Walking Safari and Birdwatching at the uMkhuze Game Reserve

We are at the uMkhuze Game Reserve that is part of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa; we arrived yesterday afternoon and today we have the whole day to explore it.

We leave the campsite at 6:00am, when you can start to move around in the reserve, the sky is already a bit clear but the sun has not yet arisen.

We are heading to Mantuma, where all the services of the reserve are located, we have an appointment there with our guide today, named Patrick, who will accompany us on a walking safari.

At 6:30am, while admiring a spectacular sunrise, Patrick arrives, there are also other people with us, a South African girl from Johannesburg and a group of North Americans; they are all fans of birdwatching and photography.

We leave on the safari car with Patrick, we are heading to the Fig Forest Walk; the crisp air of the morning is felt with the car open.

When we arrive, Patrick gives us the briefing: he opens the group and is armed, we must never remain behind, if we want to stop we must warn; we could meet buffaloes or elephants along our path, in case we have to remain silent and still, unless he tells us to behave differently.

We leave for our walking safari, the trail almost immediately enters the forest and, at times, is a bit slippery; almost at the end of the path there is a wooden turret for observation, while there are some wooden stairs that lead to wooden suspension bridges and ropes that climb over a river and some marshy areas.

Let's say that it is not the structures I prefer suffering from vertigo, but from that elevated position one has a privileged view of the forest.

Patrick says a few words but he is very good at seeing birds and identifying them and also recognizing their cries and reproducing them, even if the girl from Johannesburg has a crazy sight and slips everywhere to find the best observation point armed only of her binoculars.

The Americans instead are super equipped: they have an amazing monocle, some crazy zooms for the camera and a device similar to an ipod that contains photos of all the birds and reproduces their cries, they use it to try to attract the birds in the open to observe them better and to photograph them

We are passionate about birdwatching but compared to them we are beginners, or rather we observe all the birds, whether they are common or not, maybe we are attracted more by those more colorful, or more particular in their shape or those that are in some particular position or that are doing something, such as fishing or eating or something else; instead they look for specimens belonging to species that they have never seen or that are rare to spot.

We also observe the plants, there are some wonderful ones including a fig tree that Patrick tells us to be more than 5,000 years old, he also tells us that for the local populations, ie for all those who belong to the ethnic group of the Ngoma, or the Zulus, the Swazi, the Xhosa and the Ndebele, these trees are considered sacred and if one of them is cut there will be 10 years of drought.

It is really a pleasant walking, it is not difficult, except for some points where the ground is particularly slippery, but it does not create any problem.

The path leads us to the banks of a river that is now little more than a stream, but during the rainy season we believe it has a much wider dimension, we walk on the dried mud, where the footprints of the elephants are imprinted.

We make several sightings including the Narina trogon, a bird we wanted to see because it is beautiful and colorful, even the birdwatchers are very happy because, as they told us, it is not easy to see it, but even if you see it, it runs away almost immediately, so sightings are hardly good and it is very difficult to take photographs; today, however, it has stood still for a while and even the light for the photos was not bad at all.

We also saw a trumpeter hornbill, it is beautiful and has a huge beak, our fellow adventurers do not care much about it, but it is all the journey that we want to see it. 

Instead they are literally crazy for the green malkoha or green coucal, in addition to never having seen it they had never been able to photograph it; apparently we were lucky with the sightings, as always I would add.

When we arrive at the lookout tower, we take a 10 minute break, the time needed to climb and admire the forest from another perspective and look for some other sightings with the binoculars.

Then we go back along the same path and back to the parking lot where we left the safari car, we get up and drive back to Mantuma.

We are very happy to have had this experience and we are satisfied with our sightings and happy to have found such a good guide as Patrick.