Kruger Birds

The first three times I visited sub-Saharan Africa, I went with a wish list of creatures to see. For the most part, those lists consisted entirely or mostly of mammals. Maybe there was a reptile in there once or twice and there may have been a bird or two, particularly on the Uganda list. But mostly, it was mammals.

This year, I also made a list. But this year, my list was mostly birds. And by that I mean I had a list of 12 species I wanted to see and only two of them were mammals. This shift in priorities was born of two things: (1) a genuine and blossoming love of birds and birdwatching and (2) we are honestly just running out of exciting new mammals to see in the wild in Africa. I was super excited to spend as much time seeing birds in South Africa in general and Kruger National Park in particular. And Kruger delivered. Not my whole list. But enough plus some things I didn't even know existed and some old favorites.

This year's list of mammals by the way...painted dogs and springboks. That's it. Our great hope for this trip in the wildlife department was that we would finally lay eyes on some African wild dogs and we did that. I figured springboks were a gimme. I mean it's like the national animal of South Africa. Their rugby team is named after that antelope. Didn't see any springboks. Apparently they don't like ticks. And Kruger, I guess, is tick-y. 

Oh well. We still have a reason to go back to Africa, I guess. Our next trip might be springbok focused. Kidding. Possibly. Probably.

Lilac-breasted roller. Kruger day 2. On this year's list.

Unless you manage to book a private safari vehicle (and we have never done that), any safari experience is bound to be a bit of a democracy. And by that I mean that what you search for; what you stop for; and how long you linger at a sighting is likely to be a group decision which at one time or another is bound to be flawed to deeply flawed for some people in the car. 

Safari vehicles are typically packed to capacity. More people per vehicle theoretically means fewer vehicles in the Park and more revenue per car or both (probably the latter is driving that issue). Fewer cars in the Park is a good thing. But more people per vehicle might also mean a little bit of push and pull over what the entire group gets to see. If one person in the car is tired of elephants and the rest of the car keeps asking the guide to stop for elephants, eventually it will come out. Same for any other sort of species. 

We eventually had an issue on this trip.

My impression of younger, first-time safari goers is that there is a distinct preference among that demographic to see mammals while on safari. The bigger, the better. I guess they are easier to see and watch and remember. Heck, my first safari wish list was all mammals so it's totally understandable. But we (and did some others in our vehicle) wanted to see lots of birds. Not just birds. Birds and mammals. But definitely birds.

Eventually, frustration around too many stops for birds boiled over a bit on day two. Nothing serious. We'd seen it worse in Uganda and it was around the exact same issue. Some people just don't like birds so much.

Southern yellow-billed hornbill. Kruger day 1. On this year's list.

I have to say I don't exactly get people's dismissal of birds in Africa. If we were stopping for doves or sparrows or starlings (although there are actually some gorgeous starlings in Africa) or something like that, I'd get it. Who cares about tiny not-vibrantly-colored birds which move around a lot? But Africa has some seriously impressive birdlife, including some absolutely giant top-of-the-food-chain predator types. You are interested in passing on species like secretary birds or different types of storks or fish eagles or sunbirds and bee-eaters? No way. Not me. I want to spend as much time watching these birds as possible. And that includes the starlings.

So before safari day three in Kruger, some of us approached our lead guide, Celeste, with a request: take the three or so non-birders out of our vehicle and swap in two avid birders from the second car. And despite the paperwork required to be re-filed at the Kruger gate, she made it happen. Day three would have a Tweety Car (for birders) and a Sylvester Car (for the rest of our tour group who would be looking specifically for cats).

And OK, I do care about tiny birds which move around a lot regardless of color.

African fish eagles. Adult (top); Kruger day 1. Juvenile (bottom); Kruger day 2. 

So did our Tweety Car stop for only birds and nothing else? Actually, by no means. I mean, of course not. Why would we do that? We spent a lot of time looking at all sorts of mammals, including all four of the Big Five that we saw in Kruger over the four full days we spent in the Park. And in a twist of irony, the Tweety Car actually got the best leopard sighting of the entire trip for our tour group. Go figure. 

But we did spend a lot of time in the Tweety Car in one spot in particular for about an hour watching a rattling cisticola and then a tawny-flanked prinia with a cameo by a chinspot batis in the middle of all that. Two of these three birds are pretty much brown from head to toe and all three are no bigger than a starling. And really the first two are like wren-sized. If wren-sized doesn't mean that much to you, think about something a little smaller than a house sparrow.  

