Reviews of Kasanka (From 7 Acclaimed Safari Experts)

Expert

Ariadne van Zandbergen –

ZA

Visited: October

Ariadne is a renowned African wildlife photographer whose work is featured in many well-known guidebooks and magazines.

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Millions of bats in Kasanka National Park

Overall rating

4/5

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It was late October and it was raining hard when we made our way to Kasanka National Park. This was good news. We were worried we would have been too early. My aim was to witness the world’s biggest mammal migration and timing was of the utmost importance. After the first rains of the season, up to 12 million straw-colored bats descend on a small forest in Kasanka. They usually arrive late October and by late December they are gone. To witness this incredible spectacle, we climbed an aerial platform giving us a bird’s-eye view over the forest canopy. As the sky turned orange, the bats started chirping. Then we watched for 20 minutes as a solid stream of bats left their daytime roost. We had a similar experience the next morning for which we got up at 3am, waded through thick mud and climbed a different platform in the dark. Out of nowhere, they started streaming in at dawn. A crowned eagle swept in, catching a snack right in front of us. Once the bats had settled down for the day, we visited a hide overlooking a swampy area frequented by sitatunga. These shy creatures with splayed hooves live deep in wetland areas and they are notoriously hard to see. Not here – we saw about ten of them coming out in the open in the space of half an hour. Other wildlife regularly spotted includes crocodiles, hippos, pukus and baboons. This makes a visit to Kasanka a lovely bush experience, even outside bat season.

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Expert

Stephen Cunliffe –

ZA

Visited: November

Stephen is a travel writer and avid conservationist whose work appears in prestigious magazines such as Africa Geographic and Travel Africa.

2 people found this review helpful.

A Blizzard of Bats

Overall rating

4/5

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Bush Vibe:

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Kasanka is a tiny park in northern Zambia that few people have heard about and even fewer visit. It has some lush river scenery, reasonable general game and a few elephants, as well as excellent birding, but it’s real claim to fame is bats! I also rolled my eyes when I heard this for the first time, but having been to Kasanka during late October and November when around 8 million straw-coloured fruit bats frequent the park, I can honestly say that this is a wildlife spectacle to rival the Mara-Serengeti wildebeest migration. As their numbers swell, the bats pack themselves into a tiny patch of just 10ha of swamp forest, occupying every branch on every tree. And, each dawn and dusk for six weeks, the sky is obscured by millions of bats on the wing, heading off or returning from a night of feeding on the regions prolific fruiting trees. It is an experience that cannot easily be reduced into words, but if you’ve seen the Big Five and want a wildlife experience that will quite literally blow you away, then Kasanka during bat season is the answer.

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Expert

Emma Gregg –

UK

Visited: November

Emma is an award-winning travel writer for Rough Guides, National Geographic Traveller, Travel Africa magazine and The Independent.

2 people found this review helpful.

Bats galore and a laidback atmosphere

Overall rating

4/5

Wildlife:

Bush Vibe:

Scenery:

Birding:

If I could rate this park for uniqueness, I’d give it top marks. Kasanka is not a classic safari destination – you rarely see elephants, lions or other large, charismatic animals here. But every year, in November and December, one small patch of forest within the park hosts a fascinating natural phenomenon: the temporary residence of an enormous gathering of straw-colored fruit bats, numbering several million.

Watching clouds of bats leave the colony to feed at sunset is pretty impressive, but that’s nothing compared to the thrill of climbing into a treetop hide at dawn to see them return. To do this, you have to set off from your rudimentary accommodation while it’s still dark and trudge along muddy paths, but I think it’s well worth the trouble.

Visit Kasanka at other times of the year and there will be antelopes and birds to watch, but if you have any interest in small mammals you’ll find yourself wishing you’d come during the bat season.

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