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.