11 Mar 2025 - 23 Mar 2025 (13 days)
ZAR70,950 - No Spaces Available
Tour Leader: Quinton Paul Josop
Tour price (Per person): ZAR70,950 * USD3,793 * GBP3,025 * EUR3,650 * AUD6,091
Single Supplement: ZAR6,500 * USD348 * GBP277 * EUR334 * AUD558
Can be linked with: South Africa - Eastern Bird Photography Tour (Small Group) 2025
Flight costs (Linked Tour): ZAR1,800 * USD96 * GBP77 * EUR93 * AUD155
12 Jun 2026 - 24 Jun 2026 (13 days)
ZAR79,950 - Spaces Available
Tour Leader: David Hoddinott
Tour price (Per person): ZAR79,950 * USD4,275 * GBP3,409 * EUR4,113 * AUD6,863
Single Supplement: ZAR4,900 * USD262 * GBP209 * EUR252 * AUD421
Can be linked with: South Africa - Eastern Bird Photography Tour (Small Group) 2026
Flight costs (Linked Tour): ZAR1,500 * USD80 * GBP64 * EUR77 * AUD129
Southern Africa’s dry west is a unique and fascinating, yet under-visited land and offers exceptional opportunities for bird, mammal, and scenic photography. A hotbed of faunal and floral diversity, this area harbours two botanical regions found nowhere else on earth: the Cape Floristic Region and the Succulent Karoo. Our Western South Africa Bird Photo Tour showcases these areas and the range of special bird’s endemic to them; you can expect not only great birds, but some of the most dramatic scenery in Africa! Tour highlights include the stunning fynbos-clad slopes of the Western Cape, home to the stunning Cape Rockjumper and numerous other endemics; and the arid and semi-arid areas of the Karoo, which provide another great backdrop for a variety of bustards, larks and other endemics before we head back to Cape Town, taking in an impressive Cape Gannet colony and the West Coast National Park on the way.
Highlights
Please note: these prices are subject to foreign exchange fluctuations.
Cape Rockjumper; Cape Sugarbird; Cape Siskin; Cape Bulbul; Protea & Black-headed Canaries; Orange-breasted & Southern Double-collared Sunbirds; African Penguin; African Oystercatcher; Crowned, Bank & Cape Cormorants; Hartlaub’s Gull; Southern Black & Karoo Korhaans; Ludwig’s Bustard; Cape Spurfowl; Victorin’s, Namaqua, Cinnamon-breasted, Layard’s & Rufous-eared Warblers; Fairy & Fiscal Flycatchers; Karoo Eremomela; Barlow’s, Red, Sclater’s & Cape Long-billed Larks; Cape Penduline Tit; White-backed Mousebird; Karoo & Tractrac Chats; Karoo Scrub Robin; Cape Grassbird; Karoo Prinia; Southern Boubou; Cape Batis; Verreaux's & Booted Eagles; South African Shelduck; Karoo Thrush; Forest & Cape Canaries. The pelagic could provide Indian, Atlantic Yellow-nosed, Shy & Black-browed Albatrosses; Cape Petrel; Southern & Northern Giant Petrels.
Afro-Australian Fur Seal; Southern Right Whale; Common Eland; Blesbok (Bontebok); (Cape) Mountain Zebra; (Red) Hartebeest; Cape Grey Mongoose; Cape Grysbok; Springbok; Klipspringer; Grey Rhebok; Chacma Baboo; Meerkat.
Mountains, semi-desert, fynbos, coastal and pelagic waters, wetlands
Temperate with occasional rain, can be cold in winter
5 with 1 Rockjumper leader
UNDEMANDING: This tour is ideal for birders and wildlife enthusiasts of all experience levels. It’s suitable for most mobility levels and offers a relaxed pace, ensuring an enjoyable experience for everyone.
