Tag Archives: Kruger National Park

Our experiences in the Kruger National Park, South Africa

Summer Snapshots from Kruger: Silhouettes

DeWetsWild conducted a two-week tour of the Kruger National Park with altogether nine people to see out 2025 and ring in 2026 and every day for the month of February I’ll be sharing just a few of the many memories our group collected.

Seems like a few of silhouettes is a good way to bring my recollections of this trip to a close.

Marabou storks

Impala ram

Giraffe

If you’d like to join me on a guided tour of South Africa’s wild places, of even if you’d just like a bit of help putting your reservations together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Summer Snapshots from Kruger: Bountiful Birds

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While the Kruger National Park boasts an exceptional number of bird species on its official list even during winter, the summer brings with it an enormous number of migrants, and even more so in a season as wet as the current one. During our tour of two weeks we managed to tick off 187 bird species in the area between the Letaba and Sabie Rivers. These are just a few of them.

Bateleur

Bearded Scrub-Robin

Black Crake

Black-crowned Tchagra

Brown Snake Eagle

Carmine Bee-eater

Cut-throat Finch

Dusky Indigobird

Dwarf Bittern

European Bee-eater

Immature Lanner Falcon

European Roller

African Fish Eagle

Great Spotted Cuckoo

Green-backed Heron

Grey-headed Bush-shrike

African Jacana

Knob-billed Duck

Common (Kurrichane) Buttonquail (note tiny chick!)

Lilac-breasted Roller

Long-tailed Paradise Whydah

Marabou Stork

Natal Spurfowl

Greater Painted Snipe

Pallid Harrier

Pied Wagtail

Red-crested Korhaan

Chestnut-backed Sparrowlark

Double-banded Sandgrouse

Tawny Eagle

Temminck’s Courser

Water Thick-knee

Wattled Starling

White-backed Vulture

Wood Sandpiper

Yellow-billed Oxpeckers

Yellow-billed Stork

If you’d like to join me on a guided tour of South Africa’s wild places, of even if you’d just like a bit of help putting your reservations together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Summer Snapshots from Kruger: Cold-blooded Encounters

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Walking around the Kruger’s Rest Camps during the heat of the day, when the summer temperatures make it extremely unpleasant to be out exploring on the roads, opens up a world of smaller creatures that would otherwise probably go unnoticed while cooped up in a vehicle.

Male Tree Agama

Flap-necked Chameleon

Wahlberg’s Bush Cricket

Spotted Joker Butterfly

Male Rainbow Skink

Giant Legless Skink

If you’d like to join me on a guided tour of South Africa’s wild places, of even if you’d just like a bit of help putting your reservations together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Summer Snapshots from Kruger: An influx of Harlequin Quails

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The exceptionally wet weather in the Kruger National Park this summer is behind an immense influx of Harlequin Quails into the Park. While sightings of the tiny birds were limited to fleeting glimpses when they ventured into the road from the long grass their distinctive calls could be heard literally everywhere we drove!

Harlequin Quail

Coturnix delegorguei

The Harlequin Quail is an intra-African migrant bird, arriving in our part of the continent in response to good rains. During such periods they may be found in the savanna habitats stretching from northern Kwazulu-Natal to the North West Province. They also occur through most of the woodland and savanna regions of sub-Saharan Africa, parts of the Arabian peninsula and on Madagascar. According to the IUCN the Harlequin Quail is of least concern. Harlequin Quails feed on seeds, green shoots and a wide variety of small insects.

Outside of the breeding season Harlequin Quails may be seen foraging in groups of up to 20 individuals. They nest in hollows scratched in the ground, usually hidden among grass tussocks, soon after the rains start. The female incubates the clutch of up to 8 eggs for a little less than 3 weeks. The precocial chicks grow exceptionally quickly and can even fly short distances by the time they’re only 5 days old!

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If you’d like to join me on a guided tour of South Africa’s wild places, of even if you’d just like a bit of help putting your reservations together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Summer Snapshots from Kruger: How many kids can you handle?

