We spent ten days in October 2023 in Kruger National Park, ably guided by Bernhard and Hennie of B1 Photo Safaris. Their vehicle, perfectly equipped for photographers and their knowledge of the Park, animal behaviour, photography and videography, gave us the best possible opportunity to get good photos and video.
I detailed our trip in daily blog posts, which are linked below.
Some days produced many more photo opportunities than others. This post contains my favourite photo from each day, not necessarily my ten best photos from the whole trip.
Each photo provides a link to that day’s full post. Please click on these to see many more photos and a more detailed description of our time spent in the Park.
Day 1 – Arrival at Skukuza
Day 2 – Skukuza to Satara
Liana’s video of birdlife in Kruger, open in You Tube to get the full experience.
Day 3 – around Satara to Olifants
Day 4 – from Satara to Lower Sabie
Day 5 – around Lower Sabie
Day 6 – around Lower Sabie and further afield
Day 7 – Lower Sabie to Berg-en-Dal
Day 8 – around Berg-en-Dal
Day 9 – Berg-en-Dal to Skukuza
Liana got great video of an elephant attacking and killing a tree. Watch in You Tube
Day 10 – Drama and Departure
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Our last morning in the Park brought relief after the previous day’s heat. This clearly revived the predators, who were out and about.
Our first sighting of the morning was a Hyena family
While we sat watching them, Hennie got word of a pack of Wild Dogs nearby. We immediately abandoned the hyenas and set course for the Wild Dogs. We arrived to find a pack of thirteen of them jogging along the road and fooling around with one another.
Clearly someone had lost a cap and they were using it for a game of tug.
Things soon turned serious and they started hunting.
Their first attempt was unsuccessful, but this did not deter them. It was fascinating to see the teamwork involved, some flushing the impala out, while others did the takedown. Their second attempt was successfull, but due to the gruesome nature of the photos, covered in a separate post, linked here, not for sensitive viewers.
The impala was devoured within three minutes. Even the dog with a sore leg, who had surely not been of great value in the hunt, managed to eat its fill.
In the meantime, vultures started arriving to see whether there would be anything left for them.
While all of this was taking place, a Tawny Eagle also arrived on the scene
A Drongo took exception to the Eagle’s presence
After leaving the Wild Dogs, I had another opportunity to photograph an Oxpecker, this time cleaning a rhino’s nose
A stop at Lake Panic gave us opportunity to watch a Malachite Kingfisher and a Squacco Heron fishing.
Then it was time to pack up and leave for the airport.
On the way there, we still had one last surprise: a leopard trying (unsuccessfully in the time we had there) to crack a tortoise’s shell
Thus ended our week in Kruger National Park with our excellent hosts and guides, Bernhard and Hennie of B1 Photo Safaris
Follow the link to Day 8 and from there, links to the previous days.
Our last full day in the Park turned out to be a scorching hot day, the temperature reaching 41 degrees Celsius. The animals seemed to have gone into hiding in these conditions.
Fortunately the birds were still out and about. We encountered a Gray Go-away bird, Red-billed Hornbill, Brown-headed Parrot, Hoopoe Cardinal Woodpecker and a Southern Ground Hornbill, bearing gifts for his girlfriend, amongst others.
Stopping on a bridge, we saw multiple birds enjoying the small pools of water in the river bed and sitting around in the trees next to the water. A Fish Eagle came sweeping in a few times.
Eventually the Saddle-billed Stork decided to take flight
Further along, we saw a Tree agama and a Water monitor. Clearly the reptiles didn’t mind the heat.
A fight between two impala rams, to add to the elephant and kudu fight scenes of Day 7
After our morning drive, it was time to pack up and head out from Berg-en-Dal, back to Skukuza, completing our round trip of the southern part of the Park. Along the way we stopped at Afsaal for their famous roosterkoek, which we thoroughly enjoyed.
After checking in at Skukuza and resting a bit to recover from the heat of the day, it was time for an afternoon drive. We encountered a lone hyena, lazing about next to the road, a pair of Purple Rollers who properly frustrated my attempts at taking photos of them in flight, but at least gave me opportunity to photograph them sharing an insect and European Bee-eaters, who were once again too fast and unpredictable for me to photograph in flight.
An elephant came strolling along, first spraying itself with water at a water hole close to the road and then casually strolling up to a tree and pushing it over.
We made another early start, leaving the camp at 5:30. A few kilometers into the day, we had a magnificent sighting of two lionesses with six cubs, lying next to the road.
After a while, they decided to cross the road. It was amazing to see the two mothers escort the little ones across the road, one leading and one at the back, ensuring that all were safe before proceeding into the grass on the other side. Once across, they lay down again for a while, allowing some family portraits, before disappearing into the bush.
After a quick coffee stop, we proceeded to explore the southwestern part of the park. This turned out to be a day of families and birds. We soon saw a troupe of baboons, who gave us another opportunity to take a family portrait.
We saw a number of birds, including a Hamerkop, Diederick cuckoo, a Crested Barbet, several Hornbills and many others.
Some rhino’s kept us entertained. It is just so sad to see these magnificent animals all dehorned in order to protect them from poachers.
