I am now posting photos from Zambia and all of South Africa. I know that these are from August and September and it is now February, but that is just procrastination at its most extreme. Anyway, here are the photos.
In Zambia we stayed at BongweCamp, where I saw this male Red-headed Weaver constructing its nest. You can see the tube-like entrance at the bottom and the wider main area near the bird.
This is a cropped image of my best photo of an African Finfoot, which we saw at Mosi-Oa Tunya National Park in Zambia. Finfoots are rare and secretive, so to see this one out in the open on a river is unique. You can see the orange bill and white stripe behind the eye.
In the national park there is a herd of Southern White Rhinos that are kept under constant supervision to guard against poaching. On our trip to the park we got to see the herd, which included this baby.
This is the mother rhino of the baby seen in the previous photo.
Near the end of our time in the park we got excellent views of this White-fronted Bee-eater, in my opinion one of the most beautiful birds in southern Africa.
At the beginning of our time in South Africa we stayed at Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre where we got to tour the enclosures. This is a picture of one of their leopards that we got to see.
Once in Kruger National Park in South Africa we began seeinglots of wildlife, including this Brown-headed Parrot, seen at one of the many camp areas.
In one of the larger herds of elephants there were several babies, including this one, who had not even started to grow tusks, indicating very young age.
This is a young bushbuck, also seen in the middle of campin Kruger.
In Kruger we repeatedly found that the most friendly and least afraid bird we met was the Wire-tailed Swallow. This one we saw at a hide in the park where there was an active swallow nest.
On one of our most eventful drives we saw a family of African Wild Dogs, a pack with several pups, one of which is this one.
Almost immediately after seeing the wild dogs we came across a group of around four rhinos, completing the day.
At one hide in Kruger the water was dry and we saw no animals except for this squirrel, which we used to practice photography. This is one of my best photos from that session.
This is another photo of the same squirrel.
This is a male African Gray Hornbill also seen in Kruger National Park.
This Hamerkop (Afrikaans for “hammerhead” after the bird’s backward-pointing crest) is standing on a hippo. This was seen at the Krokodilrivier, the southern boundary of Kruger.
Also seen at the Krokodilrivier was this Pied Kingfisher. They are pretty common in the area, but this was my only chance to get a close-up picture of one.
In eSwatini we stayed at Hlane (pronounced like Shlanay) National Park, where we got to see a lot of rhinos and this African Hoopoe, here raising its fan-shaped crest.
South of eSwatini we stayed at the semi-legendary (among birders of southern africa) semi-unknown (among everybody else, including even our guide) Mkhuze Game Reserve, which at a area of 150 square miles boasts the second-largest bird list in the country, after Kruger (For comparison Kruger is over 7,000 square miles). Mkhuze has a list of over 450 bird species because of the incredible diversity of habitats packed into it: There’s a fig forest, sand forest, Acacia savannah, marshes, ponds, a river, and more. This Long-crested Eagle was one of the first birds we saw there.
At one of Mkhuze’s several hides overlooking a watering hole we witnessed this pair of Woolly-necked Storks preening each other and attending to each other’s needs. It was very impressive.
At the same watering hole we finally got really good views of the Hadada Ibis, characterized by its loud call, iridescent wing, and gray coloring.
As mentioned before, Mkhuze has a fig forest, and it is here that some of the rarer birds reside, including the Pel’s Fishing-owl, Green Malkoha, Blue-mantled Crested-flycatcher, and, shown above, the beautiful Narina Trogon. As you can see, it has an iridescent green back, but its belly is bright scarlet. It is very quiet and secretive, and for us it just flew down in front and perched.
This photograph shows an adult male African Paradise-flycatcher. The male paradise-flycatchers all have one remarkable, eye-catching characteristic: their incredibly long, graceful tail. When we were watching this male fly it seemed as if his tail would always tangle or hook on some branch, but it never did. The male, along with being beautiful, was either extremely lucky, or extremely skilled.
Mkhuze also has hides on the river, where there is an abundance of wildlife, including this Malachite Kingfisher, one of the most beautiful birds in Africa.
At the same hide we also managed to see this African Jaçana using its extremely elongated toes to walk on lily pads without sinking.
Another of Mkhuze’s star birds is the Purple-crested Turaco, whose red and black wing feathers are actually the crown of the king of eSwatini. We saw two drinking at a bird bath.
Mkhuze is not just birds; we saw this unidentified mouse near our camp.
After leaving Mkhuze we had lunch at the beautiful Shayamoya Tiger Fishing and Game Lodge, where we got great views of this herd of Crested Guineafowl, one of the weirdest of the area’s specialties.
While eating at the lodge, this Eastern Nicator flew up to near the deck and perched. Nicators are generally very skulky and shy, so to see one in the comparative open was new.
At the White Elephant Safari Lodge near Mkhuze we saw this jackrabbit feeding on the lawn.
This is a Crowned Eagle. Adults have been known to kill children up to 12 years old, but this was a young bird, so it didn’t attack us.
Rose-ringed Parakeets are native to India, but since we were spending a night in Johannesburg where there is a feral population we still managed to see them.
Our house in Cape Town has a very nice Protea garden, which attracted this Southern Double-collared Sunbird.
Seen at the penguin area, this Blacksmith Lapwing chick was extremely cute.
This is a half-grown African Penguin chick. We called all the chicks “Bob Rosses” because of their fluffy plumage.
One of Cedar’s favorite African animals was this dassie or Rock Hyrax.This is a younger one.
