Extraordinary Wildlife Highlights from 2023

It all began on a rainy day in May when an orca surfaced not four metres from my right shoulder. Wildlife highlight number one for 2023 … check! I was in the Azores where our focus was finding migrating baleen giants. We hit the target with sei and humpback whales, whilst also viewing resident sperm whales. Dolphins were abundant, with ghostly Risso’s vying for attention alongside the acrobatic antics of striped and bottlenose. An unexpected favourite creature emerged though, Atlantic flying fish. Who knew? They defy gravity, they soar and they absolutely delight!

I then flew south, for our South Africa’s Rare Mammals in Style luxury holiday. Returning to my beloved Kalahari, Tswalu didn't disappoint. Multiple aardvarks, two aardwolves and one pangolin later, the group were elated. Other standout sightings included a black rhino mother and calf, the female rhino’s enormous horns were hugely impressive, and an impossibly bold brown hyena. It was late afternoon and we’d been hearing alarm calls for some time before the hyena finally made an appearance. It then proved difficult to shake off! Lying down directly in front of us and succumbing to a snooze, it caused a fit of giggles as one client turned to me and whispered, “I thought you said they were shy?!” Babies also stole the show, with cheetah cubs atop a dune, suckling so close to us that you could hear them, plus nine-week-old wild dog pups excitedly quipping for their share of regurgitated spoils once reunited with the alpha parents after a hunt.

July saw me travelling to South America for our inaugural Best of Brazil tour, and what a corker this turned out to be! The Cerrado (savannah) provided us with five maned wolf sightings from eight excursions. Despite allegedly being another notoriously shy creature, one re-wrote the field guides by bounding up to the vehicle for a closer look and staying for nigh on eight minutes!

Image by Ted Smith

Wondrous insects, butterflies galore, reptiles, a gazillion shades of green and dazzling birdlife, including a harpy eagle, defined our next stop, the Amazon. 15 minutes with this giant raptor in full view culminated in a fly-by that was simply stupendous. Canopy towers at dawn and fungi releasing spores by moonlight were other magical moments that occurred before we moved on to the wildlife hotspot that's the Southern Pantanal. Multiple jaguar sightings jostled with anaconda, armadillo, tamandua and tapir sightings for centre stage. Ten giant anteaters in an afternoon and a sinkhole of macaws flying at eye level cemented my (humble) opinion that this is undoubtedly the best safari on offer outside Africa.

Next, I returned to South Africa for our Kalahari Conservation Experience, where safaris are peppered with conservation initiatives determined by the reserve ecologist. Currently, sharing equal top billing are predator and pangolin monitoring respectively. We were tasked with finding African wild dog, cheetah and lion, in order to try and follow them off-road when they started hunting. Much harder than it sounds, but super exciting, we also ‘had’ to find and walk with a recently released pangolin which had been rescued from poachers. With more releases in the offing and 11 months of monitoring required, I'm certainly looking forward to 2024!

Talking of which, I write this en route to Ecuador, preparing for our future Galapagos Wildlife Cruises, after which I'll round off a marvellous year with our Festival of Wildlife in Zambia. I count myself most fortunate to have one of the best jobs in the world!

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