My second visit to South Africa in the space of six months, this three-week trip very much focussed on butterflies, though did begin with a few days in Kruger National Park searching for a number of iconic mammals, not least Wild Dog, the big cats, White Rhinos and the two bushbabies.
In comparison to birding, I found executing a butterfly trip in South Africa to be rather harder – with over 660 species in the country, not only do quite a number present considerable identification challenges, but there is also generally a dearth of information available to help locate top butterfly localities or specific sites for particular species. As a result, my itinerary was very much speculative, the basic route designed to incorporate a range of habitats from upland grasslands to lowland forests, the actual sites then fine tuned once on the ground to find good butterfly areas. Incorporating southern Kruger, Swaziland, Kwazulu-Natal and the Drakensburg Mountains, and timing the trip to correspond with the beginning of the southern summer, I managed a total of 136 species of butterfly over the three weeks, a fairly respectable total and one that included personal favourites such as Common Woolly Legs, Southern Buff Skipper and Reilly's Copper.
In hindsight, especially with summer rains proving late and most areas remaining extremely arid, my trip would undoubtedly have been more productive if I had timed it later in the season - though butterflies are on the wing throughout the year in both Kwazula and the northern Limpopo districts, peak butterfly numbers are generally closely tied to the arrival of the summer rains and the best periods are often late-summer to early autumn, i.e. March to early April. As it was, travelling at the very beginning of the rainy season, few flowers were present and consequently butterfly numbers were generally lower than I had expected, not helped on several days by overcast skies.
In comparison to birding, I found executing a butterfly trip in South Africa to be rather harder – with over 660 species in the country, not only do quite a number present considerable identification challenges, but there is also generally a dearth of information available to help locate top butterfly localities or specific sites for particular species. As a result, my itinerary was very much speculative, the basic route designed to incorporate a range of habitats from upland grasslands to lowland forests, the actual sites then fine tuned once on the ground to find good butterfly areas. Incorporating southern Kruger, Swaziland, Kwazulu-Natal and the Drakensburg Mountains, and timing the trip to correspond with the beginning of the southern summer, I managed a total of 136 species of butterfly over the three weeks, a fairly respectable total and one that included personal favourites such as Common Woolly Legs, Southern Buff Skipper and Reilly's Copper.
In hindsight, especially with summer rains proving late and most areas remaining extremely arid, my trip would undoubtedly have been more productive if I had timed it later in the season - though butterflies are on the wing throughout the year in both Kwazula and the northern Limpopo districts, peak butterfly numbers are generally closely tied to the arrival of the summer rains and the best periods are often late-summer to early autumn, i.e. March to early April. As it was, travelling at the very beginning of the rainy season, few flowers were present and consequently butterfly numbers were generally lower than I had expected, not helped on several days by overcast skies.