Why was this so awesome? Because this is what we do when we birdwatch. We don't spend a couple of minutes with one species and then move on to try to find some other type of bird. We stop. We wait for it (or them) to appear and re-appear between hiding in bushes or trees or making trips to a nest or whatever. Birdwatching takes patience and perseverance. Stand or sit and focus and let time slip away. We can spend 30 minutes to an hour trying to see something like a single warbler or a kinglet in a bush or tree on a typical birdwatching outing at home.

Safari is not birdwatching at home. This was really the only time in Africa, we have ever done this sort of thing on safari. We've seen some incredible birdlife on past trips to Africa. But there's always been some sort of urgency to get going to find something different. This wasn't like that. This felt like the right thing to do. And we saw some birds that we never would have seen if this wasn't a bird-focused car. 

By the way, if you had asked me what a batis, a prinia or a cisticola was before we started Kruger Day 3, there's no way I would have even been able to tell you what any of these birds looked like. Or even identify these terms as species of birds even. 

The call of the rattling cisticola is fantastic. Just thought it was important to add that last bit.

Travel. Broadens this mind in all sorts of ways.

Top to bottom: rattling cisticola; tawny-flanked prinia; and chinspot batis. All Kruger day 3. The batis was at a distance.

So being able to stop for whatever birds we wanted for as long as we wanted got us the best look at birds for the whole trip, right? 

Nope. Not exactly. But yes, in the sense that I've never seen a cisticola before. Nature doesn't work that way. Birds and other creatures in the Park don't pose or come close to vehicles when requested by tourists. There are no cage or enclosures (thank God!!!) and you can't go off the road to chase stuff. So the quality of wildlife sightings you will get as a safari tourist will involve a lot of luck. 

Wildlife sightings are also heavily weather-dependent which can affect the activity of the animals (particularly birds since some don't like to fly much in the rain) and lighting a ton. Our Tweety Car day was quite possibly the worst weather we experienced in the Park, with a good amount of rain and grey skies. 

From a quality standpoint, I actually thought the first day was our best bird photography day. I love the bird head photographs I got on that day and I've posted a few here. I am in love with African fish eagles (my favorite eagle seen in the wild so far) and I also love hornbills so I was super excited to find a southern yellow-billed hornbill close to the car in the early hours of that day. But quite possibly some of my favorite pictures of the whole trip are those that I took of a hooded vulture (it's the cover picture of this post but there's another below). I'd never seen one of those before and the lighting on its head and feathers was about as perfect as it could have been. I'm not sure if this bird is completely ugly or supremely beautiful. The feathers are gorgeous.

Hooded vulture. Kruger day 1.

I'm not sure how many birds we saw in Kruger or South Africa as a whole. I'm still plugging them into ebird almost a month after we got home. My guess would be about 80 to 90 total species with maybe half to two thirds of that number in Kruger. For the purposes of this post, it doesn't particularly matter. This post is not supposed to be a complete record of every avian species we laid eyes on over four days.

Of the ten birds on my South Africa list, I saw nine, although admittedly the only Goliath heron I saw was on a live video feed at a lunch spot and I couldn't really figure out well enough where the camera was pointed to go have a look for myself. I got seven of the nine at Kruger, including the Goliath heron on TV. The only species I missed entirely in South Africa was a golden-breasted bunting. I think that's pretty good, particularly because I was pleasantly surprised by some birds that were not on my list, notably that hooded vulture. 

The rest of this post is a photo dump highlighting my most favorite bird photos I took in Kruger which haven't been posted earlier in this post. I'm separating the photos by day. Every day we spent birding in Kruger was special. The Tweety Car day will stick out in my memory as super-special because we spent it with kindred spirits from Australia and Oregon who enhanced our appreciation of birds. These moments on vacations can be memorable and this one certainly was. 

Kruger Day One

Top to bottom: Brown snake-eagle; white-headed vulture (left) and white-backed vulture (right). The brown snake-eagle was the first bird we saw in Kruger proper just after 6 o'clock in the morning. Early starts are essential on safari. But lighting sometimes is not great at that time of day.

