I know this is a horrid picture, but to me it means very much. It represents the 620th species of bird I’ve seen in South Africa, and it is of a bird that was absent from the country for very many years. The sighting occurred along the Sabie River during a photographic safari and workshop I hosted along with Hannes Rossouw Photography and Kruger Park Game Drives in the Kruger National Park early in February ’26.

A pair of African Skimmers on a sandbank in the Sabie River

Rynchops flavirostris

Skimmers are unique among birds in that their lower mandible is longer than the upper, allowing them to “skim” over the water and snatch up small fish while in flight. They’re found along large rivers and other open water bodies with open banks and sandy islands where they rest, roost and breed. African Skimmers are usually seen in pairs or small flocks.

The IUCN considers the African Skimmer to be of least concern. While they’re found over a large swathe of tropical Africa, stretching from Senegal to Mozambique they disappeared from South Africa as a breeding species in 1944. Only in the last couple of years have they made a return to our country, and specifically to a few spots in the Lowveld of Limpopo and Mpumalanga, and at Lake St. Lucia in Kwazulu Natal – the same places where they used to occur until their local extinction – with a pair successfully hatching a chick at the bridge over the Crocodile River at the Kruger Park’s Malelane Gate late in 2025. This bodes well for the species’ rebound in this part of the world.

Here is a much better image from Wikipedia that shows the African Skimmer beautifully:

African Skimmer (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rynchops_flavirostris.jpg)

Our next nature photography workshops in the Kruger National Park take place early in May 2026 – one at Satara and one at Skukuza. We still have a few spots open, so don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you’d like to take part!