Knysna, South Africa

The first syllable is pronounced “nice”. And it is. We enjoyed our short stay in this seaside town just a short bus ride away from George. This is the main street through town.

Two views of Knysnakerk on Voortrekker Street: From the east and from the west.

Older jacaranda and palm tree shaded neighborhoods of the town slope gently down to the wide Knysna River as it empties into the Indian Ocean.

Top left: Riverfront green spaces are home to lots of waterbirds and other wildlife. Bottom left: The road leading into the island of Thesen Harbour Town. Markers are adorned with the Knysna Seahorses found locally. Right: Information on the boat-building for which the island was known.

Glimpses of Knysna’s past.

The Knysna River empties out past The Heads.

Next three photos are of the walkways that follow along the Knysna River. Or maybe I should call it an estuary. It widens out quite a ways. A very pleasant place to walk or cycle. We saw lots of herons, egrets, stilts, and gulls, as well as a few oystercatchers, kingfishers, and other birds.

A member of the Marsh Crab family, Parasesarma catenatum.

Cattle Egret, Bubulcus ibis, and (inset) Pied Kingfisher, Ceryle rudis.

Three photos show the importance of aquatic life along the river harbor area.

African Sacred Ibis, Threskiornis aethiopicus, slumming it in a dumpster behind a grocery store. These birds, long famous in Egyptian and Middle Eastern lore, were unknown further south. But modern agricultural practices and unsanitary environmental practices such as seen here provided newfound attractions for these birds. The Sacred Ibises were first seen in South Africa in the 1970’s and they are quite common now. Unlike the smaller Hadadas Ibises they are generally quiet.

Signs in Afrikaans and English. This town did not feel particularly unsafe. but then again, we didn’t go out at night.

Keedol’s Inn and Backpackers is where we stayed. Best value in Knysna! The owners were helpful and friendly. We enjoyed our stay here and would come back again.

And just outside of the inn were these two birds! Spotted Thick-Knee, Burhinus capensis. I almost didn’t see them at first; they were so camouflaged and still. They must have felt at home here because we saw them outside the place two or three times. I always like seeing these staring solitary birds. Actually, usually they were in twosomes.

Some of the green spaces around the harbor might have some interesting surprises. This wooded area just east of the town and close to the harbor, seems to have been visited by at least one leopard, judging by the scat that was reported here in July of 2021.

Also nearby the area of the last photo are these perpetually nervous and talkative birds. Helmeted Guineafowl, Numida meleagris. I first saw these plump beauties in Del Rio, Texas when four or five of them, I’m assuming escapees, barged on to our property, rummaging under the pecan trees in our yard. I never thought I would be able one day to see them in the wild.

Other interesting birds found in these same woods: Top: The always photogenic Speckled Pigeon, Columba guinea. Left: Black-bellied Starling, Notopholia corusca. Right: Piping Cisticola, Cisticola fulvicapilla.

Another star attraction for this town is the Pledge Nature Reserve, conveniently within the town limits. Most of the park is well-wooded with signed paths and posts making it hard to get lost. Toward the northern end of the park (shown here) the habitat becomes more arid. The view here is southward, looking back over the town and harbor valley, the Indian Ocean in the distance.

Above and Below: The Reserve is where we saw the Southern Vervet Monkey, Chlorocebus pygerythrus ssp. pygerythru. Unlike the macaques these monkeys were rather shy.

A few of the birds seen at the Pledge Reserve: Left: Black-headed Oriole, Oriolus larvatus. Thjis golden songster is often heard before it is seen. It is interesting to me that certain families of birds, like orioles, have similar “accents” (for want of a better word). Throughout the world I have noticed that orioles often sound a certain recognizable way, thrushes, another, and so on. Center: Karoo Prinia, Prinia maculosa. Right: The Fiscal Flycatcher, Melaenornis silens, could easily be mistaken for a shrike but for his more slender build and less pronounced hook on his beak.

Thanks to iNaturalist I was able to find this Spotted Eagle-Owl, Bubo africanus, two of them, as it turned out! The site showed the exact location of these birds down to two neighboring trees in a quiet commercial area of Thesen Island.

Common Dwarf Gecko, Lygodactylus capensis

A bumbling beauty, the Giant Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa flavorufa

Surprise, surprise (not)! The bus taking us back to George was three hours late. But we had already checked out of our guesthouse. So we had to kill time all packed up hanging around the downtown area. I took the opportunity to make a few candid photos. I guess Alexander Pope would have been pleased with me. He wrote:

“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan…
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great…” .

Having nothing else to do, that is what we did – people-watching.

The bus finally came and it was a short trip back to the bigger city of George. These four photos are of the stretch between the two places.

This pleasant equestrian scene is just a few miles south of George.

After a few days in George we flew up to Windhoek in Namibia and then traveled throughout that country as well as a good part of Botswana. You can select the tags or links for those reports somewhere in these pages.

My plan is to finish up the Africa reports with an article on Pretoria and Johannesburg – mostly the former.