SOUTH AFRICA

Endemic-rich birding, spectacular landscapes, and a unique flora are the highlights of our energetic survey of this beautiful country, from the Karoo to Cape Town, and the Drakensberg to the Eastern Transvaal.

2008
October 10-November 1
with Jay VanderGaast & Rod Cassidy

2009
October 9-31
with Terry Stevenson & Rod Cassidy

$7775 (2008 fee). 23 days
From Johannesburg. Limt: 12
Good accommodations, warm to cool climate, easy to moderate terrain. Our staff travel agents can book your air arrangements. Contact us at (800) 728-4953 for more information.

See our triplist for 2007 or 2005 or 2004.

Blue Crane, photographed by participant Dennis Monroe

End point to a continent, South Africa is a meeting ground of east and west, both at sea and on land. This rich assemblage of faunal elements has been supplemented by the evolution of many distinctive forms in the islands of subtropical habitat at the tip of this tropical continent—rockjumpers, sugarbirds, and a host of distinctive bustards, larks, rock-thrushes, chats, scrub-robins, and sunbirds. In fact, South Africa is home to more endemic birds than any other country on the continent. Add to these many more typical and widespread African birds such as raptors, hornbills, barbets, mousebirds, bushshrikes, weavers, and bishops, and one has a great birding trip.

Our South Africa itinerary has been specially designed to give us an opportunity to see as many of the South African endemics as possible in three weeks while surveying a diversity of scenery and habitat. Many of the endemics we’ll be looking for are extremely localized, and we’ll be accompanied by an expert local birder throughout the tour. Excellent field guides and other reference material make preparation and fieldwork a pleasure.

Our newly refined itinerary includes several days in the Northern Drakensberg (an area where overseas birders rarely go), and we have a good chance of Taita Falcon and Short-clawed Lark. We also make a thorough coverage of several parts of the Cape region, offering specialties from Cape Francolin and Karoo Bustard to Jackass Penguin and Ferruginous (Red) Lark. Still others include Karoo Scrub-Robin, Karoo Chat, and Cape Sugarbird; and there’s the rich potential of a pelagic boat trip off Cape Town, where hundreds of albatrosses, petrels, and shearwaters congregate around trawlers. At the Orange River we’ll look for Namaqua and Kopje warblers, White-backed Mousebird, and many others; in KwaZulu-Natal and the southern Transvaal, Knysna and Livingstone’s turacos, Knysna Woodpecker, Yellow-breasted Pipit, Woodwards’ Batis, and Botha’s and Rudd’s larks. We’ll also make a dramatic drive up the magnificent Drakensberg Mountains to Lesotho for Orange-breasted Rockjumper, Ground Woodpecker, Cape and Sentinel rock-thrushes, and Drakensberg Siskin. These are but a few of South Africa’s myriad birding attractions. Beyond the birds and landscapes, of course, an additional draw of the tour is the unique and spectacular flora for which South Africa is famous.

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Contact our office by e-mail in Austin, Texas at fieldguides@fieldguides.com.

1+ 800-728-4953
1+ 512-263-7295
1+ 512-263-0117 (fax)

Field Guides Incorporated, 9433 Bee Cave Road, Building 1, Suite 150, Austin, TX 78733

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