South Africa/Botswana Tour Report back - Part 2

Part two of our 2 week photo tour through South Africa and Botswana lead by professional photographer Villiers Steyn.

Olifants Camp

The weather tested our character at Olifants with a very humid 37 degrees Celcius on the first afternoon, followed with three windy, overcast days. Despite this we still had some incredible sightings in the park, including a mother spotted hyaena and two pups playing in the open right next to the vehicle, a day-old elephant calf stumbling across the road in front of us, a massive troop of baboons playing and drinking next to the vehicle, and two white rhino bulls resting at the side of the road. The Balule low-water bridge was especially productive for birding, producing photographs of wood sandpiper, wire-tailed swallow, brown-hooded kingfisher, grey go-away-bird, little bee-eater and African spoonbill, amongst others.

In camp birding was just as good, with opportunities to photograph scarlet-chested sunbird, grey-headed bush-shrike, red-winged starling, red-headed weaver, yellow-billed kite, black-backed puffback and chinspot battis, to name but a few. The resident tree squirrels were also playing model for the cameras!

Elephant Plains

The Sabi Sands never disappoints and produced excellent photographic opportunities for buffalo (and red-billed oxpeckers), elephant and leopard. The highlight, however, was the action around a hippo carcass next to a dam – it first attracted two spotted hyaenas before a horde of white-backed vultures descended on the carcass later in the day, providing excellent photographic opportunities in great light! Another memorable sighting was that of two nyala bulls doing a lateral display during which the white hair on the ridge of the back is lifted to make the animal appear larger. During the display the animals do a slow-motion ballet, walking in circles around each other.

Read the first part of the photo tour here.