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We encountered this family of ostriches a couple of times near the Nkaya Pan waterhole south of Satara. I must say, these youngsters were much better behaved than some school groups I’ve seen (and guided)!

Ostrich family

If you’d like to join me on a guided tour of South Africa’s wild places, of even if you’d just like a bit of help putting your reservations together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Summer Snapshots from Kruger: Scorpion Hunting

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One of the things I love to do with my guests in the evenings is to take a walk through our camp looking for nocturnal wildlife. Over the years I’ve found Satara Rest Camp to be an excellent place to go looking for scorpions, especially the large Tree Creeper Scorpion, using a small ultraviolet flashlight that makes the scorpions “glow” in the dark and easily detectable.

Tree Creeper Scorpion (glowing in ultraviolet light) in Satara

Tree Creeper Scorpion in Satara

Tree Creeper Scorpion (glowing in ultraviolet light) in Satara

Tree Creeper Scorpion in Satara

Tree Creeper Scorpion (glowing in ultraviolet light) in Satara

If you’d like to join me on a guided tour of South Africa’s wild places, of even if you’d just like a bit of help putting your reservations together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Summer Snapshots from Kruger: A Legend on his last legs

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As popular as lions are there’s one lion in the Kruger National Park that has attained legendary status, and that’s the white lion male that roams the Satara area. We were fortunate to see him twice during this tour, though but a shadow of the majestic beast he was when we encountered him on New Year’s Day 2022. Then he was one of a coalition of four strong males ruling the area and its pride of females; four years later two of his brothers has already died and they’ve lost control of their pride and territory.

At the first sighting of this trip, the white lion and his brother were in the presence of a much younger male, perhaps a son going by the affection between them. This boded well for the two old gents if the youngster was willing to share his kills with them, and judging by their well-fed bellies that certainly appeared to be the case.

The White Lion lying down while a younger male stands by his side.

Satara’s legendary White Lion

Just a few days later however we found the two older males alone and scavenging at a hyena den. Incredibly their condition deteriorated rapidly in that short time and the expression in the White Lion’s eyes appeared rather bleak and hopeless. It was a heartbreaking encounter. Life in the wild is not easy for lions.

Satara’s legendary White Lion

Sadly, to the best of our knowledge, “Casper” as he is affectionately known, has not been seen since the flooding that hit the Kruger National Park in middle January. We can only hope that he met a dignified end in that vast wilderness he once ruled along with his brothers.

EDIT 18 February 2026: Good news received from the Kruger National Park that Casper was seen again near Satara on 17th of February.

If you’d like to join me on a guided tour of South Africa’s wild places, of even if you’d just like a bit of help putting your reservations together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Summer Snapshots from Kruger: Grateful for Rhino encounters

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We had a handful of white rhino sightings during our fortnight in the Kruger Park, of which this was the most memorable. With the threat of rhino poaching ever present, seeing these beautiful animals with their horns trimmed to mere stumps (by park managers desperate to do whatever they can to safeguard them) seems a small price to pay for the privilege of spending time in their presence.

White Rhinos

If you’d like to join me on a guided tour of South Africa’s wild places, of even if you’d just like a bit of help putting your reservations together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Summer Snapshots from Kruger: The beauty of a green Kruger Park

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The Kruger National Park dressed in lush greenery during a wet summer season surely is one of most beautiful sights in all the world. This was the view from the viewpoint at Nwanedzi Picnic Spot late in December 2025.

If you’d like to join me on a guided tour of South Africa’s wild places, of even if you’d just like a bit of help putting your reservations together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Summer Snapshots from Kruger: Lions for Christmas

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On Christmas morning we were treated to this very special encounter with a beautiful pride of lions within shouting distance of Nwanedzi Picnic Site.

Lions on Christmas Morning 2025

If you’d like to join me on a guided tour of South Africa’s wild places, of even if you’d just like a bit of help putting your reservations together, don’t hesitate to reach out!