Kalahari’s small wonders: look beyond the big cats

By Roxanne Reid
There’s a special magic in the red sands of the Kalahari that you miss if you fixate exclusively on its superstars – lions, leopards, and cheetahs. Yes, these big cats are fascinating to watch, especially when they interact with each other or with prey. But if you’re screeching from one big cat sighting to another, you’ll miss some of the deeper satisfaction that comes from slowing down and tuning into a quieter world – the realm of small animals, tracks, plants, or a flash of butterfly wings. 

​I’m not saying don’t enjoy your lion, leopard and cheetah sightings. I love them too. What I’m suggesting is that you get more out of your visit by appreciating the smaller stuff as well. Don’t sigh, ‘We’ve seen nothing all day,’ when you mean you just haven’t seen any big cats. If you think I’m exaggerating, next time someone stops to ask if you’ve ‘seen anything’, try telling them about the lizards, whistling rats or butterflies you’ve enjoyed watching and notice how they look at you as if you’re daft.

​For me, the joy of appreciating smaller wonders lies in mindfulness. In a world obsessed with checklists of big game, the Kalahari teaches you to be present in the moment. Sit quietly at a waterhole with your binos and watch as a sociable weaver repairs its nest, a lilac-breasted roller swoops and pounces on a small lizard, a flock of Namaqua sandgrouse calls as it flies in to drink. You’ll feel a deeper connection when you watch behaviour, listen to sounds, smell the heat and the dust or the scent of rain. You’ll recognise that magnificence can exist in miniature.

Colourful plants blooming on a red sand dune

It helps to get out of a vehicle and onto your feet. A walk in the Kalahari with a guide is a perfect immersive experience that takes you closer to the earth and the joy of hearing alarm calls of birds and noticing small things like spiders and beetles, or patterns left in the sand by grasses wafting in the breeze.

Here are some of my favourite small Kalahari wonders, whether we’re visiting the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park that melts across the border between South Africa and Botswana, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana, or the Gondwana Kalahari Park in Namibia.

1. Meerkat 

Meerkat sentinel keeping watch over youngsters

Meerkats (suricates) might be the most entertaining little characters in the Kalahari. Spot them emerging from their burrow in the golden morning light to warm themselves before setting off to forage for beetles, spiders, millipedes, scorpions or small lizards. Watch a meerkat pup learn to handle a scorpion – carefully batting it and flipping it before devouring it. Although meerkats have a highly social family life, food is definitely not for sharing and food fights regularly break out. An adult sentinel will stand on its hind legs scanning the skies for eagles and the surrounding veld for snakes as the rest of them forage.

Watch pups play-fight, or adults struggle to stay awake in the sun. In the heat of the day, they’ll dig down to the cooler sand and stretch out on their tummies to cool down. Once you find a group of them, these busy little creatures provide endless entertainment.

2. Barking gecko

Barking gecko found by our guide on a walk in the Kalahari

Is there a more classic Kalahari sound than the clicking of the barking gecko? Their distinctive kek-kek-kek at dusk – especially in the warmer months – is a chorus that echoes across the dunes and embodies the spirit of the Kalahari.

You won’t see these small burrowing creatures easily during the day, when they stay deep in their burrows with the entrance carefully plugged to keep them safe from predators. At dusk, males poke only their heads out to deliver their loud clicking calls, accompanied by small head jerks. This allows them to dash back into the burrow if they feel threatened. The calls signal that the territory is occupied and help to attract the ladies.

Barking geckos are excellent burrowers with fringed toes that act like shovels for digging in loose sand. They eat termites, ants, beetles, and other small invertebrates.

3. Honey badger

The honey badger’s catchphrase could be: don’t mess with me!

The honey badger (ratel) is a small but fierce mammal weighing in at around 12kg. Despite its small size, it possesses razor-sharp curved claws, immensely strong jaws, and a fearless attitude. It will confront much larger predators like lions and leopards, and can survive venomous snakebites, such as from a puff adder, often recovering after a short time of unconsciousness. Its main strategy is relentless offence – it just never backs down.

