Discovering the Rare Wildlife of South Africa

I think it’s fair to say that here at Wildlife Worldwide we love a ‘rare mammal’ tour, and we’re very excited to offer another to South Africa. Our South Africa's Rare Mammals & Birds tour combines three nights, each at three different locations. In our opinion, this offers an excellent chance of seeing some of South Africa’s most elusive mammals, alongside some very impressive bird life.

The first six nights are spent in the Karoo, including three nights at the fabulous Khoisan Karoo Conservancy. I had the good fortune to recce this site during September, and I have to say, the night drives were exceptional.

My visit coincided with an extreme cold front and on the first two nights — the thermometer barely cleared freezing. Nevertheless, we still had multiple (amounting to double figures plus) sightings of Cape porcupine, bat-eared fox, spring, Cape and scrub hare.

On the third night, with temperatures a little more in keeping with the seasonal norm, the termite feeding species came out to play and alongside everything previously mentioned, we had five aardwolf, three aardvark and even striped polecat and Cape fox. It was a fantastic night.

By day, we enjoyed sightings of meerkat, ground squirrel, yellow mongoose, fabulous eastern sengi (elephant shrews) and rock hyrax. Majestic blue crane were a refreshingly frequent sight around the reserve, as were Karoo, blue and northern black korhaans, and the impressive Ludwig’s bustard. The song of clapper larks filled the air, and with a little application it was possible to see a large number of endemic passerines.

The only fly in the ointment was missing out on black-footed cat, but alongside Marrick, the other location for our time in the Karoo, we have as good of a chance as anywhere in Southern Africa of seeing this elusive feline.

Marrick offers a similar experience and range of species to Khoisan Karoo, but doubling up on our chances of seeing some of the target mammals isn’t a bad thing, and in Marrick there’s also an outside chance of caracal. On one of our days at Marrick, we venture out to the camelthorn studded grasslands and hills of Molaka National Park, South Africa’s newest national park. Molaka is an important area for the regeneration of a variety of mammal species, including both black and white rhino, tsessebe, roan, sable, mountain reedbuck, South African giraffe and gemsbok.

We conclude our visit with a 3-night stay in a comfortable safari lodge in Madikwe Private Reserve. Here we undertake a more traditional programme of morning, afternoon and early evening drives in search of the more iconic and mainstream mammals of the continent such as the Big Five, brown hyena, wild dog and cheetah.

It should provide a fitting finale!

For further information, available departures and a full itinerary, head to our South Africa's Rare Mammals & Birds tour page today.