Kruger Day Two

Top to bottom: Yellow-billed oxpecker; southern red-billed hornbill; crested barbet; Burchell's starling (two pics); common myna; southern ground-hornbill; southern white-faced owl; white-backed vulture. Told you there were some awesome starlings in Africa. We will forever refer to these birds as virtual starlings, by the way, based on us mis-hearing the initial identification from one of our traveling companions.

Kruger Day Three (Tweety Car Day)

Top to bottom: Tawny eagle; blacksmith lapwing.

Kruger Day Four

Top to Bottom: saddle-billed stork; southern masked-weaver; purple-crested turaco. 

Two comments here. First, I love weavers (like LOVE!!!). We saw southern masked-weavers, grosbeak weavers and cape weavers on this trip and every time I find the nest engineering by these birds just fascinating, maybe because it's completely out in the open. 

Second, the turacos were Kruger's parting gift to us. We saw six to eight of these birds in the treetops right before we exited the Park on our last day. Under normal circumstances, I would have passed on including this photograph based on the lighting but turacos are incredible-looking birds and I totally didn't expect to see them in South Africa. For what it's worth, both times I have seen Turacos (we saw some great blue turacos in Uganda), the lighting has been awful.

The Big Five

Our trip to South Africa in late October and early November of this year was our fourth African big game safari experience. We visited the Victoria Falls area in 2015; followed that up with two weeks in Kenya and Tanzania in 2018; and then spent a week plus in Uganda a couple of years ago. On each of our African safari trips, we have always endeavored to see Africa's Big Five wholly within each vacation. I don't think that is unusual, necessarily. It's pretty much a rite of passage at one time or another for all safari-goers to find the Big Five.

Not familiar with the Big Five? Well perhaps a little explanation is in order. 

Big Five. Mammals. Elephant, hippo, rhinoceros, giraffe and some other large animal, maybe? They seem like they might be the largest four plus one creatures out there in the African bush, right? But that's not the Big Five. It's not the largest five animals on the continent. And if it were, the African buffalo would probably round out that group, assuming you were not inclined to add two separate species of rhinoceros in white and black varieties. 

The Big Five is not a size thing. It's a nomenclature that stems from colonial times to identify the five toughest creatures to kill on foot. And the elephant, the rhinoceros and, yes, the African buffalo are on the list along with the lion and the leopard. We were not in Africa to kill anything, on foot or in any sort of vehicle. We never would or will be. The only shooting of animals we'd be doing would be with a camera. 

Lions (top) and African buffalo (bottom).

We have already seen the Big Five on a single trip before. Not near Vic Falls or in Uganda. But between Kenya and Tanzania five years or so ago, we managed to get good sightings of all animals that make out this sought-after group. On that trip, we were told that the true Big Five includes only the black rhinoceros so it took us all the way to our last stop at Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania to declare our quest fully complete. But in preparing to write this post, I found no such specificity in the rhino's inclusion on this list. So on this trip, we'd be good with either white or black. 

Despite having already seen the Big Five on a single trip, we still wanted it again. We probably always will.

We could hardly have picked a better country than South Africa to do it. That country is so committed to the Big Five that they have a picture of one of each of the Five on their five banknotes. They also have the largest population of rhinos by far in the world and also boast robust populations of lions, leopards and elephants. Take that "robust" statement with a huge grain of salt. All of these animals are endangered. Nonetheless, we liked our chances, particularly considering Kruger National Park, where we would be spending four full days, is well stocked (again, relatively) with these creatures. 

And sure, South Africa also has plentiful African buffalo, but then again, we are pretty much talking about cattle here.

It took us about an hour in Kruger before we came across the first of the Big Five. And sure, it was of course a buffalo. Probably or pretty much definitely the least exciting of the Five. Good sighting? Sure. We'll take any wildlife sighting that soon after entering any Park. But it's a buffalo.

It got better. Quickly. Less than 15 minutes later, we'd seen some elephants and what we thought were two lions off to the right of our vehicle. This Kruger thing was shaping up to be a great experience in the first 75 minutes. We couldn't have hoped for any better start. It looked like we were well on our way to a complete Big Five experience like in a couple of hours maybe. All we needed was a leopard and maybe one or two (although really just one) rhinoceros and we'd be done before lunch on the first day.

