Marco Pozzi traveled to South Africa this February on business and as an extension to his journey, he wanted to photograph some of the unusual birds of South Africa.
The trip was the last two weeks in February, the timing was dictated by a meeting in Cape Town. It is not an ideal time to travel to South Africa for nature photography, but sometimes it is a question of seeing what is available depending on your current location or depending on what you are after.
It was a great time for birds, but not for Big cats (July-September) or Whales (September-October).
Marco’s Wife, Denise, is fond of birds so it made a pleasant journey photographing and watching birds for them both to experience together. They spent 6 days in and around Cape Town using a rented car which was safe, simple and enjoyable, great place to be and the bird life was interesting.
This was followed by 3 days along the garden Route, spectacular for landscapes and birds and then on to Port Elizabeth to fly to Johannesburg. Once Marco and his Wife arrived at Johannesburg, they were met by their guide (Leon), a specialist in birds that they had pre-booked before leaving home. Leon was with them all the time and drove the car to different locations during the following 5 days around Kruger park.
Macro says “We had a great time because the place was beautiful and Leon was a super expert in Birds, but I must admit that going around and looking for birds is better for bird watching (Denise) than for bird photography (me). Anyone who tries to bring home some bird pictures of the standard shown by Austin or the other Wigan 10 wild life photographers will understand what I mean. We hardly saw any big cat because the vegetation was too high (their winter is the right time), but we had a pleasant and relaxing time.”
Would Marco go back?
May be if I had plenty of time in my hand and even so I would choose different places and time, unless the main purpose was to escape the European cold winter.
In addition, I prefer to explore different places rather than going back to the same ones, but if I should go back I would still aim at birds and Leon is certainly a recommendable guide for this purpose.
