Margaret and I were up early this morning (as any good birding couple should be on Valentine's Day!!) and met up with John Graham, Peter Ryan, Mike Buckham and Dave Winter at Clovelly Golf Course at 6am. The reason for the visit was to follow up on a Marsh Warbler, a vagrant to the Western Cape, that had been recorded there earlier in the week. It was a Western Cape tick for all of us. After making our way down to the 7th tee, it did not take too long before we heard the bird calling. However, it was not very showy and, over the course of the next couple of hours, only allowed a few glimpses of itself. There was no chance at all to get any photos of it. However, the views that we were able to get combined with the call confirmed the identification.

We did have a few nice distractions during our wait including a fairly friendly Cape Grassbird and Neddicky as well as some stunning views of a Rufous-chested Sparrowhawk with prey which posed quite nicely for us. By 8:30am, we left the course and headed off to have breakfast at a restaurant on the beachfront.