Kruger National Park, South Africa - July 2023 - Trip List - Animals

My primary focus might have been birds, but the main draw of the Kruger is the abundance of animals. We were not disappointed, it was incredible, and the views were mostly breathtaking. It was ridiculous how quickly we went from being blown away with an Elephant to essentially ignoring them. Lions and Leopards are top billing, and I thought we would see lots of the former and, if we were lucky, one of the latter. In the event we saw six Leopard and 11 Lion, really not the numbers of either that I had been expecting. We did not see a single hunt take place, nor did we see a single fresh carcass - all that must happen all of the time, but you would need to be lucky to see it.

Hyenas were seen quite frequently, including on at least one of the night drives. These boosted our mammal lists considerably, and were responsible for both Jackals, all the Civets and Genets, a White-tailed Mongoose, most of the Steenbok and our sole Reedbuck.

Bushbuck were present in small numbers inside all the Camps as far as I can recollect, and Vervet Monkeys were mostly seen at the picnic sites for obvious reasons. 

The bigger mammals were basically everywhere. Impala were the most numerous animal on every single day, generally sticking to srubby and well-vegetated areas, as did Kudu and our single Nyala on the final day. Buffalo ran them close on one occasion, with a very large herd south of Lower Sabie. They, along with Zebra and Wildebeest were almost always in more open areas, and Giraffe stuck to the scrub. Hippo were seen every day, always in water with the exception of one seen on a night drive - it was remarkably quick and nimble on land, running as if on tip-toes. Almost every river and water body had Crocodiles, some of them absolutely gigantic. We saw White Rhinoceros just once, in the dusk as we approached Berg-en-Dal from Malelane, a trio of animals. Honey Badger was seen just once as it ran across the road in front of us, somewhere between Malelane and Crocodile Bridge on the S25. You just have to get lucky.

Where we were unlucky was with Wild Dog and Cheetah. We missed the former at Tshokwane, and we heard from some fellow night drive participants that they had also been seen on a morning walk from Lower Sabie. Cheetah we barely heard anyone even mention. Next time! Anyway, here is the animal list as best as I can remember it - we unfortunately didn't think to keep day lists, but I've pieced this together from photographs and distinct memories. I still think I am missing a couple of Lion from somewhere, and will update this if I can work it out.

Kruger National Park, South Africa - July 2023 - Trip List - Birds

We saw 146 species in six days, albeit that a full day was taken up driving to and from the park. It was a lot harder than I had imagined as we were mostly confined to the car and you couldn't follow up on any sightings. The best birding was in the Rest Camps at the start of each day. This obviously means that you can't get out into the Park when the camp gates open, which is the best time to be driving around as animals are still active, particularly predators. It depends what your priorities are. We did pretty well on both fronts, but looking back now I think I should have done more early morning birding. The kids probably would have thanked me for it too!

The full day by day list is below. This will give readers a view of what is common and what isn't so common. Although as mentioned most of our time was spent in the car where birding is restricted, I did of course stop very frequently, which often resulted in traffic backing up behind us assuming that we were enjoying killer views of a concealed predator. I ended up buying an "I'm a Birder" bumper sticker! The eBird trip report can be found here, and you can drill into each checklist and see numbers and so on. Of the 146 species seen, 95 were lifers, which is not entirely surprising given I had never been to that part of the continent before. There is surprisingly little overlap with the Western Cape, of the birds seen only about 40 are on that trip list, and about 10 of those are in any event global species you can see almost anywhere in either hemisphere like Grey Heron! In summary even when you're actually looking for animals you end up seeing quite a lot of birds. When you make a sustained effort you can see a lot of birds, especially within the Rest Camps.

Kruger National Park, South Africa - July 2023 - Day 6 - The Crocodile River and home

The trip was going well, with something like 127 bird species and approaching 30 mammals. The big 'misses' up to this point were Cheetah and Wild Dog, though we had seen four individual Leopards, double figures of Lion, Rhinos, lots of Hyenas and all sorts of grazers. We needed to leave the Park by 1pm to ensure that the drive back to Johannesburg was accomplished in daylight, even though the flight itself was not until 9pm. This unfortunately meant less time in the Park than theoretically would have been possible, but I just didn't want to take any chances at all.

