7 natural treasures hidden in Cape Town's mountains, wetlands and tidal pools

You might feel like you have butterflies in your stomach when you climb Table Mountain, perching up high on craggy cliffs but those butterflies will be much smaller than the big brown and yellow butterfly that might come swooping down to investigate your red jacket.

This is the very special 'Mountain Pride' butterfly (Aeropetes tulbaghia), which is attracted to the colour red. They are so large that you might initially think that they are a small bird. This butterfly pollinates 15 red Cape flowers and ignores flowers of any other colour. The butterfly is crucial to the survival of the red-flowered plant species in Cape Town mountains.

If the butterflies were to disappear these red-flowered species would also disappear. One of these red-flowered species is the…(drumroll)…

This brilliant ruby-red orchid (Disa uniflora) qualifies as one of the city’s secret treasures. It grows alongside remote mountain streams in the Western Cape and on the upper slopes of Table Mountain. It survives the dry summer months by using the moisture from the Mountain's famous 'table cloth' cloud.

During mid-summer (its flowering season), this rare orchid inspires many Capetonians to get out their hiking boots and go exploring. Did you know that the Western Province Rugby Team and the Western Province sports used a picture of this flower on their badges and logos? It has also been the Mountain Club's logo since its founding in 1891.

What bounties lie in the sewage works of Strandfontein? Birds!

The 306 hectare site is known as a RAMSAR site (meaning that it’s considered a wetland of international importance) and there are sometimes thousands of birds flying, hopping, wading and floating.

The sewage works are only about 30 minutes’ drive from the centre of Cape Town, and are considered a sweet spot of birding in Cape Town. In fact, twitchers call it the ‘premier birding spot’ of the city. Over 200 species have been spotted here, which include many rarities and migrant species stopping for a rest on their journeys to distant climes.

From the high-stepping elegant pink Flamingos to Temminck’s Stint to the occasional oddity like the Africana jacana, it’s a veritable bird smorgasbord. The indigenous strandveld vegetation around the settlling ponds is also full of interesting critters like mongooses and snakes, the Cape grysbok and caracal. 

 The hippopotamus is known as a “seekoei” (or, roughly translated, a “sea cow”) in Afrikaans and many residents and visitors are unaware that there are several of these ‘sea cows’ right smack bang in the middle of Cape Town.

These hippos reside (fairly) peacefully in the Rondevlei Nature Reserve in the suburb of Grassy Park. Some of the hippos have escaped in the past and led the authorities on merry chases through the suburban streets, but were always captured and returned without major harm caused.

Hippos were lost to Cape Town approximately 300 years ago after all of them were hunted out, but dedicated conservation biologists re-introduced them to the Rondevlei section of the False Bay Nature Reserve in 1981.

Scientists in the University of Cape Town have been studying the creatures of the city for years now.

They have been setting out camera traps in grids across the Table Mountain National Park and finding the usual assortment of water mongoose, guineafowl, porcupines, but imagine their surprise when they got a photograph of a honey badger emerging from a culvert on the upper campus of the University of Cape Town!

These fierce, stocky, tenacious critters have been spotted in Silvermine, Constantia and above Hout Bay. 

A hundred years ago there were apparently swathes of ratel (another name for the honey badger) but by the 21st century they had disappeared from Table Mountain and the city. Honey badgers are, however, very confident little beasts and it seems they are making a comeback! 

Honey badgers are animals with attitude; they don’t scare easily. Whilst not dangerous to humans, if you see one, be sensible and treat it with respect and with caution and do not feed it!  Honey badgers can become rubbish-bin-raiders, so residents might need to tie their bins up more securely in the future. Surely a small price to pay to have these incredible animals back in our big mountainous ‘back yard’?

If anyone has seen a honey badger, please report it on iNaturalist or email iCWild researchers: Ben Wittenberg or Nicoli Nattrass.

Yes, there are, but they are small and wriggly and live in just a few streams that trickle down our mountains.

These are the tadpoles of the Table Mountain ghost frog, which is a rare frog species that only occurs in a few perennial mountain streams on the eastern and southern slopes of the mountain. Adult frogs have sucker-like disc pads at the tips of their toes (like Spiderman) and can squash their squidgy bodies into tiny cracks in the rocks.

The tadpoles are beautiful, translucent except for emerald-crusted skin around their heads. They have big mouths, all the better to suck onto wet surfaces when the going gets tough. The ghost frog is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List because of its small and restricted natural range (less than 9 km2) and therefore, if you find one, you cannot pop it in a jam jar and take it home for mom to see! 

If you have seen the “Octopus Teacher”, you will understand what a privilege it is to see an octopus at close quarters. You have a very good chance of experiencing this in the wonderful tidal pools of Cape Town.

There are octopus everywhere - from Glencairn’s tidal pool, tucked around the corner from the beach, to the Dalebroook pool where, after you have had an invigorating dip, you can sip some steaming coffee at the local cafes across the road from the pool.

Watching an octopus pulse with colour amongst the bright sea urchins and anenomes is akin to seeing a lion-kill in the Serengeti. And you don’t have to be in your car whilst watching it! 

If you remain still in the water, that's when the octopus will slide out and chase away a curious fish, or show interest in a crab making its way through the rocks. It’s when you are still, that you will see the nudibranch undulating past, or the hermit crab moving house to a bigger shell.

We all need to carve out time in our days to be still with nature.  

Next up? Where to find the wild ones in Cape Town