Birding

Addo is a birders’ paradise. With five of South Africa’s seven biomes represented within the Addo region (Albany thicket, fynbos, forest, nama-Karoo and Indian Ocean coastal belt), birders are able to travel the biodiverse area of the Addo Elephant National Park and surrounds with the opportunity to sight 417 species.  Visitors can enjoy birding within the park and around the Addo area on a canoe safari, a hike or guided birding walk, river cruise, or on a horseback safari.  

Around Addo’s main camp Karoo scrub robin and Cape robin-chat, bokmakierie, southern tchagra, fork-tailed drongo, Cape bunting are prominent with brown-hooded kingfisher, fiscal flycatcher, fork-tailed drongo, spectacled weaver, malachite and greater double-collared sunbird are easily found. 

African crowned eagles breed in the wooded kloofs of the Zuurberg Mountains and forest species, typical of the Eastern Cape, olive bush shrike, yellow-throated woodland warbler and Cape batis  are sighted. The Alexandria Forest at Woody Cape offers opportunities to view the Knysna turaco, black cuckoo (in summer), grey cuckoo-shrike, chorister robin-chat, dark-backed weaver and the spectacular narina trogon. The coastal grasslands south of the forest are home to species like Denham’s bustard (with impressive displaying during summer) and the black-winged plover. 

Also in summer, at the Sundays River Mouth, there are large tern roosts including swift, sandwich, common and the tiny damara tern, which breed in the nearby dunes. The Karoo vegetation around Darlington Lake is home to Karoo endemics such as pririt batis, rufous-eared warbler and the Karoo chat. Water birds, goliath herons, lesser flamingos, fresh-water terns and grey-headed gulls, can be found at Darlington.  

The coastal islands in the marine section of the national park have impressive breeding colonies of Cape gannet and African penguin and is one of the few South African breeding colonies of the roseate tern. 

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