This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Photos courtesy of Mosetlha Bush Camp A dusty-red road leads me through Marico bushveld deeper into the 750 square kilometers large wilderness of the Madikwe Game Reserve – the 4th largest reserve in SouthAfrica, home to 350 bird and 66 mammal species, some 4 hours’ drive from Johannesburg.
The history of Tembe Elephant Park in SouthAfrica is a slightly unusual one. But it wasn’t founded to serve as a refuge for human refugees, but animal ones, specifically elephants. And elephants are always overwhelming anyway. Tembe Elephant Park is a mosaic of savannah and forest.
And so, I went on the American Birding Association Safari to SouthAfrica. That was easily fixed by adding a post-Safari trip to Eastern SouthAfrica, led by dashing Rockjumper guide Clayton Burne, to my itinerary. The small group was a good counterpart to the large, convivial ABA Safari group of 98 birders.
A dusty-red road leads me through Marico bushveld deeper into the 750 square kilometers large wilderness of the Madikwe Game Reserve – the 4th largest reserve in SouthAfrica, home to 350 bird and 66 mammal species, some 4 hours’ drive from Johannesburg. Two young bull elephants slowly walk along the road in front of us.
After a very long day of 7 hours of driving, 11 hours flying and then 9 hours more driving, we have arrived at our temporary home here in SouthAfrica. Daily park fees are such that we opted for the annual “Wild Card” that is good not only for Kruger, but nearly every park in SouthAfrica. This pass cost us $3850.00
Ndumo Game Reserve lies in the Easternmost part of SouthAfrica, close to the border of Mozambique and Eswatini. It is not particularly big but has a reported 430 bird species including migrants, though during my short stay it seems I missed most of the key attractions among them. Pel’s Fishing Owl, where were you?
They are not necessarily the biggest African animals, but represented those that were considered a real hunter’s worthy prey or “game” – the African Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Black Rhinoceros, Leopard and king of the jungle, the Lion (which of course doesn’t inhabit jungle but savanna!).
Then, in 2002 I went on my first safari in SouthAfrica’s Kruger park. My true road to Damascus came on the 28 th of January 2009, in another African park: Pilanesberg, SouthAfrica. His objective is to see all the birds presented in Newman’s Birds of Southern Africa, 1991 revised edition.
Madikwe , in SouthAfrica, wasn’t a site of importance before it came into existence. And so SouthAfrica’s fifth largest park came to be (it’s worth remembering that its largest park, Kruger, is the size of Israel) on marginal land that no one in particular could do much with. But they are very cute!
The wonderful family Meropidae contains 27 dazzling species, of which Africa is endowed with no less than 20 species, the balance occurring across Asia and with one as far afield as Australia. We have both resident and migratory species, and this post will briefly discuss each of the 20 species of African bee-eaters.
I don't know how to call this one.will it help or hurt the elephant population in the long run? The UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in Geneva voted in favour of China becoming a licensed importer. Tags: ivory africa CITES poaching china elephants.
Even in the tropics there are few birds that excel some of our own in elegance and beauty of plumage and we have an unusually large number of species considering the smallness of the area they inhabit. ” (Woodward brothers, “Natal Birds”, 1899) The mighty Drakensberg Mountains run along the western boundary of KwaZulu-Natal province.
But if they obeyed the rules, which may be too strict – in the Kruger Park in SouthAfrica, the limit is 50 km/h (31 mi/h) – they would not manage to show tourists much of the reserve in about three hours in the morning and the afternoon, which would reflect on their tip.
Geographic patterns of species richness for birds (1,558 species) in East Africa at 0.25° resolution (blue indicates low species richness, while brown indicates high species richness). SERVIR Africa Workshop. Finally, SouthAfrica has three 400+ hotspots, namely 1 Mkhuze Game Reserve 458 sp.
Conservation is concerned about protecting populations, species, habitats, ecosystems. Take an example, Tembe Elephant Park in SouthAfrica. Lions from Tembe have founded new populations across Africa, reducing the pressure on Tembe’s other predators. Not if we want to hang on to what we have left.
Anyway, while there are many species that I’m always pleased to see (I’m a particular fan of the aquatic kobs, lechwe and pukus) it was only on my last visit that I saw one of the more attractive species for the first time, the Nyala (pronounced Nnya-la, not Nye-al-ah). With an elephant for scale.
Pafuri lies in the northernmost part of the Kruger National Park and is described as “some of the most potentially productive birding territory in SouthAfrica” on the SANParks website. A slightly more surprising threat for the vultures comes from elephants. Elephants destroy the trees the vultures live and nest in.
Ethiopia, a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa, has firmly established itself as one of Africa’s top birding destinations. Its great diversity of habitats hosts an incredible bird count of over 900 species, including Africa’s 2nd highest list of endemics and near-endemics (after SouthAfrica).
I’ll never forget my introduction to the mammals of Kruger National Park, SouthAfrica. We –participants of the ABA SouthAfrica Safari—were on a small plane when one Lori Conrad looked out the window and screamed, “There are elephants down there!” and everyone ran to Lori’s side of the plane.
Nevertheless, only the most important news I did follow, those about the decision-making process on future sales of elephants and their ivory at a global wildlife summit in Johannesburg, SouthAfrica, the first such meeting since 2013. We are facing a plague of poaching that is again decimating the species.
Whoever is in charge of names in the area had abandoned an unwise relationship with compound names ((meaning Redwinged Starlings were Red-winged Starlings again) and seemed to have shifted the names of lots of species around in the hopes of aligning them with the IOC (goodbye louries). There had also been a number of splits.
The HBW allows itself a rare moment of dry humor when discussing the sounds of the species: “Most vocalizations of this species are harsh and unmusical. ” The Latin species name caudatus does not really mean much – just that it has a tail. Thanks for pointing that out. Thanks for pointing that out.
The one bird I did not see here, however, was the Bateleur Eagle … One highlight in the area is the Saddle-billed Stork , likely to be the tallest species in the stork family. The African Spoonbill is one of the six global spoonbill species, and the main African one (there are also some Eurasian Spoonbills in Africa).
In the Neotropics the barbets have been placed into two families, the original Capitonidae (New World Barbets) with 14 species and Semnornithidae (Toucan Barbets) with 2 species (Toucan and Prong-billed Barbet). Yellow-fronted Tinkerbird is a woodland species that occurs widely through Africa. Benson to collect birds.
In southern Africa, there are two species. … Tags: south-africa , Spotted Dikkop , stone curlews , thick-knees • Camping tents - Check out our pop up tents , family tents , and more! Elephants Eye Mar 19th, 2011 at 7:34 am I vote for night-plover. I too am fascinated by the name of this species.
We did however see a Yellow-rumped Warbler at Elephant Butte Lake, New Mexico on 16th November 1989 and a Townsend’s Warbler at Big Sur, California on 3rd December 1989. We have never been to SouthAfrica, but it is a lovely book to look at and dream!
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 30+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content