South Africa - 5 n. parks in 3 weeks (sep 09) (1 Viewer)

The following is a rather long trip report from a three week holiday in South Africa last month taking in West Coast, Table Mountain, Wilderness, Tsitsikamma and Kruger National Parks.

To start with a logistics summary, we flew from London to Cape Town overnight. We woke up as we approached Cape Town and, with only an hour’s time difference, had no problems with jet lag. We hired a car and, after two weeks, ended up in Port Elizabeth from where we flew, via Johannesberg, to Hoedspruit; an hour’s drive outside of Kruger. We flew back to London from Hoedspruit, again via Johannesburg.

Travel was very easy and even most dirt roads were pretty flat. Accommodation was mostly in various guesthouses/hotels, which were very comfortable and priced far below UK equivalent accommodation. The missus likes her comforts so we probably spent more than we needed but I reckon you could easily have got good accommodation for £40 or less, per room, per night. Restaurant and café food was excellent and unbelievably low priced compared to the UK.

To get the missus on a safari we were forced to stay in a couple of game lodges, which cost as much for one night as I spent for four nights on National Park accommodation and food in Kruger, after she had gone home. However, the lodges were excellent, the food was great and the service, as with most of SA, was excellent. Furthermore, sitting in an open jeep a couple of yards away from lions and leopards is certainly an experience we’ll never forget and one you can’t get in the National Park proper.

At the much lower £50 per night, my Kruger National Park accommodation (which is for two people) was basic but good value and was spotlessly clean, with ample hot water. Although edible, the food (and the service) in the catering outlets at the rest camps left a little to be desired. The food was edible but only just a little above a school dinner and was certainly not served with the efficiency of a dinner lady. I stayed at three camps and I can’t say that any of the catering staff looked like they knew what they were doing (the pie and chips was always good though!).

Lastly, to answer the usual question about South Africa, we had a crime free visit and didn’t experience anything untoward. Though we didn’t put ourselves in any silly situations either. I did notice one lone twenty year old (with no bags or camera etc) continuously walking around and around the pedestrian walkway at the top of Table Mountain, which looked a little suspicious, and we attracted the attention of a bunch of drunks or druggies in Knysna but we just turned around a walked back the way we’d came, back into a shopping centre, before we got within fifty yards of them.

For those that count, at the moment, I reckon I saw 327 bird species and heard a further 2 (cisticola and BOP ID questions pending). If I’d spent the whole time birding there’d obviously be more. The bird list together with all the great mammal sightings made it a great holiday and even my non-birding spouse loved it. I have no doubt we will be going back in the not too distant future.

Anyhow, here’s the blow by blow – I’ll add the Kruger bit over the next week.


Sunday 6th September

Arrived at Cape Town at 8am and immediately drove north to Langebaan for a two night stay to visit the West Coast National Park. Out of the airport, first bird of the trip was, strangely, a house crow, which has a small population in the Cape Town area. Once settled in to our accommodation, I left the missus to recover while I made a bee-line for the national park. I’d only travelled 200 metres into the park when the first bird to be seen was the hoped for black harrier. I then saw an angulate tortoise crossing the road immediately next to the sign warning that angulate tortoises would be crossing the road. I spent the rest of the day and the following two mornings in the national park. Common birds included ostrich, grey-winged francolin, Cape spurfowl, blacksmith lapwing, crowned lapwing, kelp and hartlaub’s gulls, black-shouldered and yellow-billed kites, jackal buzzard, rock kestrel, little egret, grey and black-headed herons, hadeda and sacred ibis, bokmakerie, common fiscal, cape bulbul, grey-backed and Levailliant’s cisticolas, Karoo prinia, bar-throated apalis, Cape robin chat, Karoo scrub robin, African stonechat, southern double-collared sunbird, malachite sunbird, cape weaver, yellow bishop, cape sparrow, cape wagtail, yellow and white-throated canaries and cape bunting.

I paid one visit to the Seeberg hide at high tide, which yielded both flamingos, white-backed pelican, whimbrel, greenshank, kitlitz’s and white-fronted plover, spotted thick-knee (which I later had to stop for in Langebaan to allow it to cross the main road through town) and African black oystercatcher. The driving track and path to this hide was perhaps the most lively area of fynbos I came across and also provided me with a long-tailed crombec and a Layard’s tit babbler (I never did see the more common chestnut-vented tit babbler). This track also had a couple of not-so-shy red duiker in the evening and again the next morning when I returned just to check out the fynbos.

A visit to the renowned hide at Geelburg left much to be desired and wasn’t that productive. However, the boardwalk leading to it did provide my only avocets and curlew sandpipers of the trip, along with little stint and white throated swallow. An African marsh harrier hunted over the reed bed and I also found a pied crow which had caught a white-backed mousebird.

Southern Black Koorhan was present both mornings on the track up to the Seeberg lookout point (and I mean on the track and refusing to move). A couple of familiar chats seemed to have moved into the empty building at the lookout point, while a colony of Rock Hyrax occupied the outcrop below.

The first morning visit on Monday 7th September, it was tipping it down so I spent a lot of time just sitting in the hide at the Abrahamskraal waterhole. Lots of red-knobbed coots were present, along with quite a few black crakes and little grebes, a cape shoveler and a pair of cape shelduck. In the reed bed a few lesser swamp warblers were singin’ in the rain and I picked up red-capped and large billed larks feeding around the short grassy area around the hide.