A Dwarf Mongoose waved at us from his rocky perch.
After a few hours rest back at camp, we left for a late afternoon drive. We soon saw a Wahlberg’s Eagle taking off from a low tree next to the road.
We were surprised by a swarm of European Bee-eaters. Despite multiple attempts, I was unable to photograph one of these birds in flight, they are just too small and fast, with unpredictable flight patterns. Thus, I had to be satisfied with a shot of one sitting on a thorn tree branch.
I managed to keep up until that point, but then Day 6 (linked here) was a day late and, as I still struggle to get good internet connection, Day 7 is also late.
On Day 7 we decided to take an easy day, making an 8:30 start to our transfer from Lower Sabie to Berg-en-Dal. This allowed me to catch up on culling and backing up photos from the previous day.
The drive between camps was full of surprises, which included a tree, bearing cattle egrets
two elephant bulls tussling, two Kudu bulls tussling,
a tortoise sprinting at full speed, a crocodile sunbathing
warthogs kneeling for their food, a surprise shot containing three animal species
and even more unexpected leopard and lion sightings, both of which I was too slow to photograph, perhaps due to my delayed reactions caused by the previous evening’s stresses.
Arriving at Berg-en-Dal, we found our accommodation very comfortable, but once again the internet connection too slow to upload photos for the blog.
Day 6 started out at a frenetic pace, had a bit of a lull in the middle and then finished frenetically again. I did not have internet connection on the evening of Day 5 to upload my blog post, woke up early on Day 6 and quickly uploaded the Day 5 post, before our 5:30 start.
Within minutes of being on the road, we came across our first sighting of the day, a lion couple mating.
The rest of the morning, it was mainly birds, which included a Pearl-spotted owlet, Greater Striped Swallows and an Openbill stork, and also a skink. On our way back to camp we saw a very peculiar “rock” which turned out to be a hippopotamus in a jacuzzi.
I managed to download, cull and backup my photos from the morning, thinking that this would give me a head start on the afternoon, little knowing that I would end up taking almost 1700 photos in two and a half hours in the afternoon.
The afternoon ride started with promise of leopard and wild dog sightings which had been reported during the morning. On our way to the first reported leopard sighting, to our great surprise, coming around a corner, we saw a leopard strolling along the road towards us. She crossed in front of us and casually disappeared in the bush.
Carrying on to the reported leopard sighting, we spotted the leopard’s prey in a tree and a large leopard resting on a branch.
After spending a while and deciding that he was unlikely to move soon, we carried on to the wild dog sighting. Arriving there, we were the only vehicle nearby and thus got a prime viewing spot. They were lying in a dry riverbed, most of them fast asleep. We sat watching them for a long time, but we decided to wait until the last possible minute before returning to camp. Our patience was well rewarded as they eventually woke up, started moving and crossed the road right in front of us.
On our way back to camp, we encountered an elephant roadblock, causing us to worry that we would be late getting back. Fortunately, they moved out of the way quite quickly and we made it back in time.
The evening was spent watching the rugby world cup semi-final between the Springboks and England. This was an unexpectedly stressful affair. With the frenetic pace of the day, this turned out to be the first day on which I didn’t even start working on my blog be the end of the day, but what a great day!
Day 5 started at 6:00, going a few kilometres north from Lower Sabie. We spent time at two dams next to the road, being entertained by numerous birds: various kinds of egrets, herons and storks, Hamerkop, Weavers, Kingfisher and an African Fish Eagle.
The Saddle Billed Stork did not like the others encroaching on his fishing spot and kept chasing them away.
A brief return to camp for coffee was followed by a drive to the south. We encountered a male lion in hot pursuit of a lioness, who appeared to be doing her best to ignore him.
Further south we also saw a cheetah in the distance, not interested in coming closer, so the best I could do was a landscape shot with a cheetah as part of the landscape.
We saw another Fish Eagle and a Tawny Eagle along the way, as well as many elephants.
We returned to camp for lunch and to download photos, of which I had about 1500 from the morning, in order to clean our cameras’ memory cards for the afternoon session.
In the afternoon we went north again, seeing birds, giraffe, buffalo
and eventually ending the afternoon with a big yawn or two.
This was a transit day between Satara and Lower Sabie, taking the scenic route, which meant that we were on the road for 8 hours.
Birds, elephants, landscapes and a few antelope made up the photography of the day.
A Scops owl, very well hidden in a tree and pointed out to us by the SanParks staff member at the picnic site:
A few more attempts at photographing birds in flight, again with limited success, included a Bateleur and Wahlberg’s eagle.
Other bird sightings included a Namaqua Dove, Red Billed Oxpecker and Crested Barbet
An amazing sight, was that of a Lilac Breasted Roller busy anting, a behaviour I have never seen before or even heard of.
The scenery along the way was truly beautiful.
The number of elephants was amazing, especially the number of little ones. We even saw one that must have been no more than a few hours old, still very unsteady on its feet and with blood still visible on the mother’s hind legs (my photos unfortunately not really worth posting, but Liana’s video to follow and will be linked here). And where there are elephants, there must be dung beetles.
Etienne's Camera 