Its extremely loose, thick skin is tough to penetrate and allows the badger to twist and bite attackers even when it’s grabbed. It frequently overpowers snakes and gobbles them for breakfast. It also eats dung beetle larvae, scorpions, spiders, tortoises, frogs, rodents, lizards, mongooses, and will raid beehives for honey and bee larvae. Using its keen sense of smell, it detects prey in burrows, then blows air into the hole to listen for movement before digging it out.

A good way to find them in the Kalahari is to look for two or more pale chanting goshawks sitting on a low tree – often a sign that a badger is rooting out yummies nearby.

4. Bat-eared fox

A bat-eared fox looks up briefly before returning to foraging

Bat-eared foxes are named for their oversized ears – up to 12cm long – which they use to detect insects underground, often rotating them independently while foraging with their noses to the ground. Harvester termites and dung beetles are favourites on the menu, but they also eat other insects, scorpions, spiders, small rodents, lizards, eggs, and fruits. They rarely drink water, getting the moisture they need from their prey.

They live in monogamous pairs or small family groups, often in overlapping territories. The males are very involved parents, helping to groom, defend, carry, and supervise the young. Batties are a particular joy to watch when they have young ones playing and resting together at the den. Look for them at night, dawn or dusk during the hot months, though they do tend to forage during the day in winter.

5. Cape Fox

Cape fox at the opening of its burrow in the late afternoon sun

This small, slender fox – the only true fox in South Africa – weighs at most 3kg and has a striking silvery-grey coat and bushy black-tipped tail. It’s mainly nocturnal, spending its days in burrows or dense cover and getting active around dusk. It communicates with soft whines, chirps and growls, but will bark or yap loudly when alarmed.

Cape foxes form monogamous pairs for life. They’re skilled diggers but prefer to take over and adapt burrows dug by springhares, aardvarks or porcupines. Females give birth to one to six kits in underground dens, and both parents care for the young.

They’re mostly solitary foragers, even when paired (unlike bat-eared foxes). Dinner might include small rodents, insects, beetles, and lizards. They’re thrifty too, caching excess food in shallow holes across their territory – known as scatter-hoarding.

6. Namaqua sandgrouse

The call of the Namaqua sandgrouse is pure Kalahari

If you sit quietly at a Kalahari waterhole in the early morning or late afternoon, you might hear the liquid call of Namaqua sandgrouse. Their far-carrying ki-ki-keeu or kelkiwyn (which gives it its Afrikaans name) is one of the most soothing and soulful sounds of the Kalahari.

At first, a few birds may appear, but soon the sky fills with more as they arrive in small groups. Highly social, they wheel overhead before swooping down to drink. The males wade in and soak their belly feathers, which act like a sponge. They can absorb and carry water – roughly 15% of their body weight – back to the nest for their chicks to drink from the soaked plumage. The birds take off again in a staggered chorus, first one small group then another, calling as they go.

Their diet is mostly small, dry seeds, especially protein-rich legumes, supplemented by leaves, flowers, small fruits, insects, and molluscs. They forage on the ground by flicking loose soil sideways with their bills.

7. Sociable weavers

Sociable weavers’ nest in a camelthorn tree

These industrious birds construct communal nests – massive haystack-like structures draped over camelthorn trees (or telephone poles). These apartment blocks can have 50 chambers housing up to 300 birds. They’re well insulated, the temperature inside never falling below 15 degrees Celsius in winter or rising above 30 degrees in summer.

The nests can last for decades, constantly added to and repaired. They also host other species, from pygmy falcons to owls. The pygmy falcon uses the weavers’ chambers for warmth in winter and, in exchange, protects them from lizards and insects. You’ll know a falcon is in residence when you see the ring of white droppings around the chamber entrance.