Also seen during my visits were a fish eagle, and what seemed to be an unusual sighting of a martial eagle,

During Monday’s rain, I took the missus on a drive around the peninsula north of the national park to look at picturesque fishing villages, which weren’t that picturesque given the atrocious weather. I’d hoped to pick up a few birds perched on roadside posts but the weather meant that only a couple of capped wheatears were daft enough to be out and about and I missed what was supposedly easy peasy sickle winged chats. During a well –timed break in the rain, I did get a nice roost of Antarctic terns, along with Caspian, Sandwich and swift terns on a small beach between Paternoster and the Columbine Lighthouse and chanced upon the highlight of the day in the form of a flock of 45 Blue Cranes feeding in a field.

Tuesday 8th September was a change in location day as we moved from Langebaan to Somerset West but we drove via the Postberg Reserve in the national park to see the wild flowers. Although some areas were quite nice, we think they must have been past their best, but another showery day also didn’t help the blooms open. More of the same birds were present on the peninsula with the addition of a Cape longclaw. African marsh and a black harrier also put in further appearances. Also present was a large herd of eland with a solitary wildebeest that thought it was an eland, a small herd of bontebok, springbok and a lone gemsbok.

On Wednesday 9th, I had arranged to be taken out for a morning’s birding by Brian Vanderwalt to Rooi Els to try for Cape Rockjumper. The morning proved a little frustrating as, although we could almost immediately hear the rockjumpers calling, it took a good couple of hours to see one at anything like a distance to get a reasonable view. Were these the same inquisitive, almost tame, birds I’d previously read about? While hanging around for the rockjumpers, we also saw Verraux’s Eagle, alpine swift, white-naped raven, Cape grassbird, Cape Siskin, neddicky, Cape rock thrush, red-winged starling and the two fynbos specialities: orange-breasted sunbird and Cape sugarbird. A couple of klipspringers ran up the mountainside and a Victorin’s warbler was heard but if we were struggling to get views of the rockjumper we had more chance of winning the lottery than seeing this skulker. Meanwhile, offshore were a couple of fly-by Cape gannets and a number of southern right whales quite close in. All the waiting meant that by the time we had got further up the road to the Harold Porter Botanical Garden in Betty’s Bay, we had only 45 minutes of birding left. However, standing in one spot in the gardens for five minutes seemed to yield more species than the whole of the previous morning, with Brian seeming to be very happy at seeing a female black cuckooshrike. Other birds not seen so far on the trip and making up the numbers included, black sawing, sombre greenbul, African dusky and fiscal flycatchers, southern boubou, swee waxbill, and brimstone and Cape canaries. I then had to make a quick dash back to Somerset West to pick up the missus for an afternoon in Franschoek and a great meal at Petite Ferme (highly recommended).

The morning of Thursday 10th started with a quick jaunt around the Helderberg Reserve on the outskirts of Somerset West. Many of the fynbos specialties were present on this pleasant little reserve, including some photo-friendly cape sugarbirds and orange-breasted sunbirds. Sightings of African black duck, steppe buzzard and pin-tailed whydah were my first for the trip. After checking out of the amazingly priced SW1 guesthouse (£62 a night for a room that would fetch well over £200 in the UK) we headed for lunch in Hermanus, one of the best places in the world for land-based whale watching. The missus allowed me a quick stop at Rooi Els for another unsuccessful attempt at close up views of rockjumper and we also stopped off for an hour at the Stony Point African Penguin colony, where, for a nanosecond, the missus developed an interest in birding. Lunch in Hermanus was indeed a fantastic experience with southern right whales less than 100 metres from where we were enjoying fish and chips at a promenade café. We spent a few hours in Hermanus watching the whales before heading to Camps Bay in Cape Town for a four night stay.

I settled for a lie-in on Friday 11th, as it was going to be an intense touristy day. The weather was perfect for a trip up Table Mountain and we followed this with a visit to Robben Island. There was not much birdlife on top of Table Mountain, although orange-breasted sunbirds were reasonably common as were tame red-winged starlings. The trip to Robben Island proved more interesting, bird wise, with a Sub-Antarctic skua on the way over and four types of maritime cormorant in Robben Island harbour. Another African Penguin colony was also on the island and the resident chukars seemed to be taking the same tour of Nelson Mandela’s prison courtyard as we were on. However, the birds obviously took second place to the moving and, at times, quite entertaining stories our guides related to us about their times on the island as political prisoners.

Well, the previous day’s lie in was a treat compared to having to get up at 5.30a.m., in order to get ready and then drive for an hour to Simonstown, for a 7am start to an Anne Albatross Pelagic trip on the Zest II. The trip was led by Rob Leslie and I’m going to cheat in this trip report by cutting and pasting his report on the day:

The flat calm conditions in False Bay were perfect for sighting cetaceans and we weren’t disappointed. First up were 2 Bryde’s Whales clearly showing the strongly falcate dorsal fin. Next we had a single Southern Right Whale and 2 Humpback Whales just before the Point. After rounding the point we saw another Southern Right Whale and 4 Humpback Whales, shortly followed by a group of about 20 Common Dolphins bow-riding. This brought our cetacean species tally up to 4 and we had seen only 2 procellarids: Whitechinned Petrel and Sooty Shearwater!

After enjoying the dolphins playing in the bow wave, we turned and set course for the Cape Canyon. We soon picked up our first Shy Albatrosses and we saw a couple of huge splashes to the north caused by a whale breaching, unfortunately the animal was not seen, but it was most probably a Humpback.

In the calm conditions we could see 8 trawlers on the trawl grounds near the Cape Canyon when we were still a long way off. As we approached the trawl grounds we started picking up more pelagics - Blackbrowed Albatross, Wilson’s Storm Petrel, Pintado Petrel and Southern Giant Petrel. Each new addition was greeted with enthusiasm, excitement and clicking cameras, but once we got amongst the trawlers, the sheer numbers of birds reduced everyone to momentary silent wonder.

