South Africa: Premium Kruger and Escarpment Birding and Wildlife Safari

Centered between the edge of the impressive Drakensberg escarpment and the bushveld of the Greater Kruger, this is a tour for those who want the ultimate African mammal safari experience while also seeing a huge diversity of birds. This tour should yield African Elephant, Lion, Leopard, loads of antelope species, Nile Crocodile, and many of the other megafauna (plus many small mammals too) that sub-Saharan Africa is famous for. We don’t neglect the birds, of which a disproportionate number of these are brightly colored, charismatic, and spectacular, along with a few southern African endemics and many raptors thrown in. To whet your appetite, we should come across multiple species of bee-eaters, rollers, kingfishers, hornbills, eagles (including Bateleur), vultures, owls, turacos, weavers, storks, and a myriad of others. The Kruger National Park itself boasts some 500 bird species!

The Kruger is a major stronghold of the Vulnerable (IUCN) Southern Ground Hornbill.

The tour as detailed below is great for first-time visitors to South Africa, or Africa, as it focuses on the bird-rich and mammal-rich southern parts of the Greater Kruger. We ensure we spend time in both the Kruger National Park and the exclusive Sabi Sands Game Reserve, to give you the best possible ‘safari’, with a combined focus on the birds and mammals. Game drives on open-sided safari vehicles, in both the Kruger National Park and the Sabi Sands are the order of our days here, as we track down as many birds and mammals as we can. In addition, this area is also relatively close to the major hub of Johannesburg, which is South Africa’s largest city, and is easily accessed. The combination of a never-ending stream of mammals, including The Big 5, and some excellent introductory African birding will leave you wanting more.

Massive African Elephants are a regular feature in the Kruger.

This tour starts and ends in Nelspruit, the gateway to the Kruger – readily accessed by a short domestic flight from Johannesburg. From Nelspruit, we venture up onto the edge of the magnificent Drakensberg escarpment for two days, and focus our attention on the forests, grasslands and wide panoramic views. Following our time here, we descend into the biodiverse-rich lowveld and call into the Kruger National Park. Staying inside the National Park means we are primed to maximize on the plethora of birds and mammals that call this vast area home. We end this tour off a short distance away, in the exclusive Sabi Sands Game Reserve, located in the Greater Kruger conservation area, bordering on the national park. Here a more personalized safari awaits you, complete with arguably an even more complete suite of mammals, with good chances for some of the scarcer mammals such as African Wild Dog and Cheetah.

This tour is timed specifically to be at the start of the austral (southern hemisphere) spring, when the bush is at its least dense, making wildlife viewing excellent, and when the daily temperatures are comfortable.

We stand a good chance of seeing the highly sought-after African Wild Dog on this tour!

You can combine this premium birding and wildlife safari, with a number of our southern Africa tours: First off is our preceding Cape Endemics, Namaqualand Wildflowers and the Kalahari Birding Tour – a more bird-oriented trip targeting the endemic species of western South Africa. Secondly, is our Kalahari Mammal and Birding Tour, which follows after this Kruger tour, and is a great complementary tour with similar interests – where we focus on the rare and unique mammals (and birds) of the Kalahari region. And thirdly is our Western Zimbabwe Birding and Mammal Safari – which is another excellent complementary tour, focusing on the wildlife of the world-renowned Hwange, Motobo and Mana Pools National Parks, along with the exquisite Victoria Falls – one of the seven wonders of the world.