Honorary Rangers’ Birding Trip Kruger National Park

The Earl and I along with three friends recently attended  The Satara Honorary Rangers’ Birding Weekend in the Kruger National Park.

We spent a total of nine days in The Park.   The weekend took place from 14 February to  16 February.

This time we did not take the caravan but flew to Nelspruit with SA Airlink and hired a Volkswagen Kombi.    We stayed in bungalows in Berg en Dal, Skukuza, Satara and Lower Sabie and were very impressed with the quality of the accommodation.

Gillian was the overall list keeper while Priscilla and I did the recording on our Bird Lasser app.

It was really amazing being on a trip with a group of people who were just as happy as we were to stop for every bird!   Kruger has had a lot of rain and plenty of flooding in the past few months so it was lush and the grass was tall.  Because of this, it was difficult to spot animals but the birdlife was excellent.

I usually blog each day when on a trip but this time I concentrated on bonding with our friends so did not get to the computer each evening.  So I am just going to share some of our best photographs with little comment.

We spent one night at Berg en Dal, two at Skukza, two over the weekend at Satara and finished with three nights at Lower Sabie.

It was Heather’s birthday on the second night and we celebrated with the most amazing meal at The Cattle Baron, Skukuza.

Happy Birthday, Heather

The weekend was wonderfully organised by The Honorary Rangers of West Rand.   Our bird guide, Duncan, on board of our 20-seater open safari vehicle was awesome. He instantly recognised birds both by their visual appearance and their calls.

We had two catered meals for the weekend.  The first night was Valentine’s Day so we all dressed in Red and White.  On the second we had an African theme and had to dress for a Shabeen evening!  Priscilla was the queen of the evening and won a prize!

The Shabeen Queen

Earl in his Mandella Shirt – we got our name tags confused!

We also met up with Colin and Melodie, friends of Priscilla from Swaziland.   They were camping in the same rest camps and joined us each evening for meals.  On the last night, we had a farewell supper at Lower Sabie.

Front – Gillian and Priscilla. Behind – Me, Heather, Melodie, Earl and Colin

Below I have posted some highlights from our drives both when we were on our own and from the open safari vehicle.

Helmeted Guineafowl

Carmine Bee-eater

Groud Hornbill in a tree

Diederick Cuckoo

Fish Eagle

Black-crowned Night Heron

Sabota Lark

Southern White-crowned Shrike

Burchell’s Zebra

Pied Kingfisher

Malachite Kingfisher

Chacma Baboon

Red-billed Oxpecker grooming an impala

Lions

White-breasted Cormorant

African Jacana

African Black Crake

Lake Panic

Lazy Lion

Green Pigeon

You are not allowed outside your vehicle in Kruger National Park – Unless you’re with authorities so I could not resist posing on the signpost in the middle of my most favourite place in the world!-

A curious immature Martial Eagle

Bateleur

 

Purple Roller

 

Woolly-necked Stork doing a pirouette

Sunrise

Woodlands Kingfisher with a bug

Necking giraffe

Jumbo

Swainson’s Spurfowl

Spotted Hyaena

Black-crowned Night Heron

Water Thick-knee

Warthog