Becoming a Safari Field Guide

while Birding Southern Africa

Introduction

Making my way from the Johannesburg (Jo’burg, for short) airport to the Emerald Guest House felt a bit like being a participant in a season of Survivor. I was about to be immersed with 14 strangers for the next 55 days. We would have to navigate social dynamics, chores, study routines and even literally navigate the unfamiliar roads of the various game reserves. Our housing would be rustic accommodations out in the African bush, in some cases without any protection from the large mammals that would find us homo sapiens a very easy meal. We would have to work together for the good of the group. Every individual’s success in passing the course and becoming a safari guide would require support from not only the instructors but also the other students.

Comparisons with Survivor end here. There is no competition and people do not get voted out every week. Thank goodness for that. They would have probably voted the old guy out the first week!

Yes, I was the old guy, by ten years. I was quite happy that there was one person not young enough to be my child or grandchild. Frank, a teacher from Switzerland on sabbatical, would be my tent mate, going forward.

To learn more about Ecotraining and how to become a Registered Field Guide in Southern Africa click on this paragraph.

Mashatu - Making Friends

The fifteen of us piled into two vans and headed north to Botswana. It would be a long ride to Mashatu Game Reserve to start our Ecotraining Safari Guide Course. I sat next to an 18-year-old from the Netherlands, Laurens, who was taking a gap year after high school. We chatted and learned a bit about each other. What did not come out in this ride is just how crazy and humorous this kid would be after he connected with the other teenage boys in the group.

Mashatu Game Reserve is what you think of when you think of African savannah. It is massive and unfenced. It has many koppies with amazing views over the plains below where nature plays out before your eyes.

Aside from Frank and I, the others comprised a mix of Europeans from England, Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. There were also two Kenyan boys, one a recent arrival from Scotland and the other from a multi-generation farming family. Last but certainly not least was the young Zulu lady from Durban, South Africa, Lwazi.

Together we would laugh, learn, cry (some more than others, you know who you are), sing, drink occasionally, and live our best life for the time we were together.

Mashatu - Driving Around

At Mashatu, we would split into two groups for the daily game drives. Every morning and every evening we would head out looking for things to learn. During midday, we would have lectures or tests or study time. The learning curve was very steep at this first location and me, and most others dedicated nearly every spare moment to study. During the drives, I was of course interested in learning the tracks, trees, animals, etc that we encountered, but I was particularly interested in…you guessed it…the birds. To this end, I was so happy to find a partner who also had a passion for identifying birds. Sandy is the 18-yr old whose parents moved from Scotland to Kenya a few years ago. We worked together to identify more that 120 birds in Botswana of which 87 were life birds for me. With Sandy on board, I didn’t have to always be the person to call for a bird stop. The others can become not happy with frequent stops to look at birds, especially, LBJs or Little Brown Jobs. Think Namaqua Sandgrouse, Debby! Yes, there was occasional push-back from the masses.

Now a serious birder sees an LBJ as an identification challenge. It counts the same on their list as a more impressive looking bird, Bateleur, for example.

The psychology of a non-birder’s interest, or lack of, in an individual bird is quite easy to explain. Non-birders take an interest in birds on a sliding scale of color and size. A large bird with rather plain color, like a Harpy Eagle, is always interesting. Put that same color scheme on a sparrow-sized bird and it will not get a second look. Any bird with lots of color, like a male hummingbird or a male sunbird is very interesting and their plain female counterparts, not so much. A large bird with lots of color is the ultimate sighting. The Scarlet Macaw is a great example of a bird that everyone would like to see in the wild.

While driving around Mashatu, we would occasionally pass another game vehicle from a luxury safari lodge. I would be in the vehicle with five or six others young enough to be my kids. I often wondered if they were looking at us and thinking, “Wow, that guy has a lot of kids. This must be really expensive for him.”

Mashatu - Piano Man

In Mashatu, we became friends and found our theme song. As we were celebrating our last night in Mashatu, Emma, from Germany, pulled out her harmonica and declared her talent for at least one song, Piano Man, by Billy Joel. We sang that song while Emma played the harmonica part to near perfection. Playing and singing Piano Man at our campfires would be a recurring theme during the next 7 weeks. I know that every time I hear Piano Man for the rest of my life, I will think about Africa, Emma and all my other classmates.

Karongwe - Getting Comfortable

We said goodbye to our wonderful instructors, Jocasta, Kitsiso and Harold (no crying Lotte) and headed to Karongwe in South Africa near Kruger National Park. Karongwe was another open camp. Buffalo, hyenas and even a rhino family were in the camp at various times during the two weeks. By the time we left Karongwe, we had learned enough to give a decent guided experience and going forward the focus would be on packing on even more knowledge and skills. Hats off to our head instructor at Karongwe, Craig, who knows more about Africa, teaching and people than just about anyone. Also, to our instructor Wesley, whose good humor, campfire stories and games and deep knowledge added greatly to the experience.

