Aerial Predators of the Kalahari

To celebrate my 50th birthday we decided to make a 10 year long pipe dream of visiting the arid Kalahari a reality, so we quickly set about planning a trip to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park!

Even though I had dreamed of visiting Kgalagadi for 10 years I had no idea how to even start planning a trip like this, but thankfully I have some amazing photography friends that visit the Park regularly so in no time we were booked and ready to roll - let’s go!

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

The Park is located where the South Africa and Botswana borders meet and is about 250km North of Upington. It is famous for the red sand dunes and the saying goes that once you get the red sand between your toes you will NEVER stop visiting - and boy were they right as we actually booked our next trip the same day that we left the Park!

The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park was established in 1931 mainly to protect the migrating Gemsbok from poaching - interesting fact is that the word Kgalagadi means “place of thirst” and I am not surprised as rain is sparse in the desert and summer temperatures easily exceed 40’C.

wildlife

There are more than 200 bird species including predators such as Eagles, Vultures, Secretary Birds and Falcons that call the park home so we were hoping to be able to add a few new species to our Lifer List. The sightings were AMAZING and by the end of the trip we managed to add 15 new species!

The Falcon

I have always been obsessed with finding and photographing falcons, but unfortunately they are fairly rare where we live so I was super excited to point my new Canon R5 and 100-500mm at the resident Lanner Falcons. They are famous for hunting grouse, doves etc who come down to the waterholes to drink water, so the chances were good and all that was needed was patience. There are 2 species of falcons in the Park, the Red-necked Falcon and the more common Lanner Falcon.

Sighting

We were ready to leave an amazing sighting of a Tawny Eagle that had eaten it's prized catch (a Turtle Dove) in a tree right next to us.

As we drove off we noticed feathers everywhere along the gravel road, what was going on! A few seconds later I saw a Lanner Falcon with it’s wings spread out making the lower half of it’s body invisible.

I quickly pulled the car to the side of the road and switched the engine off - I was far away from the action as I did not want to spook the bird and interfere with nature. After a few seconds the falcon tucked it’s wings away and sat bolt upright while scanning the sky for larger predators - and that is when I saw that it had killed it’s own Turtle Dove! I quickly dialed in my settings and fired off a few dozen frames!

I so desperately wanted to check my LCD to see if I had captured a sharp image BUT after years of bird photography I knew the bird was going to take to the air and fly somewhere safe to enjoy it’s meal!

A few seconds later, the falcon locked eyes with me before taking flight with the dove safely clenched in those powerful talons - I used the fast frame rate of the R5 to my advantage firing off hundreds of frames as the bird flew straight over our car - MAGIC!

This was just one of the amazing sightings of the trip - what an incredible way to celebrate turning half a century in age!

Till next time…