Soon after approaching the first trawler an Antarctic Fulmar was spotted followed by a brief view of a Northern Royal Albatross. We meandered between the trawlers, visiting 6 of the 8 vessels hoping to relocate the Royal. Each vessel had thousands of birds in attendance. One vessel that was pumping of a stream of macerated offal had hundreds of Pintado Petrels in a dense mob squabbling under the discharge chute with many more in her wake. There were probably in excess of 3000 Pintados just at that vessel. While we were watching the Pintados an Atlantic Yellownosed Albatross was spotted near the vessels bow.

One of the vessels had problems while hauling the gear and, as we approached, she was just drifting with the net lying on the surface. A number of Gannets and Skuas landed on the net where they proceeded to help themselves to the catch - pulling fish out of the net. Somehow the message got out to the other birds in the area and they started streaming in to join in the banquet, including a White morph Southern Giant Petrel. A number of Cape fur seals were also in the area bounded by the net helping themselves to the vessel’s catch.

We turned for home ourselves, passing a couple of the vessels on route and were treated to good views of a friendly Atlantic Yellownosed Albatross. As we approached Cape Point we saw a Humpback Whale breaching – creating a bigger splash than Bellows Rock. We turned south for a closer look, but before we had gone far we came across a female Humpback with a calf. While enjoying the sight, another mother and calf Humpback approached us from the west. Altogether there were 8 Humpbacks off the Point.

Shortly after entering False Bay we saw another Humpback and 2 Southern right Whales. We returned to Simonstown with a brief stop at the Bank Cormorant breeding colony at Partridge Point. Many thanks to Harry and crew for a wonderful day’s pelagic birding in perfect weather conditions.

With so many trawlers spread over a wide patch of sea it made it particularly difficult to estimate bird numbers - there were thousands of birds behind each trawler and many moving between vessels – but the spectacle was truly AWESOME. As a result the highlights here are more of a guestimate than usual.
Northern Royal Albatross 1
Shy Albatross 500
Blackbrowed Albatross 700
Atlantic Yellownosed Albatross 2
Southern Giant petrel 10
Southern Giant petrel (White morph) 1
Northern Giant petrel 5
Whitechinned Petrel 1 000
Sooty Shearwater 300
Great Shearwater 5
Pintado Petrel 10 000
Antarctic Fulmar 1
Wilson’s Storm Petrel 200
Cape Gannet 3 000
Subantarctic Skua 10

Mammals
Southern Right Whale 2
Bryde’s Whale 2
Humpback Whale 12
Common Dolphin 20
Cape Fur Seal Common

As the Zest II pulled back into dock approaching 4pm and I had a spousal pass not be back at the hotel until 6.30pm, I made a quick dash up to the Strandfontein sewage works where I managed to get in another rapid hour of birding. It was a bit of a rush but it was well worth it for the waterfowl present, including three maccoa ducks and a pair of Hottentot teal, amongst hundreds of southern pochard, cape teal and cape shovelers. Greater flamingo and white pelican also provided nice views and a reed cormorant complemented the four maritime species from earlier in the day.

Sunday 13th, saw me up early in steady rain to spend a couple of early morning hours at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. The weather was dreadful, but I persisted and got a fair few species and even some nice photos considering the conditions. Despite the rain, African olive pigeons were obviously bound by duty to perch at the top of exactly the right group of trees according to Callan Cohen’s “Essential Birding Western South Africa. Also sitting out in the rain for my bedraggled-looking birds photograph album was my only African goshawk of the trip, together with sombre greenbul, dusky flycatcher, cape and brimstone canaries and a nice selection of commoner species. A lone male chaffinch singing his head off in a break in the weather was obviously on an exchange programme from Kew Gardens.
Penance for the previous day’s birding was then a six hour shopping extravaganza to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront where there was one relatively interesting bird in the form of a well-out-of-range Hildenbrandt’s Starling. The interest soon waned, when I saw a green ring on the leg and so it was back to “does my bum look big in this” for the rest of the day.

Monday 14th was supposed to see us travel to Knysna but, as the rain had prevented a road trip down to the Cape of Good Hope and because the missus loved the place we were staying (Camp’s Bay Retreat) we added another day to our Cape Town stay. I tried my luck once again, early morning, at Kirstenbosch and, strangely, saw fewer birds than in the previous day’s rain, although Cape sugarbirds posed for some pictures and it was interesting to see king proteas in full bloom – an amazing flower.
The trip to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope wasn’t that productive either but I wasn’t really birding that much. Probably the highlight of the day was having high tea in the luxurious lounge of the Twelve Apostles Hotel, with a pianist playing tinkly music and a southern right whale jumping out of the water immediately outside the window!

Tuesday 15th did see us make the long trip to Knysna. Several moving car views of red bishops were my only ones of the trip and a few parties of blue cranes weren’t hard to see and included one group of around 60 birds. Also seen were booted eagle and steppe buzzard at a coffee stop and yellow-billed and black-shouldered kites at 120 kph

Wednesday 16th was another day off for good behaviour and I spent it birding the Knysna area with Mark Dixon (www.gardenroutebirding.co.za). Rather than go for a big day list, I figured that I could manage the local wetlands on my own over subsequent mornings and it would therefore be more beneficial to rely on Mark’s local knowledge and experience of bird calls for the forest species. At times, as with all forest birding, it became a bit of a slog but, eventually, we picked up a lot of good birds, including most of my target species, and the day ended with probably the most unexpected highlight of the entire trip.
We started in an area bordering the Harkerville Forest, which was alive with birds first thing in the morning. Amethyst and greater and southern double collared sunbirds provided the colour along with a black-headed oriole and my first Knysna Turaco. Black backed puffback and bar-throated apalis were also picking their way through the shrubbery. Further into the forest, we disturbed a forest buzzard and spent a while straining our necks trying to get good views of an olive woodpecker.

