Flamingos - Joy and Wonder
… a life (& photography) lesson.
It is only birders that really love visiting water treatment ponds.
The most important and largest of these in Cape Town are found at the Strandfontein water treatment plant. If you have not been there, it is hard to imagine how vast and beautiful an area it is, right in the middle of greater Cape Town, adjacent to the False Bay coast. It is an important birding area, primarily for coastal and wetland species of bird and so, we often visit Strandfontein.
Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus)
I was enjoying a photography mentorship program with my friend, Richard Flack. He had suggested that I go to the same location over several days, just to understand how the light and conditions change daily. Light and the direction of light have such a major impact of the quality of images and influences how and when to approach a location.
It was mid-winter when I decided to go to Strandfontein, an already familiar location for me. I managed to visit it three days in sucession, around the winter solstice in June. I went just before dawn each day to see how the light falls and then changes as the day comes to life.
And to notice where the birds are and where they fly to.
The most striking of those birds are always the Flamingos.
Lesser Flamingo (Phoenicopterus minor)
The first day I got some “nice” images, nothing great, but I was feeling comfortable with my camera and settings and the location was, as always, interesting. Later in the morning I noticed one of the furthest ponds had quite a few Greater Flamingos in it, but they were feeding and widely dispersed. I decided to go the next day directly to this pond, to see how they would look in the pre-dawn light.
When I got up in the dark the next day, there was a hectic north-west gale wind blowing. It was cold and the conditions looked bleak and uninviting; but I shivered and put on my boots, made coffee and grabbed my camera … I had an assignment to do and thought that I may as well go and see what happens.
It was still dark when I arrived at the flamingo pond at the bottom end of Strandfontein. The wind was cold and blasting and I thought that I might have to just drink my coffee and go home. But since I was there, I walked down the track, just behind the reeds that fringed the pond.
The next few five minutes turned out to be some of the most incredible moments in my birding and photography experience. and the images I got do not even do it justice.
In the pond, in the early morning light, was a pink mass of Flamingos. Later I counted on my photographs that there were more than 200 Greater Flamingos in the pond, huddled together, sheltering from the wind.
I grabbed my camera and started taking images, struggling in the low light, handheld because a tripod would never survive the wind. It was cold but not raining yet. The Flamingos were packed tightly together, facing into the wind and in my direction. Fortunately, with their heads down and the sound of the wind, none of the birds saw me crouching behind the reeds.
A couple of birds were preening, but not much else was going on and only a few single birds were flying out into the wind … Ibis, Gulls and Teals.
I had just got some useful images, when an incredible sound rose up behind the flamingo pond. In a single moment thousands of birds suddenly rose up into the air from the wetland behind the pond. It was a cacophony of sound as they took off, screeching into the wind. The sound of all these birds was incredible, even over the howling of the wind.
The Flamingos and I all watched in amazement as this scene unfolded. As one, the Flamingos also turned to also watch the spectacle. We saw Gulls, Ibis, Geese, Duck, Terns, Teals, and other probably species, rise into the air as one. It looked as though they had all suddenly decided that the time had come to face the wind and go out foraging for the day.
Flamingos and the dawn chorus
It was the blue hour just before dawn and some clouds were already catching the light. The colours were rich and saturated.
For a while the birds hovered over the wetlands getting into the teeth of the wind and then they all started to fly off over my head in groups straight into the oncoming wind as dawn was breaking over False Bay.
I took a breath for what seemed like the first time in a while, as an overwhelming feeling of joy washed through me. Was that spectacle real? Was it just for me?
I still love all the images from that day, especially because of the feelings of joy and wonder that it still invokes in me. I can write about it and show some of the images I took, but I can never do the spectacle justice.
Later I said later to Richard, when talking about it that, during my mentorship program, that I had felt some stress to suddenly start taking great images, even just one!
But now the primary realization that came to me was that it is the Creator who will provide these great moments and images … I just need to be willing and ready to capture them and make a good image, and He will make it great.
Somehow this relieved my stress of finding that one great image and allowed me to relax into seeing and enjoying nature and light, while learning everything I could about my craft and learning to be ready to make a good image when it was presented to me.
A lesson learned.
But this joy did not end there, that day.
I went to Strandfontein again the next day, before dawn … to the flamingo pond, obviously. But everything had changed. The crazy wind of the previous day had dropped, and a very thick fog covered everything in gloom. No photos today, I thought.
Unusually for me, I had brought a tripod and set it up at the reeds again, just in case. And then, very slowly, the fog over the pond changed to a dusky pink and then into view came the roosting flock of Flamingos.
Greater Flamingos on a foggy day
The peace and beauty compared to just a day before was incredible.
No sound. No movement. No drama. No flying. No-one.
Absolute beauty.
