Subject: [Oversea] South Africa - August 2016 (Cape Town, Kruger National Park, Blyde River Canyon) [Print This Page] Author: kmatthew Time: 28/08/2016 00:52 Subject: South Africa - August 2016 (Cape Town, Kruger National Park, Blyde River Canyon)
Visited South Africa at the beginning of the August. Will like to thanks Captain Wong for initiating the trip and also Ah Yuen for the great company through our journey to Kruger and Blyde River Canyon. South Africa is well worth visiting for those who want to get a taste of Africa for the first time, it's also a much more budget friendly country to visit compare with Kenya or Tanzania. South Africa offers quite a lot of endemic species and even a few endemic families. Our timing was not the best for birds, but we still had quite a few interesting and target species. We managed to get the BIG FIVE at Kruger, even the Leopard!
We only hired a guide for our short stay at Cape Town, Brian Vanderwalt was extremely helpful and very experienced local bird guide, I highly recommend spending a day or two with him at Cape Town. He found us both Blue Cranes and Cape Rockjumpers fairly easily. The rest of our trip was self driven, Kruger offers very good game watching even without any guiding, Blyde River Canyon is highly recommended for the amazing sceneries!
Will no doubt visit this unique corner of earth again in the near future. For full trip report and more photos, please visit the links below:
Trip Report: Part 1 - Cape Town + False Bay Part 2 - Cape Town + Johannesburg + Kruger (Crocodile Bridge) Part 3 - Kruger (Crocodile Bridge + Satara) Part 4 - Kruger (Satara + Letaba) Part 5 - Kruger (Letaba) + J G Strijdomtunnel + Blyde River Canyon Part 6 - Blyde River Canyon
Blue Crane - endemic (National Bird of South Africa)
Cape Sugarbird - endemic
Cape Rockjumper - endemic
Cape Grassbird - endemic
African Penguin - endemic
Cape Cormorant - endemic
Crowned Cormorant - endemic
Southern Bald Ibis - endemic
Orange-breasted Sunbird - endemic
Southern Double-collared Sunbird - endemic
Malachite Sunbird
Cape Batis - endemic
Spotted Eagle Owl
Giant Eagle Owl
African Scops Owl
Lilac-breasted Roller
Purple Roller
White-browed Robin-Chat
Crested Francolin
Swainson's Spurfowl
Kori Bustard
Red-crested Korhaan
Green Wood-Hoopoe
Golden-tailed Woodpecker
Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill
Southern Red-billed Hornbill
African Grey Hornbill
White-backed Vulture
Lappet-faced Vulture
Martial Eagle
Southern Masked Weaver
Cape Weaver
Cape Canary - endemic
Swee Waxbill - endemic
African Elephant
White Rhino
Blue Widebeest
Plain Zebra
African Buffalo
Hippo
Leopard
Lion
Giraffe
Blyde River Canyon - Three Rondavels
[ Last edited by kmatthew at 29/08/2016 09:49 ] Author: 9Wi Time: 28/08/2016 07:54
Great and excellent shots. Author: hkwongkit Time: 28/08/2016 08:16
One of the best trip reports I've seen posted here for a long while.
Superb photography you'd done and I enjoyed reading your well written blogs on this trip too.
Well done and thanks for sharing, Matt! Author: kmatthew Time: 28/08/2016 23:43
Thanks 9Wi and KK, I really think SA deserves more attention from HK birders, even a casual trip like ours yielded some pretty good birds, while our itinerary also managed to cater for a lot of non-birding friends on our trip. It's also one of the best value birding location I've ever been on for the amount of birds and animals the country can deliver. Author: wcaptain Time: 29/08/2016 10:18
與有榮焉 My pleasure to travel with young stars
BTW, Southern Ground Hornbill (Bird of the trip)
Author: Yuen_Wasp Time: 29/08/2016 18:39
與有榮焉 My pleasure to travel with senior birders~thanks Captain and Matthew
BTW~
Trumpeter Hornbill
Common Ostrich Author: kmatthew Time: 29/08/2016 20:49
Great shots of the 3 species I missed!!!
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