I last visited the West Coast National Park (WCNP) about 10 years back during the spring flower season. Th is is the best time to go but it’s also when the park is most crowded so early autumn is arguably the next best time to visit. And with everybody frantic about the coronavirus, rushing about stocking up on food and booze, I had the park virtually to myself. Bliss.

Apart from the cathartic calm that overcame me as I rolled under the park’s boom, the pristine Strandveld on the other side (it has had 35 years to recover from centuries of hunting and farming) was a cool green slap in the face which immediately woke me up to what I might see on my day’s journey. Sure enough, a Cape grey mongoose scurried across the road a short distance in front of me. My amateur search had begun.

Proclaiming a National Park here was primarily underpinned by the need to preserve the salt marshes and Langebaan Lagoon area, a wetland of international importance according to the Ramsar Convention criteria of 1988. In short, it is the southernmost migratory point for tens of thousands of birds annually (species like curlew