About

Bird Watching

South Africa offers a range of birding habitats, from grasslands, wetlands and forests, to savannahs, fynbos, the seashore and open oceans. These habitats offer a spectacular diversity of beautiful birds, from the diminutive, fynbos-restricted Orange-breasted Sunbird to the large, desert-adapted Ludwig’s Bustard. A remarkable 870 bird species are found in South Africa, representing approximately eight percent of the world’s bird species. Eighteen species are fully endemic and thirty-one are near-endemic to South Africa, i.e. they do not occur naturally anywhere else in the world.

Credit: BirdLife South Africa