At Kranshoek, a large area of fynbos held its typical species of karoo prinia, Cape white-eye, Cape sugarbird, brimstone canary and lesser double collared, malachite and orange-breasted sunbirds. A lone plain-backed pipit searched the short grass of the cliff-topp car park, while black sawwing, greater striped swallow and black swift hawked insects. Black oystercatchers could be seen on the rocks far below.

Forest birding is never easy and when we moved north to the Diepwalle Forest, we struggled to find much at all. Part of this time was taken up with the obligatory half our wait by some hillside scrub insanely hoping for a singing Victorin’s warbler to show itself. Needless to say, Victorin’s warbler appears on my trip list as “heard only”.

A welcome relief, from what was becoming quite a frustrating, almost birdless, couple of hours, was eventually found at a small picnic area where we caught up with two of my target birds in quick succession: white-starred robin and chorister robin chat. The white starred robin quickly disappeared back into the forest but the chorister robin chat provided good, sustained views, seemingly preferring the more open habitat. The forest edge was catching the sun here and we added a dusky flycatcher to our day list and had further good views of many of the birds we had seen first thing in the morning.

I then asked Mark if we could change the scenery a bit and relocate for the last part of the day to Wilderness for a walk up the half-collared kingfisher trail. The search for trail’s namesake succeeded only in finding a giant kingfisher where the smaller kingfisher should have been. However, with excellent views, this was a good consolation prize. Birds were still rather hard to find until a small pocket of activity revealed cape batis, yellow-throated woodland warbler, bar-throated apalis, forest canary and the two types of double collared sunbird. While we could hear several scaly-throated honeyguides calling throughout the forest, they remained elusive, along with a number of calling, or should I say bleating, bleating warblers. A lemon dove was found next to the track on the return trip and a fish eagle soared overhead but the best sighting of the day, and possibly my whole trip, was still to come.

As our day was drawing to a close, we arrived back at the car, which was parked at the end of the trail in the Ebb and Flow National Park campsite. Before getting in, we decided to make one final check of the river and walked a few yards to the road bridge. Mark noticed a “deer” further along on a disused railway track. As we raised our binos, the “deer” transformed into a stunning caracal, a cat I’ve always wanted to see. The caracal was transfixed by something and so I just about had time to fumble around, get my camera back out and fire off one shot before it pounced on a dune rat and carried it off into the bushes. The result was a rather poor record shot but a fantastic end to the day.

On Thursday 17th, the good luck continued into my early morning, whistle-stop tour of the lake at Rondevlei and a quick 2km loop around the forest at the Woodville Big Tree. The hide at Rondevlei provided many of the commoner duck species, great-crested, little and black-necked grebes, pied and malchite kingfishers, a sprinkling of waders and herons, fish eagle and an African marsh harrier. On the rallidae front, purple swamphen, black crake and African rail (a water rail on steroids) spiced up the red-knobbed coot and common moorhens, while around the hide Levaillant’s cisticola African sedge warbler and Cape reed warblers buzzed about.

After a couple of hours in the hide, I set off for the Woodville Big Tree, picking up a red-necked spurfowl and African stonechat around the lakeside fields. As I climbed away from the lakes and drove through hillside pastures, I stumbled across a family of black-winged lapwing (on the edge of their range here). My luck held as a few minutes later I crossed paths with a very large Denham’s Bustard which had fortunately decided on changing feeding areas just as I was passing and flew directly over the car.

Arriving at the Big Tree, a chorister robin-chat provided the welcome, sat on a picnic table, while feeding below were few swee waxbills. Time was running out for me before my promised return for breakfast with the missus but I managed a brisk walk around the forest loop starting out at the Big Tree itself. Epitomizing the hit and miss nature of forest birding, I saw more forest species in the next 45 minutes, than we’d picked up the previous day. A white-starred robin responded to a burst of pishing, along with a pair of Cape Batis. Further highlights included parties of both green wood-hoopoes and terrestrial brownbuls and great views olive woodpecker, knysna turaco, lemon dove, black-headed oriole and black-backed puffback.

Post breakfast, a quick mooch around Knysna was followed by a visit to the Tenikwa Wildlife Awareness Centre where we were guided around (and inside) cages of rescued felines up to the size of cheetahs. I can thoroughly recommend the experience to any passing birders wanting to take an hour’s break from the avian world. I even picked up another bird for the trip, although I had to ask if the 50 strong flock of white-faced ducks were genuinely wild birds. The answer was that they had started with two rescued birds and the rest had flown in to join them!

Kruger to follow

a few pictures....

Here's just a few pictures to give the whole thing some coplour

the first kruger bit

Saturday 19th – While news reports from home reached us of petting farms causing E-coli misery to British kids, nobody had reminded me that not washing your hands after stroking African elephants could have the same effect on British adults. So, after umpteen trips to the bathroom, chocks away and then carrots away at 34,000 feet, we arrived at our lodge bordering on Kruger National Park, with me a little worse for wear. We had already been up for 12 hours and had only been at the Elephant Plains Lodge for half an hour when the late afternoon game drive was due to start at 4.30pm. The missus declined the trip, but after being sick for the whole day and, more importantly, being stupid, I decided that concentration, clenched buttocks and Imodium would get me through the three hour drive. Unfortunately, the concentration had to be doubled when, five minutes in, I realised that some git had paved the dirt roads with corrugated asbestos.

