May. This is roughly when the Bridled Tern likes to visit Cape Recife in Port Elizabeth. In 2009, I flew down to try and get this bird. Having studied the books and some photos, I had seen
that it is a stunner of a bird, but had good competition for two other lifer Terns, being Antarctic and Roseate, both beautiful specimens, and both were either in breeding plumage or well on their
way. 2009 was not to be the year. I returned to Jo’burg Bridle-less. The Tern came back and was seen by several others, but time and money hampered my desire to return.

Come May 2010. Alf and others had seen the bird again. This was it, I was going to give it a damn fine go. I spoke to my friend Stefan who stays in Kini Bay – no problem, he would kindly put me 
up while I was there – now to book the ticket – leave Joeys Wednesday morning early, hit Cape Recife, and sit there for 5 days if necessary!

Cape Recife: Slightly overcast, plenty of Swift Terns, tide going out, a few fishermen around. Conditions near perfect. I had packed a camp chair and a cooler bag, bought some cooldrinks, I was set
to sit there for the day! I set up “camp” and scanned the multitude of Swift Terns, picking out a dozen or so Roseates, 8 Antarctics, and a single Sandwich Tern. A Caspian Tern arrived 
a little later to harass the Swift Terns. Now to keep an eye on new arrivals. I sat and watched each new bird that flew in, amused myself taking photos of the Swift Terns, which were extremely horny,
to say the least!

After some 3 hours, I decided I would head closer to the Swift Terns which were bathing in the shallows. I got fairly close and decided to scan around the rocks again. The first thing I lay eyes on
is a very dark Tern, about 50 metres across the water from me, preening alongside a Common Tern. BRIDLED TERN!! Somehow the bird had flown in within the last minute, unseen be me. I decided to take
a few records shots and try and wade a bit closer. I got about halfway, when the Swift Terns, now behind me started making a racket, and all took off. A Kelp Gull had decided it was time to harass 
them a bit. The Bridled and Common Tern took a scare from the flock of bigger Terns flying over them and joined them in flight. The whole flock then settled another 100m away on the rocks. I edged 
towards them across the rocks. I got better pics, but the Gulls were not done and chased the flock up again. They settled back on the beach side of the water. Another wade for me. I then managed to 
wade a lot closer to the Bridled Tern who had settled on a rock in the middle of the water. It was totally unperturbed by my presence, and I managed to get to within 10m of it.

A few hundred photos later I decided to leave the bird in peace and headed back to my chair. I watched it until it decided enough was enough, as the Gulls made pass after pass over the Terns, and 
headed off down the coast.

With the job at hand done, I now had time on my hands. I had never done too much birding in Eastern Cape, so planned to go to The Island Reserve the next day, perhaps see what else was around PE, and 
also check out the Terns again in the afternoon. This gave me my second lifer of the trip, a bird which should be easy, being Forest Buzzard. I saw three birds in close proximity to each other, either 
perched within trees or sitting out on the tree tops.

On Friday I headed out towards Alexandria Forest Reserve, now known as the Woody Cape section of the Addo National Park. En route I had stopped at one of the roadwork sections and saw two Denham’s 
Bustards foraging in a nearby field. Once at the reserve, I walked the 7km loop around the reserve, picking up good birds like Southern Tchagra and Knysna Woodpecker. Other birds that are getting towards 
the Western edge of their coastal range, such as Green Woodhoopoe and Trumpeter Hornbill were also seen. I also stopped past the dunes section for another 4km walk down to the beach and back – probably 
too late in the season to find the Damara Terns, which nest here. The dunes are also apparently a good spot in summer for the migrant calidus race of Peregrine Falcon. This all done, it was time to head 
back to PE.

Saturday saw us starting out early. Stefan had not seen Lesser Black-backed Gull, and I had no decent photos of them. Armed with Jeff’s good directions straight to the Orient beach site, we got there 
around 07h30 and started scanning the Gulls. With Shaun’s news that he had seen the adult at Nahoon the previous day, I was worried the Gull would not have come back to its normal beach. However, we 
were in luck, and fairly quickly picked out the smaller Gull from the multitude of Kelp Gulls. It was interesting to compare the various features, such as eye colour, bill size, wing/tail projection and the 
like. The sun was hiding behind some cloud cover, so we headed off for a quick Wimpy breakfast, returning afterwards to get some pretty good shots of the bird in the early morning sun. The “Cape” 
Kelp Gulls had some fairly varied eye coloration, as well as an individual with particularly yellow legs. 

From the beach, we paid a visit to the Nahoon Eastuary Reserve – Jeff promised that he’d let us out if we got locked in, so we decided to spend a few hours there. The magical bird bath did not 
deliver any of the amazing species while we were watching, however after walking around the reserve, we returned to find another gent there who 10 minutes earlier had seen Olive Woodpecker, Knysna 
Turaco and Knysna Warbler come down to drink. Luck and timing…. With a long drive back to PE, we hit the road, one of the more special birds on the way back was a juvenile Black Harrier flying over 
the road. 

Allan Ridley had flown down that day to try and get the Tern – I get an SMS from him – “what an easy tick” – they had arrived and seen the bird within 10 minutes of 
getting to Cape Recife. Talk about luck! We discussed the game plan for Sunday, and with Stefan knowing the local spots, we decided on visiting Sleepy Hollow, Van Staadens Wild Flower Reserve, as well
as Mondplaas. Sleepy Hollow got us one of our targets, Knysna Woodpecker. We also saw a surprise there, African Cuckoo Hawk flying overhead, showing the characteristic broad rufous barring on its 
underside. Grey Cuckooshrike was another we had not quite expected to see. Both of these were newly atlassed in this pentad, the Cuckoo Hawk generating an out of range record. The wild flower reserve 
was a little quiet, but being there later morning was probably not a good time of day. Sugardbirds were abundant, but there was not too much else of note. After a quick lunch in Jay Bay, we headed onto 
the farm roads of Mondplaas. We saw some of the local sub species of Cisticolas, Cloud and Grey backed, plus Neddicky. The Cloud Cisticolas behave far better for the camera than their cousins further 
North. I am used to them flying around and then dropping into thick grass, but these perched on the fence, allowing some fairly decent photos.

This finished of 5 days of very good birding, yielding 148 species, two of which were rarities. So where to next!!

Some pictures to species thumbnailed on my home page. A full list of bird families and linked pages can be found here