Stand or park near a nest and listen to the constant chatter, watch birds busily dart in and out. You might even see a Cape cobra slinking from chamber to chamber in search of chicks to feast on.

8. Colourful birds 

Lilac-breasted rollers perch on branches to look for prey

Despite a wealth of dun-coloured birds that hide in plain sight, like larks and cisticolas, Kalahari birds can also dazzle with their colours. Think, for instance, of the lilac-breasted roller, a burst of turquoise and lilac flashing across the sky in acrobatic displays. It sits in trees to practise its perch-and-pounce hunting for insects, lizards, rodents, scorpions or small birds.

The swallow-tailed bee-eater is another unusually bright bird with its green, blue and yellow plumage. You’ll see them in pairs or small parties, perching on a branch. They catch their food in mid-air – bees, butterflies, beetles and grasshoppers.

Don’t forget the crimson-breasted shrike with its splash of vivid red against the muted landscape. You’d think they’d be easy to spot, but they’re a secretive lot, concealing themselves in bushes and trees with remarkable success. For the best chance of spotting them, look for movement and listen for their call.

9. Owls

A Verreaux’s eagle-owl shows its pink eyelids

Look and listen for owls in the trees of camps, especially at night – a tiny African scops owl camouflaged against bark or a barn owl gliding silently over the grass, a Cape eagle-owl perched on top of a sociable weaver nest or the roof of one of the camp buildings.

Perhaps the easiest owl to find during the day is the tiny pearl-spotted owlet, given away by its piercing call. The southern white-faced owl with its pronounced ear tufts, orange eyes and black facial markings is one of my favourites of the small owls – and again, it helps to know the call so you can recognise it and go looking in that direction with a spotting torch at night.

The largest owl in the Kalahari is the Verreaux’s eagle-owl. Apart from its size – it can weigh up to 2kg – look for the diagnostic pink eyelids. It can prey on mammals as big as a hare or a genet. On your drives during the day, look carefully to find one roosting in the shade of a camelthorn tree, occasionally opening a pink-lidded eye to check you’re not a threat.

10. Scorpions

Scorpions usually hide in crevices during the day and emerge at night to hunt

Some people think it’s crazy to go looking for scorpions, but we’ve been on a few scorpion walks and find them intriguing. There are two families of scorpions in the Kalahari. The Scorpionidae, with large pincers and a small tail and sting, are mildly venomous; their sting is usually much like a bee sting. But watch out for the Buthidae with small pincers and a large, thick tail and sting. Their venom can be fatal to humans, especially kids, so do be careful. After dusk, wear closed shoes and use a torch if you’re walking about.

Scorpions are an important food source for birds and other animals. They bear live young, and you may be lucky enough to spot one with dozens of babies on its back. An ultraviolet torch is a great tool if you’re interested in scorpions, as they glow an ethereal blue under ultraviolet light. It can also be useful for highlighting if there’s a scorpion under the bed in your accommodation before you go to sleep.

11. Snakes 

The combat dance of two male puff adders

Many people hate or fear snakes, but they can be fascinating to watch. Some 20-30 snake species are found in the Kalahari. Probably the most noticeable is the Cape cobra, which displays a characteristic hood when threatened. Its neurotoxic venom can paralyse and kill, even humans. Puff adders form a big part of its diet – a very strange sight to see one large snake swallowing another.

The puff adder with its chevron patterns is the other big snake you’re most likely to see in the Kalahari, as well as its distinctive dragging tail mark crossing sand roads. It’s an ambush predator, waylaying prey like rodents, birds and other snakes. Its fiercest enemy is the Cape cobra; it will turn tail and run from the cobra if it can. Its venom is cytotoxic and can result in death if you don’t get help quickly.

Male puff adders neck-wrestle for dominance, writhing or ‘combat dancing’ around each other. Each male raises the front part of its body, wraps around the other and tries to push the opponent’s head down to the ground. The prize? Access to a female nearby, who leaves a pheromone trail that attracts multiple males.