This is a picture of a dassie scratching (Cedar is making me put two more dassie pictures in this post, so prepare yourself for more adorable cute, chubby, mammals).
This is a family of dassies, with a baby at the bottom.
This is an African Penguin shaking itself off.
African Penguins are actually classified as globally endangered, so it was kind of amazing to get this close for free.
One of the many endemic bird species of the Protea ecosystem is this Malachite Sunbird, only found in the Cape area.
During our trip to Cape Point we actually managed to see several whales spout and swim near the shore.
Our Cape Town house came with a dry pool, and this mouse managed to get stuck inside it. We used a broom to create a ladder for it to get out.
One of our neighbors was a birder and had bird feeders all around their backyard. We got to walk around it and saw this Speckled Mousebird eating an apple.
Seen in the same backyard, this is a Cape Sugarbird, one of two birds in its family, and endemic to the Cape Town area.
When we went to the Cape Town Botanic Gardens we saw this classic example of the Cape ecosystem. Here you see and adult male Cape Sugarbird, (with pollen on its forehead) sitting on top of a King Protea, one the most iconic plants of the region.
This is the last dassie photo, taken on Table Mountain, engaging in what Cedar calls “his little glare of happiness”.
Also seen on Table Mountain, this is an Orange-breasted Sunbird, another endemic, and one of the most colorful sunbirds (that’s saying a lot) in the region.
Here is the second installment of my four-part African posting spree. Enjoy!
The Double-banded Sandgrouse, like the Burchell’s Sandgrouse featured in the previous post, is known for its aerial trips to drink at watering holes. However, they are not necessarily tied to water sources.
We saw multiple flocks of mousebirds before one landed and allowed us to identify them as Red-faced Mousebirds (shown here). Upon looking back at this photo, I realized that the main bird featured is supporting half of its body weight with one toe. I do not know why it did this, but it sustained this position for the entire time we saw the flock.
White-backed Vultures are a close relative to the Cape Griffons of the previous post. Although much more common in southern Africa, the White-backed is listed as Critically Endangered compared to the Endangered status of the Cape.
Over the course of our entire trip we constantly admired the adorable shaggyness of waterbuck, which we saw quite a lot.
The Secretarybird is one of the most distinctive raptors in the world. It is identified by its long legs, orang face, strange tail, and floppy crest. It is the only bird in its family, and is sadly growing quite rare in parts of Africa.
In the Makgadikgadi Pans there is a small reserve called Lekhubu Island. It has lots of birds, and one of the many distinctive species we saw was the Scaly Weaver, which travels around in large flocks, so you will see either none at a time or many.
A close relative to the Blue Waxbill and Red-cheeked Cordonbleu, the Violet-eared Waxbill is one of Africa’s most stunning birds. In fact, this is not a very zoomed in photo; a pair of these birds came to within a foot of me.
The Cape Starling is a ubiquitous bird of southern Africa, and is easily identified from the similar Burchell’s Starling by the orange eye, shorter tail, and absence of black ear coverts.
Another iconic bird of Africa, the Lilac-breasted Roller proved to be relatively common, yet still always amazes us when we see this rainbow of feathers.
In this photo you can see the lilac breast that gives the roller part of its name. The other part comes from the wild display flights given by each species in the roller family.
We also saw a different roller from the one pictured above in a tree directly in front of the setting sun. There could not be a more fitting photo for a bird with as many colors as the sunset behind it.
We saw many prime sunsets in Botswana, but I still could not resist taking a close-up of this one.
During our Botswana safari we had a full day to just relax (and in my case, bird) at the Pelican Lodge. One of the first birds I sighted was this Southern White-crowned Shrike. It was quite calm, and allowed me to get this photo.
One of my favorite birds we saw on this safari was this Bradfield’s Hornbill. Our guide, Kabelo, argued that it was a Southern Red-billed Hornbill, while I said it was a Bradfield’s. We eventually got to the point of betting sodas for who was right, and this bird won me a Fanta.
Another of the birds seen at Pelican Lodge was this Red-headed Finch. I was birding and would never had noticed them if a bulbul in the same tree called, drawing my attention until I noticed two birds sitting perfectly still and watching me.
One of the most beautiful birds seen at the lodge was this Marico, or Mariqua Sunbird. It was the first sunbird we had seen, and posed for a while, allowing me amazing views of this African equivalent of a hummingbird.
Because we remained stationary and I was on foot I was able to get much better photos of the birds seen at Pelican Lodge than in various other locations. A flock of these noisy Black-backed Puffbacks had flown into a tree also containing Burnt-necked Eremomelas, Marico Sunbirds, and various other species.
This is one of the birds mentioned in the previous caption, one with the incredibly strange name of Burnt-necked Eremomela. It is called that because of its rufous collar, but I do not know about the eremomela part. This photo was a very lucky occurence, as the bird was moving about extremely quickly in the tree.
Pelican Lodge was much more successful in terms of birding than I expected it to be; it even provided me with a large flock of Red-headed Weavers hiding behind some water tanks (although I probably wasn’t supposed to be there).
At one part of Pelican Lodge there was a small puddle with some sticks crossing it, and due to the current drought in Botswana there was much activity around it. Although not a new bird, I was still excited to get this look at the beautiful Pied Barbet, one of the many visitors to the puddle.
The day after Pelican Lodge we drove to Makgadikgadi and Nxai Pans National Park, and on the way we got this wonderful view of a zebra, allowing me great photos. The one difference between the southern African zebras and Tanzanian zebras is that the zebras in Tanzania are completely black and white, whereas the ones we saw had some brown stripes as well.
