Makgadikgadi Pans National Park is an excellent birding destination, and the birding can be phenomenal in the wet summer months. This is especially true if the fill up with water and flocks of lesser and greater flamingo, accompanied by pelican, come feeding in the shallows. The flamingo breed on the pans when the water is high enough to protect their nests from predators.
Birding Specials Treats for Avid Birders
- Abdim’s stork
- African fish eagle
- Southern black korhaan
- Black-cheeked waxbill
- Black-winged stilt
- Bronze-winged courser
- Burchell’s coucal
- Burchell’s courser
- Common ostrich
- Dusky lark
- Gabar goshawk
- Great white pelican
- Greater flamingo
- Hartlaub’s babbler
- Kori bustard
- Lesser flamingo
- Martial eagle
- Meyer’s parrot
- Pied avocet
- Pink-backed pelican
- Red-billed spurfowl
- Red-necked falcon
- Saddle-billed stork
- Secretary bird
- Temminck’s courser
- Violet-eared waxbill
- Wattled crane
- White-browed robin-chat
Best Time for Bird Watching
Makgadikgadi Pans is great for bird watching year-round, but the real highlight is the thousands of flamingo that flock here in the wet summer months. The timing depends on rain and algae levels, and varies greatly from one year to the next. In general, the best months are from November to April, when migrants are present and many birds are breeding and show their mating plumage.