Report - South Africa - (11 June to 3 July 1999)

This tour to the north-eastern and eastern parts of South Africa was full of memorable sights and experiences, so good that seven of the people have booked for the next one in 2001!

We were looked after by Pelican Safaris; Mark and Jean Caulton are a husband and wife team based near Durban, who make you feel like family. They have a wealth of experience and knowledge of all aspects of natural history and happily passed on their knowledge. Jean's ability to turn out a first-class home-cooked meal whatever the cooking facilities available was certainly one of the highlights and Mark's barbecues (or brais as they call them) were always appreciated. I could write an epic like the Wet Tropics write-up, but I won't. Here are the highlights:

• 308 species of birds for the trip list (very good for a winter period with no summer migrants) and 47 mammals - just about everything we were after but leopard (very elusive)
• the early morning sortie from Lower Sabie Camp in Kruger NP where we were crossing our fingers for Wild Dogs - and there they were prancing in the headlights, 10 of these rare, endangered animals. I was speechless as one of them stopped at my window and peered at me!
• the many wonderful camps we stayed at - like beautiful Mopani overlooking a lake where we watched the events from the verandah, the Mocking Chats scuttling around, the Genet which came in for food at night, the night drive where a thousand eyes suddenly came up in the dark - a huge herd of buffalo, and the hippos doing their famous manure spreading routine, where they rotate their tails as they go about their business - Berg-en-Dal in the hilly country of southern Kruger, where the birds around camp were plentiful and the Heugelin's Robin a highlight for me - and the starkly contrasting (and beautiful in its own way) Loteni in the Drakensburg Mountains
• the three days at Mkuse camp in the large safari tents - wonderful birds like Spotted Nicator ( a kind of bulbul), White-browed and Bearded Robins around the camp; the unusual species in the fig forest walk, where we had an armed guide because of poachers; bushbabies sliding down the tent roof at night, with those who did not close the tent zippers properly finding their chili potato chips gone and a calling card left in the adjoining bathroom
• the trip up the Sani Pass, to nearly 3000 m, by 4WD on a glorious sunny winter day, to the remote kingdom of Lesotho, seeing the Lammergeier so close up, the Rockjumper, the Ground Woodpecker (a terrestrial bird which digs holes in the ground) and other unique birds only found in this terrrain, and the famous Sloggett's ice rats out in the sun on the plateau
• Secretarybirds, Ground Hornbills, Hoopoes, flamingoes, storks, herons, kingfishers, the colourful bush-shrikes out in the open (usually they skulk in the brushes), the wonderful woodpeckers, Black-headed Oriole, Bokmakeri and Puffback (kinds of shrike), the many coloured starlings, the dazzling sunbirds, the tiny Scops Owl roosting, or the Pearl Spotted Owl with false eyes in the back of its head (a day owl which hunts birds) - how do you do justice to so many new creatures in a couple of paragraphs
• the many funny things like leaving the lolly bag on the night drive bus and, amazingly, finding it still there, intact, in the morning; Alison's famous 'Victoria Falls Hotel' outfit at dinner; the last-minute frantic efforts for the final mars bar prize for Malachite Sunbird; the elusive 'Corney Bastard' (Kori Bustard, which we missed); and Mark's dry sense of humour, especially as the bags got bigger and ever increasingly harder to fit in the luggage compartment.

On a personal level, I saw 40 new species of birds on this trip (including a few extras at Cape Town like the endemic penguin and the Cape Sugarbird ), got my wish to see Wild Dogs and managed to avoid the flu at least until I was on the way home.

Jenny Bounds