Laughing Dove

We still had a bit of time though, and rather than head out as soon as the gates opened I went birding in the camp - despite being on safari, you simply cannot stop teenagers from sleeping, so I just left them there. One day they will realise how dumb they were but I didn't mind. Birding had been very hard from the car, and it had only really twigged for me that it was the camps that had the biggest eBird lists. And for good reason. I spent two hours walking around Berg-en-Dal from around 6.30am and recorded 42 species, by far the largest count of birds at any point on the trip, and ten new trip ticks. Would that I had adopted this strategy earlier! 

Starting at the dam I found Little Grebe. This had no doubt been there on our first stay at the camp and a Black Stork flew over while I was watching it which was rather a bonus. Also present were Kittlitz's Plover, Hamerkop, Little Egret, three Striated Heron, three Cattle Egret, Grey Heron, Great White Egret, two Pied Kingfisher and a Malachite Kingfisher. An African Black-headed Oriole was showing nicely on the Aloe here and singing from time to time. I then birded to the north of the gate along the footpath that does a loop around the camp, finding a flock of Speckled Mousebird, a Purple-Crested Turaco, and some stunning Scarlet-chested Sunbirds. Also Cape Crombec, Yellow-breasted Apalis, Retz's Helmetshrike, Sombre Greenbul, and a Red-backed Scrub Robin. There were basically birds everywhere and unlike being in the car I could actually take my time, wait or follow, and had a much better success rate of actually identifying them. 

Crested Barbet

Kurrichane Thrush

White-breasted Sunbird

Cape Crombec

Amethyst Sunbird

Red-backed Scrub Robin

Tawny-flanked Prinia

I went back to wake the kids up to find that not only were they now awake but that they had had breakfast and were thinking about packing! Hurrah! Full packing for the journey home then ensued, and like a fool I decided I would just pack the camera up to because I didn't want to flash it around as I was leaving the camp. This backfired almost instantly as we encounted our showiest Leopard yet as we approached Malelane. Henry, whose camera is supremely portable did rather well here. It was casually walking through the bush about 10m from the car, right out in the open, amazing.

The plan for the morning was to try and find Cheetah along the S25, which broadly runs east-west alongside the Crocodile River between Malelane and Crocodile Bridge. To cut a long story short we did not succeed and so Cheetah remains a big gap on our SA mammals list. They apparently need a large territory in which to hunt, which naturally spreads them out and diminishes your chances of finding one. Oh well. It was a nice drive though, adding some Green Woodhoopoe right next to the car, lots of birds of prey, an immense and very ugly Marabou Stork, and a Groundscraper Thrush. There were lots of Impala along here so I can see why it is good for Cheetah. Also great views of Warthog and Zebra, and we found yet another Leopard asleep in a tree.

Marabou Stork

Green Woodhoopoe

Our time was up and a long drive beckoned. We exited the Kruger at Crocodile Bridge and picked up Route 4 westbound. Two final new birds were seen as we drove along - a couple of Red-winged Starling on the fringes of the Park at about the level of Kambaku, and as we got closer to Johannesburg Grey-hooded Gulls began to appear overhead. The drive was incident-free, although we did end up doing the final half hour more or less in the dark having started from quite a long way further east. It had been a superb trip, one that the kids had declared to have been the best holiday ever - a shame that Mrs L and my middle daughter had not been there but there will be other opportunities. And now that we have returned unscathed maybe we can talk about booking it up.

Berg-en-Dal to Crocodile Bridge is about 2.5 hours along the S25

Kruger National Park, South Africa - July 2023 - Day 5 - Letaba back to Berg-en-Dal

I woke up early and left the kids sleeping for a bit whilst I explored the camp close to our hut. A 20 minute stroll produced a couple of Red-capped Robin-Chat and a a Kurrichane Thrush, which had been high on my list of Letaba targets. Unfortunately as it was still not fully light all my photos were terrible and I had to bin them. Today was a big day, we had to get all the way down to Berg-en-Dal before the camp gates closed, a journey of around five hours without stopping. We would be spending the whole day in the car. That said, we had over ten hours to drive those five hours, and there would be plenty of time to watch animals and look for birds.