While waiting for the trip to start, I first had a ten minute pishing session outside our chalet and very quickly got bearded woodpecker, southern boubou, brubru, black-backed puffback, southern black tit, arrow-marked babbler, chinspot batis, Burchell’s starling, white-bellied sunbird, spectacled weaver and blue waxbill, along with a trifecta on the buls: sombre greenbul, terrestrial brownbul and dark-capped bulbul.


On the drive, we had good close up views of game such as giraffe, zebra, impala, elephant, buffalo and white rhino but it was exceedingly difficult to ID birds unless we were stopped. This was quite frustrating but you just have to deal with it as you can’t ask to stop to identify LBJs when all the other people on the jeep are only there for the big five. The exception, of course, is that most people will take an interest in a bird of prey and so we stopped to take looks at Gabar goshawk, Wahlberg’s eagle, and a giant eagle owl, which all gave great views.

Crested francolin, red-billed, southern yellow-billed and grey hornbills, red-eyed and Cape turtle doves, lilac-breasted roller, magpie shrike, fork-tailed drongo, and grey go-away bird were the most common identifiable birds (and would remain so for the rest of the week) mainly because they either flew up from being in front of the jeep or were sitting on the tops of the bushes. A few emerald-spotted wood doves, laughing doves and a single African green pigeon strengthened the columbiforme contingent, while there were singles of Burchell’s coucal, brown-hooded kingfisher and little bee-eater.

As dusk fell, we came across a small reservoir which held a group of hippos being attended to by red-billed oxpeckers and an African pied wagtail. A common sandpiper fed along the muddy edges, alongside a very vocal water thick-knee, while several lesser-striped swallows took flies above the water. A few fiery-necked nightjars then added to the evensong and were found resting on the dirt roads.

Sunday 20th saw us up at the crack of dawn for the morning game drive and, while getting ready, I could hear several African scop’s owls outside the chalet and so stepped outside to get a silhouette view. The game drive produced much the same as the previous day and this would really be the trend for all the game drives. New birds included African hoopoe and crested barbet, while a small waterhole produced red-breasted swallow and three-banded plover. Sighting of the morning however was undoubtedly a sixteen year old, one-eyed, leopard called safari which had absolutely no fear of vehicles and actually used the jeep as cover to hunt from.

We then had to pack up and move to Nkhoro Lodge for two nights but I just managed to squeeze in a lesser masked weaver, chinspot batis and white-bellied sunbird outside our chalet before we left.

On arrival at Nkhoro Lodge, the manager kindly showed me a roosting scop’s owl behind our chalet. There was plenty of time before lunch, so I took a walk around the compound in the company of the ever present southern yellow-billed and red-billed hornbills, Burchell’s starlings and southern grey-headed sparrows. It also became obvious that the yellow-fronted was the canary of choice for Kruger. Other birds included groundscraper thrush, long-billed crombec and red-headed weaver and foraging parties of green wood-hoopoes and Retz’s helmet-shrikes passing through. Setting the scope up after lunch to view the distant waterhole paid dividends, when a Namaqua dove flew in for a drink at the waterhole.

Highlight of the evening game drive was a pride of lions. The missus had fallen ill by this time and hadn’t felt well enough to do the drive. However, as night fell, she ended up being warned to stay in the room as the lions left us and an hour later were walking through the lodge.

Very nice, detailed trip report! I am looking forward to more and wishing that I could teleport to South Africa.

Birdingcraft said:

Very nice, detailed trip report! I am looking forward to more and wishing that I could teleport to South Africa.

Click to expand...

Nice concept Patrick, if you are looking for a teleport partner, I am quite happy to be teleported to Costa Rica for 2 weeks!! Star Trek birding I guess...

Andrew

PS Indeed a great trip report, some really good birds seen!

Kruger part 1

A full day at Nkhoro Lodge on Monday 21st started with a woolly-necked stork at the lodge’s waterhole. As the sun got up a couple of hours into the morning game drive, raptors started to show and we got quite a nice list during the final hour of: bateleur, fish eagle, African harrier hawk, Wahlberg’s and martial eagle, yellow-billed kite and lizard buzzard. New birds spotted from the jeep were Natal spurfowl, red-crested korhaan, black-collared barbet and white crested helmet shrike.

A stroll around the grounds of the lodge mid-morning added Bennet’s woodpecker, African pipit and scarlet-chested sunbird to the trip list and the scop’s owl was back at its roost

No new birds were seen on the late afternoon/evening game drive but I enjoyed getting further close views of the fiery necked nightjars. We again had cracking views of two leopards and both black-backed and side-striped jackals. We also renewed our acquaintance with and the pride of lions, which we joined in darkness at the lodge waterhole. It was quite an incredible experience to have these animals within touching distance of the open jeep in the pitch black of night, although my hand almost fell off due to the missus clenching my arm so tight as they walked past her side of the vehicle.

The best game drive was saved until last at Nkhoro, as the morning of Tuesday 20th yielded all of the big five (elephant, buffalo, rhino, lion and leopard) with great views of the lot, plus we had our first sighting of a nyala, a sort of chocolate brown version of a kudu with knee-length orange socks. The pride of lions was still hanging around the lodge area and rather unnervingly stopped and eyed up the occupants of our sister jeep, looking as though they were trying to work out if anything was edible. Not many birds were seen this morning but the partridge family collection grew by Shelley’s francolin and Swainson’s spurfowl. Once again, we also heard coqui francolin but they would remain an unseen species for the trip. Further birds included a thick-billed cuckoo, which conveniently appeared as we had stopped for a coffee break and a family party of southern ground hornbills.