Moderate. Suitable for all birding / wildlife / photography interest levels and most mobility capabilities. Can be a little tiring due to travel distances. Our Bird Photo Tours are a hybrid between our Classic birding tours and dedicated photographic tours. You don’t have to be a professional photographer or have the biggest lens; this is for everyone with an interest in photography and birding. Whether you’re using a bridge camera or the latest body and prime lens, our aims are the same. • These tours are not aimed at seeing the most species possible on the route, rather taking time to photograph key targets and any other interesting species we may find. Naturally, the overall species list will be lower than a comparable birding focused tour. • Whilst we may use blinds, feeders and hide setups on some of these tours, we will not be spending an entire day nor even several hours fixed in one spot. • These tours are suitable for photographers who prefer opportunistic photography over entire days in a hide. • Our leaders will assist in helping everyone secure good photographic opportunities and advise as much as they can on camera setup. However, they are not professional photographic tour leaders.
Comfortable lodges.
Undemanding, most species provide good visuals. A small number of scarce/rare species.
Good to very good. Some hides.
We are writing to say thank you for all you did for us on our recent Birds and Wine tour with you and Alvaro. We really enjoyed meeting you and spending two weeks touring with you around South Africa. The itinerary that you put together with Alvaro was great and all the arrangements worked out to give us a wonderful tour. Your knowledge of the birds and patience spent helping us find and see all the birds really helped us to enjoy our experience and increase our knowledge. We spent much of our time in the Manyoni Reserve in the vehicle with you and it was always exciting finding the wildlife and hearing your analysis of the situation. We also truly appreciated your selection of wineries to visit, the wines we tasted, and the wines you selected to take with us to Zebra Hills Lodge. Your knowledge of the wine and wineries greatly added to our pleasure on the tour. We live in the Northern California wine region and the opportunity to compare South Africa’s wine with the product we know was very enlightening for us. Both the wineries we visited and the wines we tasted convinced us that we were in an excellent wine producing region of the world.
André in particular went out of his way to make sure our stay was as wonderful as it could be. Andre is also a great guide, with the ability to spot just about everything that moves, even if the movement is only breathing.
Greg de Klerk was an excellent guide who made sure I saw as many birds as possible and set a reasonable pace. He was easy to talk to and very informative, I was very impressed with his knowledge.
Our short custom tour with two day trips out of Cape Town was really excellent. Our guide Julian was knowledgeable and engaging and generally a great fit for our small family of three. We found almost all our main target species and Julian was always quick to set up the scope to ensure we all got great views of the more distant birds. As a family with a range of interests including not only birds, but also mammals and plants, we really appreciated that Julian found the right balance between trying hard to find some of the more difficult birds and allowing some extra time for studying plants, especially at Kirstenbosch. Thanks Julian, for a great couple of days! Thanks also to Daniel and Laverne for your help with planning and logistics!
We were very happy to have Heinz Ortmann as our guide. He operated the tour very skilfully in every way and with flexibility when needed to try to get all possible targets. We were also very positively surprised that he had such a great knowledge about mammals, butterflies, reptiles and amphibians beside the birds. Since we also are very interested in all these groups, this was a most welcome bonus. A great tour that we will remember for a long time. We would be very happy doing another private trip with Heinz as our guide.
South Africa - Bates 2024 - November 2024
South Africa - Cape Extension V 2024 - October 2024
South Africa - Ann 2024 - October 2024
South Africa - Eastern V 2024 - October 2024
South Africa - Cape Extension IV 2024 - October 2024
South Africa - Eastern IV 2024 - September 2024
South Africa - West 2024 - September 2024
South Africa - Allen (Cisticola Ref) 2024 - August 2024
South Africa (Cape & Kruger) - Kidwell - June 2024
South Africa - Kovich 2024 - June 2024
South Africa - Cape & Kruger I 2024 - June 2024
South Africa - Bletsch 2024 - March 2024
South Africa - Rallid Quest (Small Group) 2024 - February 2024
South Africa - Williamson Wild Dog ext (RWT) 2024 - February 2024
South Africa - Frederick 2024 - February 2024
South Africa - Cape Extension I 2024 - January 2024
South Africa - Eastern I 2024 - January 2024
South Africa - Kruger Extension I 2023 - November 2023