Trip 1: April 2011
In April 2011 we had a family holiday at the Kruger National Park and decided to visit the town of Kaapschehoop (Chapter 93 in Birding Gauteng) on the way to Nelspruit. We arrived at dawn was breaking and as we approached the town we met one of the things that the town is famous for: the wild horses. They are descendants of mining pit ponies from the second world war. What surprised us is that for wild horses they are incredibly tame - they actually came right up to our car and even put their head in our windows. We even saw them in the town itself a bit later in the morning:

The town is truly beautiful - both the scenery in the area and also the homesteads:

We spent about an hour in the town watching the Gurney's Sugarbirds in the bottle-brush trees as well as Amethyst Sunbird, Black-headed Oriole, Groundscraper Thrush, Cape Weaver, Speckled Pigeon, Cape Turtle-Dove and Common Fiscal. Our second sighting of a White-form Helmeted Guineafowl was nice.

A walk to the little dam in the village was fun but did not yield much more than two African Black Ducks and a Reed Cormorant.

My wife and I then decided to take the trail up to the lookout point overlooking the escarpment. It was a most enjoyable walk - with breathtaking scenery of the escarpment and the amazing rock formations on the way up:

The birding on the way up was not too shabby either: we saw Cape Rock-Thrush, Striped Pipit, Long-billed Pipit, Neddicky, Tawny-flanked Prinia, Greater Double Collared Sunbird, Familiar Chat, Dark-capped Bulbul and a huge surprise when I processed my pics was the realisation that what I put down as Swainson's Spurfowl was actually a Cape Rock-Thrush, Long-billed Pipit, Neddicky, Tawny-flanked Prinia, Greater Double Collared Sunbird, Familiar Chat, Dark-capped Bulbul and a huge surprise when I processed my pics was the realisation that what I put down as Swainson's Spurfowl was actually a Red-necked Spurfowl (I just wish I had read the book more closely as I would have been more interested in getting some pics - almost as an after thought I snapped a shot as it flew away from me - showing the red legs). An unexpected lifer for me!

While we were at the lookout tower we spotted a little raptor soaring past us and got to see it twice more. It was clearly a Sparrowhawk - rather brown on tow and not slate, and one of the pics shows some tantalising rufous colouring on the underbelly! Wildtuinman on the GBT forum has put up a pretty convincing case for it being Rufous-chested Sparrowhawk and not Black Sparrowhawk due to the eye colour, white throat, rufous belly, and pale edgings to the feathers! Woah! Lifer number 2 for our morning at Kaapschehoop!

I had phoned the day before to speak to one of the bird guides in the area and asked him about the Blue Swallows that nest in the area and he said that they had not returned this past season - so that was disappointing. This looks like a good spot to visit in October one year!

Trip 2: July 2012
In July 2012 we were invited to stay at a friend's home in Nelspruit and on the way there we spent the day birding at Kaapschehoop. We started out birding in the town (seeing Ibis Hadeda, Kite Black-winged, Sugarbird Gurney's, Fiscal Common, Guineafowl Helmeted, Pigeon Speckled), we then walked to the escarpment (where we saw Sunbird Southern Double-collared, Sunbird Greater Double-collared, Sunbird Amethyst, Dove Red-eyed, Starling Red-winged, Bush-Shrike Olive, Mousebird Speckled, Sunbird White-bellied, Prinia Drakensberg, Wailing Cisticola, Weaver Spectacled, Robin-Chat Cape, Chat Buff-streaked, Sunbird Malachite, Longclaw Cape, Thrush Cape Rock, Bunting Cape, Chat Familiar, Turaco Knysna, Martin Rock, Thrush Olive, Canary Cape, Cisticola Wing-snapping, Stonechat African, ) and finally did the Battery Creek Waterfall trail (where we saw Warbler Yellow-throated Woodland, Batis Cape, Apalis Bar-throated, Flycatcher Ashy, Buzzard Forest, Camaroptera Green-backed, Flycatcher Blue-mantled Crested, Robin White-starred, Eagle Long-crested and Firefinch African) before heading on to Nelspruit. In total we saw 40 bird species. Here is a selection of scenery and bird pics taken at each of the three spots:

In and Around The Town:

On the Escarpment Walk:

Along the Battery Creek Waterfall Trail:

Birding was certainly not easy given that it is winter and the forests were rather quiet but with a bit of patience and listening there was still enough to make the outing worthwhile.