A quick walk around the compound produced a nice collection of Bennett’s, golden-tailed and cardinal woodpeckers in quick succession.

We then headed back to Hoedspruit airport, where I picked up a hire car for the next four days. Getting the missus on a safari was one achievement but getting her to spend four days stuck in a car for 12 hours a day aimlessly driving around the national park was never going to happen. Fortunately, she realised that getting me all the way to Kruger and not allowing me to do any real birding would be regarded as deliberate mental cruelty to a court and so she flew back to the UK, while I made my way to the Satara Rest Camp.

It was, at long last, a relief to be able to stop when an LBJ crossed my path but, unfortunately, time meant that I really didn’t have the luxury of making many stops as I had to be inside the camp gates on time (6pm) or apparently be fined with a free lecture. However, I did pick up African palm swift, brown-headed parrot and groundscraper thrush at the Orpen Gate and saw double banded sandgrouse on the road and purple roller, little bee-eater, Retz’s helmet shrike and black-crowned tchagra off the road on my way to Satara.

The commoner mammals were all pretty visible along the route and I bypassed a traffic jam apparently watching a lion. After being within a few feet of the pride of lions over the last two days, I was a bit blasé and couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of playing bumper cars. Instead, I got just as much enjoyment watching a group of banded mongoose heading out for the evening and then a very entertaining party of dwarf mongoose.

Just before reaching Satara a number of marabou storks and their nests were in trees at the junction of the Satara (H7) and H1-3 roads. Closer inspection revealed a giant eagle owl using one of the old stork nests.

The first full day of proper birding (if you can call it proper when you cannot get out of the car) started at 5.45am on Wednesday 23rd September. I was fourth in line waiting to leave the Satara Rest Camp at the official “gates open” time of 6am. A Marico sunbird called from a nearby tree and a very obliging Bennett’s woodpecker fed on the grass next to the car while I waited.

My ultimate destination today was the Letaba Rest Camp to the north but I started the day by driving south to the Tshokwane Picnic area where I planned to get breakfast. I soon realised that driving around Kruger meant that you had to plan to take a certain amount of time to get from A to B and then quadruple it, because that’s really the time it would take.

The first part of the drive was uneventful, with a couple of stops netting Wahlberg’s and tawny eagles and seeing both purple and lilac-breasted rollers at regular intervals. A quick bit of pishing alongside a dry riverbed attracted a few of the commoner bush birds such as blue waxbill, brubru, black-backed puffback, southern black tit, dark-capped bulbul, yellow-breasted apalis, long-billed crombec, rattling cisticola, tawny-flanked prinia and chinspot batis. African paradise flycatcher, a party of common scimitarbills and a pair of cardinal woodpeckers also moved through the area.

A herd of elephants were disturbingly close to the car at the Southernmost Baobab tree, where I saw my only yellow-throated longclaw and mosque swallows of the trip. Also added to the trip list, but quite common over the next few days were white-browed scrub robin and orange-breasted bush shrike.

At the Kumana Dam, I soon worked out that a very large, odd-shaped brown stork was an immature saddle-billed. A smaller odd-shaped brown stork next to it was a hammerkop. Lesser stripe swallows hawked insects over the water, where many little grebes were feeding.

I finally reached the Tshokwane Picnic area at 10am and was joined for breakfast by rampaging Southern yellow-billed and red-billed hornbills. Turning north, I made a rather unproductive stop at the Orpen Dam, which was low on water and choked with weed, although I did see a party of Retz’s helmet shrike and my only greater honeyguide of the trip a little bit further north.

Heading up the S35 and then the S37 Trichardt Road, the bush became a lot drier and there wasn’t a lot of life. Hooded and white-backed vultures started riding thermals late morning and other birds included red-crested korhaan, little bee-eater, sabota lark, and African pipit, together with occasional flocks of red-billed queleas. Intermittent pishing only really attracted blue waxbills but popping up amongst them were the odd green-winged pytilia and red-billed firefinch and also a single Jameson’s firefinch. Game was also a bit thin on these roads, with occasional zebra, wildebeest and impala and one small group of kudu. A slender mongoose then spent so much time watching me that I think he was ticking me off his trip list.

I reached the Sweni hide at gone midday – only three hours later than I had thought it would take – a didn’t really hold up much hope of seeing much at this time of day. A lone hippo grunted as I entered the hide and I was then pleasantly surprised as a herd of elephant ran down to the waterhole and started to drink, quite warily, next to a couple of large crocs.

There were a good few birds around too, with numerous black crakes, African jacana, three-banded plover, water thick-knee and yellow-billed stork. A large flock of golden-breasted bunting came down to drink and four kingfishers were visible at one time with pied, malachite, giant, brown-hooded present. A small party of southern masked weaver was new for the trip and wire-tailed swallow was the fourth swallow species of the day.

I headed back to Satara along the renowned S100 road but didn’t see a lot, which was not surprising given the time of day. After scoffing down a pie at Satara, I had two hours to get to Letaba, which pretty much meant no stopping. So, Sod’s law inevitably meant that, after ten minutes, I was stopped by an extremely confused white rhino and her calf hogging the road. Fortunately, after another ten minutes of rhino indecision, they eventually decided which side of the road they would prefer; a decision largely based on the fact that a very large male white rhino suddenly appeared and took what seemed to be an uninvited, undesirable and unhealthy interest in them. Off I went again but then couldn’t resist trying to take some video of two more rhinos engaged in a spot of territorial headbutting. However, after five minutes of videoing a staring contest, the disc ran out and I took this as a prompt to get going. I was going to be late if I stopped again so I, unfortunately, had to whiz past a group of sleeping hyena right next to the road, swiftly followed by a couple of ostrich.

