A huge thank you to Trevor Hardaker and Grant Scholz for their incredible expertise, insights, and dedication — your guidance plays a key role in making our pelagic birding experiences truly unforgettable!
Since we moved our trips permanently to Hout Bay at the beginning of 2021 (excluding the ad hoc trips we did out of Hout Bay before that), we have done 90 trips there. During this period, we’ve also run 103 boat loads of pax which means that, on 13 of those days, we ran 2 boats on the day. Of those, 78 found trawlers, another 9 found longliners, and only 3 trips found nothing and had to chum.
Over those 90 trips, we have had an average of 24,6 bird species per trip (including the coastal gulls, terns and cormorants) and an average of 2,9 species of “other distractions” per trip (whales, dolphins, seals, sharks, sunfish, turtles, etc.). This equates to a total of 53 bird species seen on all of those trips, and 19 species of “other distractions” seen on the trips.
Our best trip so far was on 7 Dec 2024 when we got 31 species of birds and 5 other distractions. We’ve only cracked 30 species of birds on 2 other trips so far, 5 Feb 2023 and 19 Jan 2025. Our best “other distractions” day was 21 Jan 23 when we got 7 species, the day we got the Vesperid Bat out there, although we’ve also done 6 species on at least 4 other trips as well.
Grant has skippered 79 of those trips, I have guided on 84 of them and Cliff has guided on 67 of them. Sean has skippered on 12, Gerry on 7, Chris on 3 and Okkie and Johan have one each. Michael has also guided on 13, Garret on 11, John on 6, Pete and Alvin on 3 each and then a few others have singles as well.
As a team, the three of us have now done 57 trips together. Grant and I have done 73 trips together. Cliff and Grant have done 58 trips together. And Cliff and I have done 65 trips together.
2021:
Trips scheduled: 32
Trips ran: 23
Trips cancelled: 9 (28,1%)
2022:
Trips scheduled: 29
Trips ran: 19
Trips cancelled: 10 (34.5%)
2023:
Trips scheduled: 32
Trips ran: 16
Trips cancelled: 16 (50%)
2024:
Trips scheduled: 42
Trips ran: 23
Trips cancelled: 19 (45.2%)
2025 (so far):
Trips scheduled: 15
Trips ran: 9
Trips cancelled: 6 (40%)
So, over the last 5 years, we have scheduled 150 trips of which 90 have actually gone and 60 have been cancelled, so our average cancellation rate on a trip is 40%…!!!
Thanks Trevor and as Cliff says you are truly an incredible record keeper. I do find it interesting
At this rate it will take me 14 months to get to 100 trips with Zest for birds
A few other interesting titbits…
Over the 90 trips, we have produced a white back of some description on 54 of them, so we find white backs on 60% of our trips throughout the year. Of the white backs, Northern Royal leads the way being recorded on 40 of the 90 trips. We have 21 trips with Southern Royal on them, only 8 trips with Wanderer on them and 3 trips with Tristan on them.
Our other star bird, Spectacled Petrel, we have recorded on 44 of the 90 trips, so almost half of all the trips that we’ve done!
Lastly, the only species that we’ve recorded on 100% of our trips are White-chinned Petrel, Sooty Shearwater, Cape Gannet, Brown Skua, Cape Cormorant and Hartlaub’s and Kelp Gulls. Everything else, even the other really common Albatrosses, have been missed on at least one trip at some point!!
Trevor Hardaker
2025 Pelagic Charters
