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| National Parks of South Africa | Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
The Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa was founded in 1931 generally to be a hover for migratory game, especially the gemsbok. Together with the neighboring Gemsbok National Park in Botswana, this park covers an area of over 3,6 million hectares.
Excellent photographic opportunities are provided by red sand dunes, sparse vegetation and the dry riverbeds of the Nossob and Auob and different antelope and predator species. If you like to view birds of prey, Kgalagadi is the place where you can observe them easily.
Premium mammal viewing can be performed anywhere as the vegetation is rather sparse and concentration of animals in the dry riverbeds of the Auob and Nossob Rivers is high. Especially it is famous for predator observing and for the seasonal movement of large ungulates such as blue wildebeest, springbok, eland and red hartebeest.
Marakele National Park
The Marakele National Park located in the heart of the Waterberg Mountains has become a hover for an extraordinary variety of wildlife as it is situated in the transitional zone between the dry western and moister eastern regions of South Africa.
The contrasting majestic mountain landscapes, grass-clad hills and deep valleys are what this park is known for. Here a great amount of large game species from elephant and rhino to the big cats in addition to an amazing variety of birds including the largest colony of endangered Cape vultures (more than 800 breeding pairs) in the world inhabit.
Marakele is sanctuary to most of the large mammals, such as elephant, black and white rhino, buffalo, leopard and cheetah. Lion are currently not found in the park, though they may occasionally wander here from Botswana or from neighboring private reserves.
The park is an perfect place to search for predator, with many species using the uplift. Besides the vultures, you may observe gymnogene, jackal buzzard and several eagle species, including black, African hawk, blackbreasted snake and brown snake eagle.
You also search for purple roller, black cuckooshrike, brubru, whitecrowned shrike and white helmetshrike and the exquisite blue, violeteared and blackcheeked waxbills somewhere in the lower lying bushveld and broadleaf woodland regions. Bee-eaters are evident; particularly whitefronted and little with swallowtailed (winter) and carmine are present as well. Tourists who stay at the Matlabas tent camp should search the river for halfcollared kingfisher and finfoot.
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