Southern Red-billed Hornbill

We packed up and left the camp, and given all the time we had headed in the opposite direction, crossing the Letaba River and driving east towards Mozambique. We stopped on the bridge, the first time we had seen it in daylight, and were amazed by the numbers of birds. Well, I was amazed, the kids by this time were sick of birds. 200+ Little Swift, 20+ Grey-rumped Swallow and Plain Martin, a Saddle-billed Stork, Kittlitz's Plover and a lot more besides. There were also good numbers of Waterbuck.

At the Matambeni hide on the north bank of the river a stiff breeze made viewing difficult. In addition to a lot of Hippo and more Waterbuck we saw Malachite and Pied Kingfishers, 4 African Openbill, a Goliath Heron and lots of Lapwing. I masochistically counted the Egyptian Geese - 60. Not quite Wanstead standards but getting there.

By now 9am, we had to get going as the equation had now changed - eight hours to travel five and a half hours.... The next leg we basically did in one go, two hours back down to Satara. We did stop from time to time, including Red-faced Mousebird, another Kori Bustard and 3 more Southern Ground-Hornbill - what comically brilliant birds these are. This section was also good for raptors this morning, with 7 Bataleur, Tawny Eagle and Martial Eagle. 

Bataleur

Tawny Eagle

Martial Eagle

We stopped for fuel and snacks at Satara camp. Whilst the kids went to the loo I had a quick ten minutes around the car park. This was brilliant! Both Hornbills, Black-collared, Crested and Pied Barbets, a Cardinal Woodpecker, Golden-tailed Woodpecker, Hoopoe, Brown-crowned Tchagra, Spectacled Weaver and Common Bulbul amongst other things - five new trip birds in as many minutes.

Common Bulbul

White-breasted Sunbird

Provisions sorted we carried on, taking the S100 east - this had good reviews as an excellent game drive and so it proved to be, with numerous Giraffe, Wildebeest, Elephant, Zebra, Impala, Kudu and a trio of Lions resting in some long grass but also causing another traffic jam. Towards the end of our return back to Satara a Little Sparrowhawk flew over the car.

Yellow-billed Oxpecker

It was now 1pm and we still had a long way to go. The first leg down to Tshokwane took about an hour, and we stopped at the picnic site there for a late lunch. Another Saddle-billed Stork was in the river here, along with Striated Heron and Black Crake, and at some point on the journey we had come across our first Brown Snake-Eagle, Hooded Vulture, and Red-crested Bustard.

Hooded Vulture

Red-crested Bustard

Black-winged Kite

The final leg down to Berg-en-Dal took around 4 hours, the quickest we could have made it in would have been about 3 hours. The speed limits in Kruger are low by design, there are plenty of hazards and also you see more if you drive slowly. We saw plenty of game on this drive, in fact I would go so far as to say that there is rarely any period where you don't see animals. Impala are the most frequently encountered, and when you find them you usually find loads, but Elephants are common. Zebra and Buffalo are also common, and so are Giraffe really. By this stage there were not many of the 'big' animals that we had not seen, and we were soon to reduce that tally by one. As we approached Berg-en-Dal with about ten minutes to go before the gates closed we were amazed to find three White Rhino just off the road. Wow! Certainly this sector of the Park was rumoured to be the best place for this species, but we had been convinced that we were going to miss them as not only had we not seen any but we hadn't really met anyone else who had. We took a few photos in the gathering gloom and made the camp with a few minutes to spare. One last brai? Oh go on then.