12. Butterflies

African migrants and brown-veined white butterflies mud-puddling

Clouds of brown-veined white butterflies (also called pioneer caper whites) migrate in impressive numbers after good rains, starting from the arid Karoo and Kalahari and heading north-east towards Mozambique. If you visit the Kalahari between December and February, you have a good chance of seeing them.

Pearlescent green African migrants join them, their iridescent shimmer catching the light as they gather in puddles on damp sand – called mud-puddling – or nectar on flowers. While you can see them on the wing year-round, their massive swarms peak in late summer and autumn.

Another attractive butterfly you might see here is the African monarch with its bold black, white and orange patterns that advertise its toxicity to predators. 

13. Tracks in the sand

The telltale sign of a buckspoor spider’s nest

Kalahari sand can be read like a newspaper of the day’s events – if you know what to look for. Going for an early-morning walk with a guide can be a hugely enriching experience, allowing you to interpret the messages in the tracks left overnight by springhare, striped polecat, pygmy gerbil, yellow mongoose, bat-eared fox, steenbok or small spotted genet.

You might also see the signs left by trapdoor and buckspoor spider funnels, the trails of thick-tailed scorpions, dung beetles, cockchafers, and armoured crickets. You may even be lucky enough to see Kalahari dune art in the form of flower-like tracks made by burrowing grasshoppers and dancing lady spiders. In the hands of a skilled tracker or guide, these tracks and signs all tell compelling stories.

14. Flowers

The gorgeous brandboontjie, wild sesame, or thunderbolt flower

If you visit the Kalahari in the dry season, you’d be forgiven for thinking the landscape dull and monotonous. But visit after good rains, and hundreds of flower species will burst into colourful bloom.

Imagine carpets of bright yellow devil’s thorn (dubbeltjies) or tall yellow mouse whiskers, also known as pretty lady plants. Think dark purple thunderbolt flowers (brandboontjie) on tall stems, a blaze of pink cat’s tails, or the deep velvety red trumpet-like flowers of devil’s claw whose hooked seed pods are designed to hitchhike on passing animals to ensure dispersal. The driedoring shrub might shed its leaves during dry periods and appear dead, but rain transforms it into a profusion of pinkish-white flowers.

Many of these plants are also an important source of food for animals and medicine for humans – with the notable exception of the cat’s tail, which seems to be solely pretty rather than useful to man or beast.

15. Tsamma melons 

Tsamma melons are an important source of water in the Kalahari

​The tsamma melon is one of the most essential plants in the Kalahari. These striped, round fruits store precious water – traditionally a lifeline for San people and wildlife from antelope to rodents through the dry seasons. When buried in the sand, they store well and remain edible for more than a year.

In the San language, the word tsamma means ‘speckled water’. The watery, cucumber-like flesh consists of 90-95% moisture and is also a source of energy. You can crush the seeds into a fine powder and mix with water to make a nutritious porridge, although it doesn’t have much flavour. If you roast the seeds over the fire, they get a nutty taste.

Tsammas grow profusely after rain and flower from summer into autumn. Some years you might find a profusion of tsammas in the dunes; other years, not many at all. It depends on the amount of rain and when it falls. After abnormally high rainfall in 2000, more than 15 000 tsammas per hectare were counted in the duneveld of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

Tracks left by a gecko and grass blowing in the wind

Naturally, these aren’t the only small wonders worth observing, just a few of my favourites. Yours might include the tree mouse, whistling rat, ground agama, other geckos, mongooses, aardvark, ground squirrels, tortoises, skinks, spiders, other colourful plants, even clouds.

But whatever your favourites, such smaller encounters bring a sense of discovery and a deeper calm. Without the pressure of ticking off big cats, you’ll absorb the Kalahari’s subtle rhythms – the thrill of the tiny, the beauty in the overlooked, and an awareness of the rich interconnected web that makes this semi-arid area so alive.

Let me know in the comments which are your favourite small wonders of the Kalahari.

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