Capetown, penguins, and other beasts

Today was a special day in Capetown: the day I got to visit the site of Boulders on the coast, one of the few breeding sites of a rare species of penguin that I hadn’t seen before: the African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus), also known as the Cape Penguin.

But before that, let’s not forget a few of the local endemic flowers. First, pincushion (Leucospermum sp.)

An aloe (Aloe), another from the garden here.

A Cape Honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis).

The lovely house where I’m staying is the one to the left with the shiny roof. It looks out over the Indian Ocean, shortly before it joins the south Atlantic to the west, and yesterday we saw a southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) swimming around right below.

Not far away is the fishing village of Kalk Bay, where ships pull in with a piscine haul, seals bask in the sun, and chippies surround the harbor to feed the catch to hungry visitors.

Here is a warning:

I was duly warned, but couldn’t avoid getting about seven feet away from this sleeping beauty, the African subspecies of the Brown Fur Seal (also called the Cape Fur Seal), Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus. As you see from the figure below, there’s also a subspecies that lives and breeds on the tip of SE Australia.

It’s the world’s largest fur seal. This one was sleeping peacefully on the dock:

A close-up of its adorable face. Don’t you just want to kiss it? But don’t–they bite!

The distribution of the two subspecies of this species. See caption for details and credit.

And then. . . on to the penguins!

About the African Penguin. More facts from Wikipedia:

The African penguin is a pursuit diver and feeds primarily on fish and squid. Once extremely numerous, the African penguin is declining rapidly due to a combination of several threats and is classified as endangered. It is a charismatic species and is popular with tourists. Other vernacular names of the species include black-footed penguin and jackass penguin, due to the species’ loud, donkey-like noise (although several related species of South American penguins produce the same sound). They can be found along the coast of South Africa and Namibia.

They have built artificial burrows for the penguins to live and breed in; they look like amphoras cut in half and placed on their side. The explanation for creating these is below:

. . . and, a lovely African penguin. I love its pink eye ring:

A closeup of the face:

A beach full o’ penguins. But Rita, who has been coming here for 20 years or so, says that there used to be four times as many penguins on this beach. A combination of factors, not least among them competition for fish with local fishermen who range widely, has drastically reduced the population size. These wonderful birds are now classified as endangered.

First-year penguins molt their down before they develop their adult feathers (remember this from Antarctica?).  Here are three babies (fed fish by their mom), losing their down.

This chick looks surprised.

And this one looks obstreperious:

A panorama of the beach (click to enlarge):

This penguin carried a stick all the way from the woods above (where the nests are) down into the water. Why? Who knows? Could it be a display?

These penguins have already been fishing and are exiting the water. They swim around a bit in the bay before they come ashore.

These are the artificial penguin nests; they’re in thick shrubbery up above the beach.

Me and my penguin (photo by Rita):

And with more penguins (also by Rita):

There was a shop full of penguin paraphrenalia, but I already have too many penguin-related items and forced myself not to buy anything. But I did admire this penguin made out of discarded plastic utensils and cup lids.

Don’t mess with the penguins!

These next two signs suggest to me (I’m a worrier) that some hapless motorist squashed a penguin at least once in the past.

Check your car! (Photo by Rita.)

In the vegetation near the penguins I saw a rock hyrax (Procavia capensis), locally called the “dassie”.  They are herbivores and are found widely throughout Africa.  Surprisingly, despite its small size it is the land mammal most closely related to the elephant, though whether manatees and dugongs are more closely related to elephants is undecided.

A female chacma baboon (Papio ursinus), hanging around the garbage bins in town. Don’t mess with these primates!

A quick trip to the grocery store, which happens to be Woolworth’s, said to have the best produce in this area.  Ground ostrich meat and extra lean venison (which is a synonym here for antelope) were both purchased for the next two dinners.

Ingredients: “Gemsbock and/or Wildebeest and/or Kudu and/or Hartebeest and/or Eland and/or Impala and/or Springbok and/or Blezbok”—all antelopes. You never know what you bought!

And I took the gang out for fish and chips at Kalky’s in the harbor, a downmarket local favorite. The entrance:

The menu. Remember that one rand is about 6¢ US, so my hake and chips meal, which was quite good, cost about six bucks:

The line, which got quite long, and in front of that the dining room. You pay (cash only) and pick up your order when it’s called.

You would never have gotten a crowd this mixed in the bad old days of apartheid, when people were strictly segregated into four classes: black, white, Indian, and colored (mixtures of black and white). Curiously, Chinese were lumped with the most oppressed class, blacks, while Japanese counted as white.

Hake ‘n’ chips: very good!

Red-winged starling (Onychognathus morio), a species found in East Africa from Ethiopia to South Africa. The underside of its wings are red, but you can’t see that in this photo.

Today: a visit to the Cape Peninsula.