Kruger National Park, South Africa - July 2023 - Day 4 - The Grasslands to Letaba

We had a long day today, a drive of about 170km up to Letaba Rest Camp. This had not been the initial plan, which had seen us staying overnight at Skukuza. However after I had booked the trip and all the accomodation my youngest daughter had decided that she would like to come too. I was able to add her to the existing flight booking, and increase the number of people from two to three in all of the Rest Camps except Szukuza which was by that time full. I extended the search to nearby Rest Camps of which there are quite a few, but I had to go as far north as Letaba until I found somewhere that had availability for three. Perhaps I could have chanced it, and just turned up, I'm not sure, but they do check paperwork at the Park entrance as well as the individual camps so perhaps not. From 6000 miles away it had seemed sensible to have everything planned and in order, and anyway it would allow us to see some different habitat - scrub gives way to vast grasslands as you head towards the Oliphants River. Plus you cross from Mpumalanga into the province of Limpopo - another area of the eBird map shaded in. 

We left the camp early, crossing the Sabie River just south of the camp and heading up the slope on the H10 road towards Tshokwane. The weather was a little mixed, with light rain for most of the morning and really quite cold. It took us 2.5 hours to cover the 30km to Orpen Dam because it was so good. We saw our first Ostrich, another White-browed Coucal, and some Golden-breasted Bunting. The mammal highlight was a family of Hyena lounging around outside their den not too far from the Nkumbe View Site which is about two thirds of the way to Tshokwane. The view point is magnificent by the way, you are on an escarpment looking west over a vast plain - it felt more like East Africa.

The view at Orpen Dam is also fantastic. The viewing area is almost like an amphitheatre. In the poor weather there was not a huge amount going on, a few of the now normal animals like Hippo, Elephant and Crocodile. Bird-wise there were a few Egyptian Geese, and on the slope down towards the rive (viewed from the path!) I found a White-throated Robin-Chat that the kids were not interested in!

Leopard Tortoise

Orpen Dam

We grabbed a bit of breakfast at Tshokwane before carrying on north - we needed to be at Letaba for a sunset drive and so were aiming for 4pm. The stretch of road between here and Satara camp has a few pools on the east side, and our first Jacana were here, along with African Woolly-necked Stork, Grey Heron and some hawking Little Swift. There was also another Leopard causing the usual traffic jam! 

After lunch on the go at Satara, we carried on towards Olifants. This road was excellent, with lots of game - Kudu, Impala, Zebra and Wildebeest, and at one point, three female Lions thinking about having a try but ultimately deciding to lie down and do nothing! There was some momentary excitement when a herd scattered but it turned out to be a large Baboon. There were large passerine flocks in this area, too many to count really, White-winged Widowbird and Red-billed Quelea mostly, but also lots of Golden-breasted Bunting which are really smart. Another big target fell here, Kori Bustard - Africa's largest flying bird. At the bridge over the Olifants River there were triple figures of Little Swift and lots of Plain Martin. We were now in Limpopo.

White-breasted sunbird, lower bill stained with pollen

Rufous-crowned Roller

Tawny Eagle

Kori Bustard

The savannah and grassland habitat gave way to monotonous Mopane scrub, miles of it, and very difficult to see into. This persisted all the way to Letaba, and we checked into the camp slightly ahead of schedule as we simply drove through this area without stopping. In the camp itself a short walk to the shop and back, as well as around part of the perimeter, picked up Amethyst Sunbird, lots of Arrow-marked Babbler, loads of Helmeted Guineafowl beyond the fence and a few Natal Spurfowl.

Our sunset drive was memorable, leaving the camp and following the Letaba River before heading into the bush. We encountered 2 Lions on the road after dark, as well as a Leopard that we were able to drive alongside and get amazing views as it padded along without seemingly any concern at all. I guess they are used to these trucks. This was something like our fourth Leopard in three days and this was the best views we had had, and the first one we had actually seen doing anything! We also saw Steenbok, Reedbuck, Waterbuck and Side-striped Jackal. Our day ended around a brai as was now entirely normal. If I am honest I would have loved a salad, but the fresh vegetable selection in the camp shops was beyond pitiful. Red meat all the way, which did not displease my 19 year old son in the slightest. I remember being his age....