I made good time and so had the luxury of three nanoseconds at the Olifants Bridge, which was swarming with little swifts. I also quickly picked up goliath heron, great egret and a distant, but this time fully developed, saddle-billed stork. Quickly moving on, I managed to get to Letaba with about two minutes to spare and was rewarded by a welcome party of Kurrichane thrush and African mourning dove.

In the evening, I joined quite productive night drive out of Letaba, seeing small spotted genet, hyena, scrub hare, the kangaroo-like spring hare, a large herd of buffalo, three African wildcats, two hippos in a bush and a partridge in a pear tree. On the bird front, we found a giant eagle owl eating something off the road and saw several unidentified (I was told they were probably freckled) nightjars.

Kruger - the final part

On Thursday 24th, I was up early and out of Letaba at 6am, and made the short drive to the Matembeni Hide on the banks of the Letaba River. My telescope was definitely a big help here and every sweep of the river seemed to pick up another type of heron or stork which eventually added up to a dozen different species, including goliath, squacco and purple herons and glossy ibis. Last on the list to be found was a black heron, which conveniently sat opposite the hide doing its umbrella impression. Other waterbirds included white-faced duck, spur-winged goose, black crake, African jacana, greater painted snipe, greenshank, wood sandpiper, little stint and black-winged stilt. On the far bank I could see fish eagles and black shouldered kites, together with small numbers of white-fronted bee-eaters.

Crocodiles and Hippos were also in abundance and, after being in the hide for almost an hour, I realised a Klipspringer had been sat on a rock only five yards away from the front of the hide.

I noticed a small amount of passerine activity in the scrub by the hide so I did a burst of pishing and got great photo opportunities from Marico and white-bellied sunbirds, a brown-crowned tchagra, golden-breasted bunting, firefinches and, of course, blue waxbills.

After three hours in the hide, I continued towards the Englehard Dam. This only added common waxbill as a new species for the trip but was a nice drive, with several good spots for observation next to the river.

Returning to Letaba, I stopped at the bridge over the river and spent half hour picking my way through the cloud of little swifts. This netted Alpine, African black and African palm swifts, all of which seemed to come out of nowhere, realise that it was only their small cousins in the area and then leave as quickly as they had arrived. Just after the bridge a martial eagle was perched next to the road with a kill and I also caught up with my second nyala of the trip.

I popped back into Letaba camp for lunch and to have a walk around to see what was about. This proved quite fruitful with golden-tailed woodpecker, Kurrichane thrush, African mourning dove, and greater blue eared starling all making use of the camp’s sprinkler systems. I also found my only white-browed robin chat of the trip behind the shop and a lot of birds were feeding in some flowering trees at the western extremity of the camp, including African paradise flycatcher together with village, lesser-masked, southern-masked and red-headed weavers.

After lunch I made an unsuccessful round trip to the N’wantesi waterhole, where some cheetahs had been seen earlier in the day. However, a stop along this road overlooking a rocky river bed produced yellow-throated petronia and cinnamon-breasted bunting.

It was around 2pm, by the time I got on the S46 road following the Letaba River towards the Olifants Rest Camp. The first part of this road was quite productive with some great views of elephants crossing the river and feeding next to the road. Lots of impala and healthy numbers of steenbok were in this area and, while watching a steenbok, I noticed a pearl-spotted owlet in a tree above it. As the S46 turned into the S93 and then S44 the country became drier and less productive. A couple of red-crested Korhaan and a fly past from an African harrier hawk were the highlights. sabota lark, white-browed scrub robin and white-bellied sunbird were quite common down this road.

I arrived at the Olifants Camp with enough time to enjoy the stunning view from my rondeval. I’d got lucky as I’d got the best location in the camp and I could see a herd of elephants drinking in the river below, along with numerous herons/storks and a couple of fish eagles. I then notched up my final bird of the day, when a quick flick through the field guide told me that the striking bird sitting on the rocks opposite me was a mocking cliff chat.

Again, I took the night drive, which wasn’t as productive as the previous night, although we did see a few hyenas, elephant, hippo and those frustrating UFO (unidentified flying Olifants) nightjars.

Before leaving early Friday morning, a quick look from my patio at the Olifants River below produced woolly-necked, yellow-billed and marabou storks, a goliath heron and an African spoonbill. My plan was to get to the Olifants river crossing within a half hour, then head to the Bangu waterhole before doubling back on myself and taking the S39 Timbavati Road south to Satara for lunch.

It was my last full day in the park and I spent the journey on a repetitive cycle of what had become the standard method to bird in the park. This technique was to basically drive a few kilometres and, on finding a gully or riverbed (wet or dry), do a little bit of pishing. Without fail, a flock of blue waxbills would always immediately appear, along with a few firefinches and a pair of green-winged pytilia mixed in. Only seconds behind would be at least two, if not more, long-billed crombecs, a couple of white-bellied sunbirds and a rattling cisticola. These would be followed by a flock of golden-breasted buntings. Almost always bringing up the rear would be a black-backed puffback, a brubru and some type of tchagra. Where there was still a bit of greenery about, there would almost be guaranteed appearances by dark-capped bulbul, bleating warbler (or green-backed carmaroptera if you’ve got your teeth in), yellow-throated apalis and tawny-flanked prinia. The end bit was the exciting bit as you never knew what the very last few birds would be and the role of honour for these final places was always different.

