After leaving Cape Town our next stop was Arniston and the plan was to drive via Gordons Bay, Betty’s Bay and Hermanus. Betty’s Bay has developed somewhat since my first visit in 1978 when it seemed to be just a collection of a few cottages in the fynbos. Shops, fuel station and restaurants have fortunately also been joined by a African Penguin breeding colony at Stony Point. This is somewhat less developed than Boulders so is cheaper to access but has a good boardwalk giving views out over the area. Our day was very windy with bright sun so was not ideal photographically. The elevated boardwalk also means that you don’t get as nice a perspective for making photos of birds on the rocks but eye level views are possible of birds inland of the path. There are also huge cormorant colonies and squadrons of these birds gave us some good opportunities to practice fight shots but the challenge of hand holding large lenses in gusting winds and then tracking a bird and keeping a focus point on the head make the success rate quite poor! Despite the conditions we managed a few keepers including two images to add to my Birds on White series.

An interesting fact about Stony Point is that there is a history of predation on penguins by Leopard which is an unusual addition to the usual aquatic predators (sharks, seals and orca) that the birds need to watch out for.

This was another situation where manual exposure is crucial. The rapidly changing reflected light values from dark grey/green background water to white foam would cause dramatic exposure changes in any automatic mode making the exposure for the bird completely hit and miss.