Pridelands - Birding Amazement

The last location would be Pridelands, Ecotraining’s flagship location, and the location of their corporate headquarters. Pridelands is a part of Greater Kruger National Park, which means there are no fences between Kruger and Pridelands. We also had access to a couple of other reserves adjacent to Pridelands. Due primarily to the elephant and buffalo populations and the camp’s proximity to a large waterhole, this camp was surrounded by an electric fence. Don’t tell the elephants, but the fence was never charged, as far as I know. You see, elephants and buffalo are very water dependent and must literally stampede to the waterhole at least once a day. I am talking hundreds of large animals a day at this water hole. Our camp would quickly be destroyed if not fenced.

The wildlife viewing and the birding was top notch at Pridelands. Here we saw our first Wild Dogs and finished off the Big 5 with multiple Leopard sightings. We also saw and photographed multiple owl species in camp. In total, I added 53 new life birds at the Pridelands Reserve.

It was a bit ironic that at the flagship location was where we experienced our greatest hardships. What were they? Things like frequently plugged toilets, frequently no water in the mornings, least power available, no wifi, most hornbills and starlings robbing food off your plate when you turn your head, and most cramped and hot lecture tent. Some of these problems were simply due to too many other people in camp: media people, workers building new kitchen and new lecture hall, and students from the one-year course. I’m not complaining about it, just highlighting the irony of it. Hats off to instructor Chris, who took the bull by the horns and helped resolve the problems.

Pridelands - Good Humor

I must talk briefly about the most entertaining part of this course. It is those four boys. Seb, you are the perfect English gentleman, and I hope you found what you were looking for in Thailand. Laurens, I hope you had a great time with your dad in Botswana and did not get eaten by a coalition of browser lions. Sandy, I hope you break Kenya’s tigerfish record and get that passport you want. Kyle, I hope to see you owning a Luxury Safari Lodge one day, just please give me a discount if I show up at the door. These boys were the life of the party. Imagine making a simple question about “would you rather this or that?”, or “what would you do if….?”and have the nuances of how and why and what discussed for hours or even days in the most ridiculous and hilarious ways. Sadly, most of what I would like to say here is wildly inappropriate for this forum but in the context of our experience it made for great fun, and no one ever felt offended (as far as I know).

When you meet a group of people from different parts of the world, you frequently hear names that you have not heard before. In this course, I owe one person an apology because I am certain that I pronounced her name twenty different ways, none of which were correct. She never complained and just kept on smiling, like in these photos. Renske, sorry about that. I will do better the next time.

Wesley from Karongwe also followed us to Pridelands. He became known as Big W to the boys. They made a nice connection and became part of a good story that I can tell. There are other lodges that had access to Pridelands, not just Ecotraining. One of those lodges was a Horse Safari Lodge. Most horse safari lodge customers are female. The guides themselves were also mostly female, including the young, attractive, Daisy. Now Daisy was known to Wesley, and the boys wanted to get him and Daisy together. They kept the pressure on Wesley to make a move. This made for some fun when encountering the Horse Safari in the field. Lots of good banter and trying to figure out which girls from the safari were making eye contact with which boys.

Pridelands - Test Time

I must pat myself on the back for one thing. At one point near the end of the course, I asked Sanne, a Dutch girl in her early 30’s, how she did on a practice test on bird ID. The answer was “not very good”. I offered to help, since I was the resident bird “expert”. We spent a lot of hours going over bird calls and IDs as well as frog and mammal calls. In the final assessment for calls and IDs she made 100% and I missed one. Student outperforms teacher.

With regards to my family competition, I finished the course with 293 birds for South Africa. That eliminated everyone but Aleeza and Patty from the competition. Three more weeks to go in South Africa, what will happen?

With the course over and everyone now a Level 1 Field Guide we would say goodbye and part ways. Hopefully, I will see some of them again, perhaps in Panama, USA, Europe or Africa. Either way, this was an unforgettable experience.

Emma

June 19, 2025 at 10:39 pm

The best time!! Great blog post Joel! 🤩

Angelique Stephens

June 20, 2025 at 9:24 am

Awesome post!!! Sounds like you had the best time with amazing people. So happy you got to experience this exciting life journey!

Ricky

June 20, 2025 at 9:25 am

Waw,
Very nice blog, and the experience seems fenominal, is great to see how this can be done with willpower, nice to see that all was compmeted and that you learnt allot from this.
Great post, my former boss Mr. Joel,
From: Ricky Nelson