Needless to say, three hours of productive pishing later, I had only just arrived at the Olifants River crossing. There had simply been too many distractions on the way, including close up views (and therefore photographic opportunities) of white-fronted bee-eater, brown hooded parrot, orange-breasted and grey-headed bush shrikes, green woodhoopoe, scimitarbill, acacia pied barbet, black-headed oriole, African paradise flycatcher and pin-tailed whydah. Even at the bridge, I took my time as I couldn’t pass up the chance of videoing a saddle-billed stork from just a few feet away. And then both giant and pied kingfishers posed for pictures completely oblivious to any passing cars.

My eventual arrival at the Bangu waterhole was a disappointment with it being completely dry. However, the disappointment was short lived as a pair of Kori bustards strutted arrogantly out of the bush and straight past the car window. A Namaqua dove also gave a good, if brief, view as it just avoided the windscreen.
On cutting across to the S39 Timbavati road, I came across quite a big variety pack of impala, zebra and wildebeest and a large troop of vervet monkeys. Several stops for pishing heralded some new species at the back of the pack including white-throted robin chat, red-faced cisticola, collard sunbird and a pair of violet-eared waxbill. At one of the stops, I heard one of the few calls that I could remember from the CDs I had once kidded myself I would learn before the trip, as a yellow-fronted tinkerbird just went on and on and on with its single note.

The most notable event down the Timbavati Road was a small group of mixed vultures just hanging out on the tops of some mid size bushes and having a few low-level circular flights. White-backed, hooded, white-headed and lappet-faced vultures made up the group and I wondered if something was dead in the bushes. The bush was so dense, I doubted that the vultures would have been able to get on the ground to recover anything but it was late enough in the day for them to be up and about, so it was strange to see them congregating in one small area.

I eventually made it down to the Ratelpan hide where a grey tit-flycatcher was messing about and more crocs and hippos sat in front of the hide. Turning east along the S127, I found a ground feeding flock which included a large number of chestnut-backed finchlark and smaller numbers of wattled starlings.

As I neared the main H1-4 several white rhinos were browsing in the bush and this was roughly the same area where I’d seen the rhinos on my way north two days previously. It was just after 2pm and the rhino sightings started a run of luck that saw me pick up the big five before the day was out.

After a quick pie at Satara and watching a couple of common scimitarbills drinking from a tap coming out of the restaurant wall, I headed out down the S100 for the final few hours of the day. Lots of game was around with all the usual suspects present and standing out were three enormous elephants drinking out of some sort of raised water tank. Towards the end of the S100 a small group of cars had gathered and, on inquiring, I was pointed in the direction of a pride of lions resting 200 yards off the road in some long grass. I continued around to the Sweni hide and nervously entered it as three elephants were grazing on bushes right next to it. Activity at the hide was not as lively towards dusk as it had been in the middle of the day, when I had previously visited.
I allowed 45 minutes to get back to Satara before curfew and what a fun packed 45 minutes it was.

First of all a family of southern ground hornbills walked around beside the H6. It was interesting to see that their heads didn’t seem to look down as they searched the ground but that their whole eye socket and eyelid seemed to move instead. With 15 minutes to curfew, I turned north on the H1-3 and almost immediately saw three cars stopped by the roadside. Before having to ask what the focal point was, I noticed a leopard slowly walking towards the cars before it disappeared down a gully and into some bush. The big five in four hours was then completed by a herd of buffalo just before the rest camp along with some more elephants. Although I had already seen the big five on a drive at the game lodges, there was a sense of achievement of actually finding them (if stopping at groups of cars can be called “finding”) on my own.

I found myself at the back of a long queue to get out of Satara on Saturday morning; the last morning of my trip. Out of the camp, while the hordes all headed east down the renowned S100, I declined a bout of bumper cars. Instead, I figured if I needed a cup of tea first thing in the morning to function properly then the animals would need a drink too. So, I headed west to the Nsemani Dam. I was the first car to arrive at the dam and my gamble paid off as my arrival coincided with a pride of lions consisting of four adult lionesses, what I would think were the equivalent of four teenagers and one small cub. A lot of play fighting was going on but one of the adults was limping and had what looked like an enormous cyst on her leg. This was a sad sight to see.

Once they had all had their cups of tea they moved off and so did I, positioning the car for a stonking view as they crossed the road right next to the car.

I scanned the edges around the dam and picked up greenshank, black-winged stilt and other common waders, before doubling back on myself and then driving the length of the S126 Sweni Road from east to west. My drive then took me north up the S36 and then I headed to the Orpen Gate and on to Hoedspruit for my 2pm flight.

The Sweni Road was quite productive with elephant, white rhino, kudu and a very friendly giraffe amongst the other common game. It was a nice drive to end the trip.
The pishing revealed the usual suspects along with acacia pied barbet, Kurrichane thrush, green woodhoopoe, grey-headed bushshrike and southern masked weaver.
I also found a nest of a green pigeon.

I took a quick stretch of my legs at the very busy Muzandzeni picnic site and then made for the Orpen Gate. The birds still hadn’t finished adding themselves to the trip list and I found a small flock of red-billed buffalo weavers feeding next to the road. They were accompanied by a variety of other ground feeders including a small LBJ with a crown stripe, which I had seen previously in a flock but failed to identify. I think it was a dusky indigobird but, if anybody has got to the end of this trip report and is still alive, please check out another of my posts (where I’ve put a photo requesting help) and let me know what it is.

Soon I was out of the park and heading to Hoedspruit Airport (if Carlsberg did airports they would be like this one) picking up a large flock of white-faced ducks on a roadside pond on the way.

A fantastic trip was at end but then was completely ruined by watching Chelsea lose to Wigan, live on TV at Johannesburg Airport.