Enjoy 4 days of Bird Watching in the Kruger
Price:From R 21,450 per person
(Rate based on size of group)
Includes:3 night accommodation inside one of the Kruger National Park camps, 3 Breakfast’s, & 3 Dinner as well as Private Guide, Private Open Safari Vehicle, Personalised itinerary and Conservation Fees.
The Kruger National Park is one of the largest and best-known wilderness conservation areas in Africa and the world. Famous world over for its wide open spaces and its incredible diversity of wildlife, it also has a staggering diversity of Bird life with 520 documented species that represents around 60% of all the bird species found in the South Africa.
The Kruger National Park offers birders and unsurpassed birding experience of Southern Africa and is regarded as one of the finest birding destinations in the world. What makes it such a birder hotspot is the sheer size of the Park at 20,000 square kilometres as well as the great infrastructure provided with roads, camps, hides and lookouts. It provides everything a more and also at an affordable price.
All of our Birding Safaris are personalised and have been designed to offer our clients a truly authentic Kruger National Park Birding Safari experience with one of the most sought after private Kruger guides – Andrew Wagner.
(This is typically the departure point to Kruger when you are in South Africa)
Guests have a variety of options in travelling from Johannesburg to the Kruger National Park. We can offer any one of these based on your preference and include in your Safari package.
Here are some of the options available:
DAY 1:
We start in the South Western corner at Numbi Gate and work our way south towards Berg-en-Dal Camp for our first night. The Pretoriuskop sour-veld region of Kruger, with its high rainfall and dense bush, creates a great birding environment and is well known for its raptors and smaller more discrete species that enjoy the dense thicket and broad-leafed trees. The topography transitions form undulating savanna dense with Terminalia and Syical bush to Combretum and Marula woodland of the mountainous Berg-en-Dal area. Key species in the area include a number of accipiter’s and raptors as well as Black-headed Oriole, Green Wood-hoopoe, White Crested Helmet-Shrike, Burnt-necked Eremomela, Common Scimitarbill, Black-crowned Tchagra, Striped Kingfisher, Yellow-fronted Apalis, Eastern Nicator and Trumpeter Hornbill. The area around Berg-en-Dal is spectacular with Granite Mountains creating the backdrop and camp that is dense with trees and shrubs making it a perfect birding hotspot. We will arrive at the camp just prior to gate closure and check into our bungalows. Dinner will be at the restaurant from 18h30.
DAY 2:
On the morning of day two we will wake early for the dawn chorus to pick up on certain species in the camp. After a morning coffee we will then leave camp at first light and head north towards Skukuza Camp on route to Satara for our second night. This is a full day and will take us through 4 very different Eco zones from Combretum shrub to Marula and Knob-thorn, Skukuza Thorn thicket and finally grassland savanna around Satara camp. We will stop for breakfast at Afsaal outpost and then continue onto a lunch and leg stretch at Tshokwane outpost before reaching Satara just before sunset. We will arrive at the camp just prior to gate closure and check into our bungalows. Dinner will be at the restaurant from 18h30.
It’s a day that offers great views and transition of landscape as well as very good game viewing and of course fantastic birding. With such a change in landscape the birding is varied with a wide variety of species available from seed and fruit loving species to small and large raptors and scavengers.
Key species for the day include :
Martial Eagle, White-backed Vulture, Marabou Stork, Saddle-billed Stork, African Fin-foot, Tawny Eagle, Mourning Dove, Red-eyed Dove, Lilac-breasted Roller, Burchell’s Starling, Wattled Starling, Blue Waxbill, African Firefinch, Kori Bustard and Ostrich.
DAY 3:
Our day again starts very early with coffee and the dawn chorus in camp. From Satara we make our way east towards Nwanetsi picnic site and enjoy a coffee stop overlooking a waterhole situated in an amphitheatre of granophyre ridges. We then make our way along the old Lindanda road through the vast grasslands searching for Harriers, Pipits, Sparrow-larks, Coursers and bustards. The route takes us back via Tshokwane for breakfast and then onto Skukuza camp in the late afternoon. Skukuza camp is a wonderful camp to bird and offers some tome to stretch the legs and walk the camp whilst also getting in some time to relax at your bungalow or at the waterfront viewing platforms.
Dinner will be at the Shalati restaurant from 18h30.
DAY 3:
Our day again starts very early with coffee and the dawn chorus in camp. From Satara we make our way east towards Nwanetsi picnic site and enjoy a coffee stop overlooking a waterhole situated in an amphitheatre of granophyre ridges. We then make our way along the old Lindanda road through the vast grasslands searching for Harriers, Pipits, Sparrow-larks, Coursers and bustards. The route takes us back via Tshokwane for breakfast and then onto Skukuza camp in the late afternoon. Skukuza camp is a wonderful camp to bird and offers some tome to stretch the legs and walk the camp whilst also getting in some time to relax at your bungalow or at the waterfront viewing platforms.
Dinner will be at the Shalati restaurant from 18h30.
DAY 4:
Our day again starts very early with coffee and the dawn chorus in camp. From Skukuza we will make our way along the Sabie river towards Lake Panic hide where we will spend time looking for some of the smaller kingfishers, waxbills in the thicketed margin next to the lake as well as Bush-shrikes and then the many waders. This is also a great photographic location for up close and personal images. Thereafter we continue along the river frontage making our way all the way back to Pretoriuskop Camp for departure.
Some of the key bird species targeted on this trip include :
African Harrier-hawk, Martial Eagle, Lizard Buzzard, Gabar Goshawk, Retz Helmet-shrike, Brown-headed Parrot, Pink-throated Twinspot, Coqui Francolin, Trumpeter Hornbill, Half-collard Kingfisher, Secretary Bird, Kori Bustard, Gorgeous Bush-shrike and African Finfoot.
*Note – We will assist you with planning and booking your transport and transfers but any flights will need to be done by yourself.
Having taken hundreds of Safaris into the Kruger National Park we know from experience what’s important to pack. Here are a few items we recommend that you don’t leave home without :
We recommend light functional attire preferably in natural colour shades to blend in with our environment and not stand out visually to game species. Summer can be hot and the direct sunlight dangerous so please remember a good hat as well as sunscreen. During the hottest summer months (Nov/Dec) the daytime temperatures can reach 35 degrees Celsius from 10h30 and from 13h00 the temperature can reach upward of 40 degrees. The summer months are also our rainy season so the afternoons can experience thunder showers but all vehicles are equipped with waterproof ponchos as well as canvas flaps that can enclose the vehicle.
During the winter months in the Kruger National Park, we will usually experience blue skies on most days but with a daily average temperature of 18 to 26 degrees Celsius. The early mornings on Safaris can be cooler with temperatures from 5 to 8 degrees and late afternoons again dropping below 18 degrees. Winter Safaris are fantastic because the visibility is very good but we do recommend that you have warm clothing as the wind on the back of an Open Safari Vehicle can make things chilly. On our Safari vehicles we do provide fleece blankets.
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