In message
pootdi-2 wrote:

Marc Lurie wrote:

For good game viewing, I have yet to find better than Kruger Nat. Park
in South Africa.

Well Chobe in Botswana and etosha in namibia are at pare with Kruger

I was pretty underwhelmed by Etosha, in terms of the numbers of
animals, but maybe July is a poor time to visit - it certainly seemed
to be for birds (southern winter) - or maybe July 2003 was less great
than usual. It was very difficult to decide whether to stay at a
waterhole for some time (we waited over two hours at one and saw only
a couple of Springbok) or whether to keep moving on to try others -
the best one 'on the day' was the one which my guidebook said was
"poor for sightings"!

Equally, and I can't say from experience, maybe recently in Ngorongoro
was less good than usual: as has already been suggested on this
thread, there can be a lot of variety not only between months but from
year to year, usually linked to weather conditions.


In only two July days in the Ngorongoro crater (way back in 1998, but
I haven't read anywhere else of a worsening pattern of sightings; our
visit was just after an El Nino event) we saw:

Mammals

African Elephant
Black Rhinocerous
Black-backed Jackal
Black-faced Vervet
Cape Buffalo
Coke's Hartebeest
Common Zebra
Defassa Waterbuck
Golden Jackal
Grant's Gazelle
Hippopotamus
Lion
Spotted Hyaena
Thomson's Gazelle
Warthog
Wildebeest

Birds

African Hoopoe
African Marsh Harrier
Anteater Chat
Augur Buzzard
Avocet
Black Crake
Black Kite
Black-bellied Bustard
Black-headed Heron
Black-winged Stilt
Blacksmith Plover
Blue-eared Starling
Cape Teal
Capped Wheatear
Cattle Egret
Common Bulbul
Common Moorhen
Common Ostrich
Crested Guineafowl
Crowned Plover
Egyptian Goose
Fan-tailed Widow-bird
Fiscal Shrike
Fischer's Sparrow Lark
Greater Flamingo
Greater Painted-Snipe
Grey Crowned-Crane
Grey-headed Gull
Grey-rumped Swallow
Hamerkop
Helmeted Guineafowl
Hildebrandt's Starling
Hottentot Teal
Jackson's Francolin
Kittlitz's Plover
Kori Bustard
Lappet-faced Vulture
Lesser Flamingo
Little Bee-eater
Little Grebe
Little Swift
Montagu's Harrier
Pied Avocet
Red-billed Duck
Red-billed Firefinch
Red-billed Oxpecker
Red-capped Lark
Red-eyed Dove
Red-winged Bush-lark
Red-winged Starling
Rufous-tailed Weaver
Sacred Ibis
Schalow's Wheatear
Secretary Bird
Speckled Mousebird
Speckled Pigeon
Superb Starling
Tawny Eagle
Three-Banded Plover
Whiskered Tern
Wattled Starling
White-backed Vulture
White-browed Coucal
White-naped Raven
Yellow-billed Egret

Plus two enormous, entwined, African Pythons.


Mammals & birds seen in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area,
but not in the caldera itself:

Mammals

Impala
Masai Giraffe


Birds
African Open-billed Stork
Cape Robin-Chat
Fulvous Whistling-Duck
Golden-winged Starling
Great Egret
Grey Heron
Grey-backed Cameroptera
Hooded Vulture
Masked Weaver
Red-billed Buffalo-Weaver
Spur-winged Goose
Stonechat
Streaky Seed-eater
Tropical Boubou
White Stork
White-eyed Slaty-Flycatcher


It's well-documented that you don't get Giraffe (?or Impala?) in the
caldera, and only a few older bull elephants, mostly in the Lerai
Forest area.

Slainte

Liz
--
Virtual Liz now at http://www.v-liz.com
Kenya; Tanzania; Namibia; India; Seychelles; Galapagos
Photo blog of Make Povery History rally in Edinburgh 2 July 2005:
http://www.v-liz.com/g8rally/protest.htm