And those two lions off to the right? Well, there were two lions, a male and female possibly mated or about to be mated. We watched them walk off into the distance and into hiding for a few minutes before realizing there was a second male mere feet from our vehicle and completely camouflaged against the brush. We never even noticed a 400 pound or so cat about 12 feet from the left side of the car. Difficult to hunt on foot? Umm...yeah they would be when you can't even see them. Good thing we were in a car.

So what did the next hour hold for us? Well, let's just say we had to live with buffalo, elephants and lions for days. Yes, days.

First elephant in Kruger (top) and those first two lions (bottom).

But the first couple of hours in a Park coming across elephants, lions and buffalo is not nothing.

On the watchability scale of African animals, for me nothing comes close to the fascination I have with elephants. It's the intelligence and social structure that keeps my attention. When you come across a herd of elephants, you are acknowledged and sometimes put on notice either visually with a hard stare or audibly with a "keep away" noise. There is no other animal out there that looks through the open sides of the safari vehicle and into your eyes and your soul the way an adult elephant does. We are not important to any other species. Elephants know the danger and why we are dangerous. Not lions. Not leopards. Not anything else. Just the elephants.

Sometimes our watching and appreciating takes a long time and I will say we got precious few moments of insight into elephant interpersonal relationships on our four days in Kruger. But we did get a look at the unbridled joy that is a herd of elephants heading out of the bush and sprinting for a lake representing both a long cool drink and a shower at the same time. We also got a look at two younger elephants play-fighting which looked like it was going to end in the larger of the two sitting on the smaller. That would not be a good situation. Elephants weigh a lot.

But just like elephants do, mom (or one of the moms) was watching intently and that act of sitting was interrupted and very effectively stopped by a loud and brusque trumpet from a nearby adult. No sitting on each other. Don't you know that you are endangered as a species? 

There are a lot of elephants in Kruger. Too many, in fact to preserve the land. The South Africans have tried sending some of them to neighboring Mozambique but they keep coming back to Kruger. Too many elephants in this day and age in a particular spot isn't good. It will mean trouble with humans or trouble with the environment and the only real way to solve that is to start killing elephants. Not a comforting thought. 

The middle photo of this sequence is my favorite elephant picture of this trip. I think it's the sky and the elephant on the left.

If it seems like Kruger delivered on the elephants (and it did; it really did!), the lion sightings were even better. While we missed lions entirely on day four, we got at least one on all the other three days. Day two was the best, with four separate lion sightings, including the end of a kill scene and two separate sightings of different white (albino) lions. And two of the sightings were extended. Like at least 20-30 minutes each. And they were only that short because we decided to leave.

I cannot understate the value of these sighting. We have never had a lion day like day two in Kruger and we'd never seen white lions in the wild before anywhere. One of the two white lions was a full grown male named Casper (like the ghost...) who was in pursuit of a mate at about the pace that I would expect a full grown male lion to act. Meaning slowly. Super slowly. A lion's life is a lazy one most of the time. And that is particularly true of male lions. They only really exert themselves when they are hunting and the males usually leave that to the lionesses anyway. The reason why we left the presumed and future mating scene is because we weren't convinced anything was going to happen. It looked promising for a while before both lions just laid down and looked at each other for a while.

Casper (the friendly lion?) on the move and with presumed love interest.

And the kill scene? 

We have never seen the end of a hunt by a pack of lions. It's still on our list, despite all reports that we've had that the actual witnessing (including hearing) a kill can be super upsetting. For 2025, we'd have to be satisfied with the end of the feast on a hunted male kudu. We got to the kill site about as late as we could have, with a group of lions lolling around fat and happy after eating their fill and watching a (second) albino lion still working on the remains of the kudu. 

I cannot imagine how brutal a pack of lions taking down an animal can be live. At least the cats kill their prey once they have a hold of it unlike painted dogs and hyenas which will start eating their kill before it's even killed. Maybe one day. 

So of the first-hour-in-Kruger-Big-Five list, that leaves the African buffalo. Definitely not as sexy or exciting as either elephants or lions. They are literally like large cows moving in herd from one place to another to graze. 

That is, unless they get a little testy. African buffalo are killers. No, I don't mean they hunt things down and eat them. I just mean that they are unpredictable and protective of their young (and adults) and can get mean. And when they do that, they start swinging their heads at whatever they want to drive away with the sinister intent of getting those lethal and sharp curved horns into whatever is opposing them. I would not want to be on foot near these creatures when that sort of action starts happening.

