, incidentally, are not adverse to feeding on faeces or droppings, an unusual characteristic of the avian world. For its curious nature, only amother-can-love-it looksand the fact that we hadn’t seen the Sheathbill in the sub-region before, Alisha & I boarded Sunday’s 6 am. flight to East London. From there we drove the 3 hour \/ 190 odd kilometers ‘miss-the-angora goat’ obstacle course up-coast to Mazeppa Bay. Road conditions were interesting..<\/p>\n

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G. Sheathbill – Mazeppa Bay ‘Boiling Pot’ June 2013<\/p>\n

Mazeppa Bay itself, a mecca for shore-fishermen, is defined by its hotel, wild seas and rugged coastline. Follow the boat-launch path down to the shoreline, cross the suspension bridge to the island & Bob’s probably your uncle, that’s all there is to it. Hopelessly lost, yet completely at ease & showing no signs of distress, the Sheathbill permitted excellent views. Later we were accompanied by fishermen, holidaymakers & a horde of local kids who joined us as we leopard-crawled over hill & dale in pursuit of ‘the shot’.<\/p>\n

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The ‘Supermoon’ – a welcome sight as we threaded through the traffic, home.<\/p>\n

We returned home later thatarvie(afternoon) on the 6 pm flight, battered by thebuster(strong wind) & a littlekussed out(tired) from our trip to theKye. Awesome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is this the Eastern Cape? Take me home, please …! If there’s anything more stressful or tedious than a domestic flight, generally, then it has to be a domestic flight to the Eastern Cape, specifically. The hour’s flying time has unwary visitors buffeting in the 20 knot ‘onshore breeze’ well before most succeed in wrestling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":2193040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-SxOyeINHxm4\/UcgQ0Z44a2I\/AAAAAAAABTM\/9LHEF3rkolk\/s1600\/Sheathbill+Blog+3.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Snowy Sheathbill in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[4808,4806,4807,4805,2998],"class_list":["post-41249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-east-london","tag-eastern-cape","tag-mazeppa-bay","tag-snowy-sheathbill","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2193040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}