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“I had this burning desire to start my own business, and I thought, why not branch into tourism?”, he said.

He realised that in birding, there was no one trained in Soweto in that type of tourism. That encouraged him to start his own business in 2004.

By the time the World Cup rolled around, he was providing fully fledged tours.

“My training included the biology of the birds, their habitat, their characteristics, the climate, trees, plants and scoping areas with conservation value,” he explains.

Rampolokeng says he identified the area near the lake because it had conservation value.

Here, Rampolokeng says we can find an assortment of bird species, from waders in the water like grey headed gulls to herons, swallows, swifts, hadeda ibis and different kinds of pigeons.

Birds like warblers, which often hide behind long reeds are also easily spotted at this location, well relatively easy. We were lucky to spot and hear most of these.

In Soweto, he advises that during the winter months, bird enthusiasts will be able to see 60 bird species. In summer the number rises to between 80-90 species due to visiting species.

Rampolokeng does his bird tours at two other locations, the Enoch Sontonga koppie behind UJ Soweto Campus and the Moroka Dam.

Sontonga composed the South African national anthem. The story goes that he used to spend most of his days relaxing on top of the koppie and that’s how it got to be named after him.

The Moroka Dam in Rockville, Soweto is part of a precinct with three parks, Thokoza Park, Moroka Dam Park and Regina Mundi Park of Remembrance.

The dam was named after Dr James Moroka, a former president of the ANC who spearheaded the move towards militancy in the early 1950s.

During the apartheid era, the Regina Mundi church opened its doors to anti-apartheid groups and provided shelter to anti-apartheid activists. It is the largest Roman Catholic Church in South Africa.

Rampolokeng says that one of the ways they are encouraging conversations about conservation in the community is to encourage young people, in primary school to do part of their learning, outside in these areas, which fits in with their Natural Sciences curriculum.

The aim is to introduce a new kind of Soweto to the public, Rampolokeng explains.

As we stood silently listening and watching the various birds I could see but not hear in the distance the cars on Chris Hani road. It felt as though nature had come alive, and we were the ones lucky enough to see it.