Last week, I returned home from a three week break in Southern Africa. One of those weeks was spent in the Kruger National Park (visit number 18!) with a new camera. So, as you can imagine, the next few blog posts will focus more on “seeing” than on “walking”.
Many visitors to the Kruger get hung up on seeing the Big Five i.e. elephant, lion, buffalo, leopard and rhino. We had a different remit this time, wanting particularly to see creatures we hadn’t seen before, regardless of size. In addition, I was keen to get some landscape shots and to be able to capture what it’s like in the Kruger: taking photographs of animals in their habitat, illustrating their capacity for camouflage, rather than just getting close-ups that could have been taken in a zoo.
So this is the first of a number of blog posts about the visit. Over the next couple of weeks I will post about animals, reptiles/insects and landscapes, but I’m going to start with birds. It’s surprising to me (and sad) that many people drive straight past these wonderful creatures without a second glance, in their quest for cats. Here’s just a small selection of the many bird species we saw on this trip.
Black-winged stilt
White-fronted bee-eater
Bulbul
Crested barbet
Lilac-breasted roller
Temminck’s coursers
Female Southern masked weaver (I think)
Black-headed oriole
Burchell’s starling
Fish eagle
Bateleur eagle
Pied kingfisher
Blacksmith plover
Jacana
Magpie shrike
Brown-hooded kingfisher (the really colourful ones have migrated at this time of year)
The incredibly-well-camouflaged Kory bustard
Vultures
Last but not least: a juvenile lilac-breasted roller (I think this one’s my favourite)