The thrill I got out of African buffalo on this trip was witnessing some play fighting between some young bulls. We watched two or three males get their heads and shoulders low to the ground and start engaging another male in the start of a struggle. Their horns start in these thick caps on top of their heads which they use to start to tussle with their rivals. They then hook their horns with their opponent and push and twist. You can see the immense strength in these creatures in their thick neck muscles while they are locked into another bull's headgear.

Mating season for African buffalo occurs in March or April to allow the birth of calves to coincide with the rainy season in sub-Saharan Africa. I'm assuming what we watched in Kruger would be a lot more sustained and violent closer to mating time. This late October sparring was just that...practice. There's no sense really getting into it until there is a reward to be had. 

The windows we have into the lives of these species as trans-Atlantic tourists are so limited. The first time we safari-ed in 2015 we didn't get any lions feasting or any buffaloes struggling. In fact, we didn't see anything really super-compelling about buffalo other than a lot of mean-mugging until this fourth safari trip. It would make way more sense to just head over to Africa for a month or so, go out every day privately with a guide / driver and really focus on behaviors of each animal with extended personal viewings from close up. Of course, we all have that sort of money and time, right? 

But this is a post about the Big Five, not the Big Three, right? Where are the rhinos and leopards? 

Let's rip the Band-Aid off about the rhinos, shall we? No rhinos seen by us in Kruger. We got a story about mating habits of rhinos which apparently involves pooping (on the ground for white rhinos and on the tree trunks for black rhinos) complete with a pile of poop that we found by the side of the road. We also saw some captive rhinos in a game reserve next to a gas station on the return trip from Kruger to Johannesburg (or Joburg / Jozy if you are a little more with it). But rhinos in Kruger? Nope. We looked. We saw poop. We didn't see rhinos.

You can't always get what you want.

The closest we got to a rhinoceros in Kruger. White rhino, apparently. Poop's on the ground.

But we did get a Big Four out of Five.

I would estimate the total amount of leopard-viewing time for us in Kruger National Park in 2025 at about five minutes. No exaggeration. No low-balling. Five minutes total. And that was with two leopards in two separate locations. Both in trees. And both did the same thing as soon as we showed up. They both (one female and one male) looked around, climbed out of their respective tree very quickly and walked away. The female walked directly away from us and was instantly lost in the brush. The male walked to the right and was in sight for maybe a minute after descending. If he had walked away from us, our five minutes might have been four minutes.

There is something indescribably gorgeous about a leopard that is different from any other animal we have ever seen in Africa. Elephants are dusty and have wiry hairs all over their body which are a bit off-putting. Rhinos are dusty and usually have red-billed oxpeckers feeding on an open wound or two. African buffalo are dusty and with wet noses and just look irritable all the time. Lions are dusty and shaggy and unkempt and when feeding, generally covered with a little bit of blood.

Leopards are none of that. Not even dusty. They are gorgeously colored, super-well groomed and the most well-put together animal that you can find in the bush. They are sleek and powerful and just spectacularly perfect every time you see them. Pick any animal you can find in Africa. There's no comparison to the leopard from an appearance standpoint.

Was five minutes enough? Absolutely not. But it got me the picture below. I took a few more of the two leopards that we saw but none of the others are as incredible as the one below. And because we got such an emphemeral look, it's the only one I'm posting. This is my picture of the trip. It's not perfect. There is way too much light in the background. But it's the picture of the trip for me.

Big Five? Not this year. I'm not heartbroken. Kruger was an amazing Park and it made our time in South Africa an incredible safari experience. Wildlife trips are unpredictable. The animals rarely cooperate. You just have to go out every day or as many days as possible and look and hope. No rhinos and no regrets here. 

We got an incredible collection of photographs from Kruger. When I started this post I was working off a series of 79 "best" photos of our Big Five (the poop counts!) from this trip. I managed to whittle that group down to 25. There have been 19 to this point in this post. The other six (all of lions and elephants) are below. 

We didn't see the Big Five this year. Oh well. Who cares? We may never see them all in one trip again. Nature is like that. We'll take what we can and keep going back until we can't for whatever reason again. We've pretty religiously been to Africa on safari every 2-1/2 years. We skipped 2020 and got a five year gap between Kenya / Tanzania and Uganda. I can't imagine we won't be back on the Dark Continent in the winter or spring of 2028.