Kruger National Park, South Africa. November 2018.
5. Kruger Birds

Without an interest in birds doing a self-drive safari could be very boring as it can sometimes be hours between animal sightings whereas there are often birds to be seen. I also like to look out for birds at the campsites that we stay at. I like to keep a list of the birds that I can identify and in the 2 weeks in Kruger saw over 100 different birds.

I find many of the raptors difficult to identify as they are often far away or flying. Fish eagles are one of the easiest to spot as they spend a lot of time sitting in trees and can often be heard before they are seen.

This martial eagle had killed a monitor lizard and taken it to a low branch to eat, giving us a great view.

I think this is a tawny eagle. It was being harassed by a couple of starlings and eventually it flew away.

Owls, being night birds, are difficult to spot during the day.

A pearl-spotted owlet.

A scops owl at one of the picnic spots.

Water birds tend to stay put unless you get too close so I usually have more time to identify them.

The goliath heron is the largest of the herons in South Africa, they are up to 1.5m tall.

A giant kingfisher.

Egyptian geese are very common. These had a large family. There's a spoonbill on the far bank.

Saddle-billed storks and a great white egret. The storks walked about in the river hoping to disturb fishes.

Brown-hooded kingfishers actually eat insects, not fish.

A marabou stork coming in to land.

On looking through my photos I realised how few decent photos I'd got of 'ordinary' birds.

We saw plenty of these white-fronted bee-eaters but this is the only photo I managed to get.

These two natal francolin were separated by the fence at Berg-en-Dal campsite. They spent some time wandering up and down the fence shouting at each other before one finally flew over the fence.

An acrobatic red-headed weaver.

This is a crested guinea-fowl (much less common than the helmeted guinea-fowl), one of a group that were at the Punda Maria campsite.

1. From Richmond to Pafuri - via Blouberg Nature Reserve and Mapungubwe National Park.

2. Kruger - route and camps.

3 .Kruger - predators.

4. Kruger - other animals.

5. Kruger - birds.

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Ground hornbills are quite rare. They are the largest of the hornbills and rarely fly. Mostly they are to be found in family groups of 2 to 5 birds.