Betty’s Bay (Bettysbaai), in the Western Cape, has it’s own penguin colony, situated on much rockier terrain than Boulders Beach. Instead of shallow sandy beaches, there’s a quick drop-off into kelp and quite rugged rocks around the shore. The wind was howling and the waves were quite rough when we visited, and the harsh sun wasn’t great for photography. We made the best of it, and managed to get some nice shots.
The penguins were mostly dozing, every now and then a wave would chase them further up the rocks, or in the case of the poor unfortunate below, wash them away completely. They don’t seem to mind. Penguins are remarkably bouncy. It was a nice opportunity to get some photos of them in a different habitat.
We encountered a few other species, the Egyptian Goose below was wandering around in the rock pools, being snapped at when he ventured a little too close to napping penguins. There were also a profusion of Cape Cormorants that flew past at a good height for photographing.
Below is my favourite shot from the day – luckily had just gotten a bit of cloud cover to smooth out the shadows.
Awwww. See you all next week!