Pelicans on the Berg River

Guest Artist #1 Karen van Niekerk.

(Please click on the images to see large size photos)

Over the last four years, I have often had posts about Velddrif and its famous Bokkom Lane. I have however, shown very few birds. And the Berg River is after all an estuary harbouring many species of the most amazing water birds! So today, I have invited Karen van Niekerk, a talented photographer who lives in Velddrif to show her photos of pelicans. According to Karen, the early morning is the right time to catch them on the Bokkom Lane side of the river. 

The first photo gave me so much joy, and should be in line for a prize! How neatly these pelicans march with the sergeant-major egging them on!!

In the second photo, two pelicans encourage a shy bird to befriend the heron. A super composition! The birds fit in so well with the river scene and jetty and boat!

The third photo shows once again the amazing synchronized movements of these birds. A lovely shot and beautiful reflections! I love the colour of pelicans, they have just that little whisper of pink in them!

Karen took this last photo after sunset. I usually see the pelicans here on the far side of the river, and this photo shows the tranquility to perfection. All the elements of our calm clean river are there: the soft grass on the banks and the thatching reeds. This wonderful capture tells it all!

Thank you to Karen for these amazing photos!!!

The Berg River

The lovely unpolluted Berg River is one of the very important rivers of the Western Cape. It starts in the mountains at Stellenbosch and meets the Atlantic Ocean at Velddrif. Besides being the main water source for many wine farms, it's marshlands are alive with wading birds. Anglers, small fishing boats, yachts and crayfish trawlers are seen on its banks.

During the winter rainy season canoeists from all over the world take part in the Berg River Canoe Marathon. In 2010 the 4-day race will take place from the 14th to the 17th of July. If the day is clear, you may want to join me here at the water's edge in Velddrif? We can have a picnic on the river bank and watch the festive and colourful finish to the race! This rickety ol' jetty may act as a lookout podium to find the front runners. But really, by the looks of it I think we should only allow one spectator on it at a time!

I could not resist painting this tranquil scene. The greenish water near the jetty shows grass almost breaking through the surface, and gave me the opportunity to paint marshy waters as a practice run for the wading birds that I must do for a later post. From here I am adding to this post as Sheila asked me about the colours I have used for the water: I start with a lot of Windsor and Newton Titanium White. Then add Ceruleum, Cobalt and Prussian Blue. That is my basic mix for the water throughout. For the marshy colours I used Prussian Blue, Green Oxide and Flesh. The brush strokes are horisontal because of the very calm river. I hope this helps! Do yourselves a favour and also visit Jill Berry's Ambient Landscape. I also want to remind you that Liz Pearson painted the Berg River at Velddrif a few weeks ago! And while we are Internet hopping, there is the aerial lay-out of the river on Google Earth of course!

Velddrif

Say the word "ocean" and my little car goes into motion, you can say it is her homing instinct! So down the mountain we rushed, leaving Piketberg behind. After that the road took us past Aurora and then straight down to Velddrif and the sea. It was not long before we spotted patches of the lovely Berg River that has its mouth at Velddrif. Calm blue water with wading birds, boats and cottages along the river shores lead us into a tranquil fishing village.

So I went for the biggest boat first. The composition was made difficult by my closeness to the scene. I refused to paint a great grey expanse of the foreground concrete jetty, and thus I landed up with a problem of balance. This is how I solved it: a lighter sky over the little town in the background, so that the eye could be drawn in, two silhoettes of seabirds and two ropes.

For the next few posts you can expect more of the things Velddrif is famous for: salt pans, wading birds, bokkoms (a type of dried mullet hanging in rows at Bokkom Lane) and of course more boats.