Travel design partner, Mij Evans, reports on a recent wildlife watch in her own backyard in Nanyuki, Kenya, and speaks of a longing to experience a lesser-visited spectacle in Zambia‘s smallest park Kasanka, where each year tens of millions of straw-coloured migrating fruit bats gather from all over equatorial Africa to feast on the area’s Masuku fruits.
The noise wakes me with a start. There it is again, and then again – almost like intermittent hail, although the night sky is very clear and full of stars. There’s the occasional high-pitched sound at the edge of my hearing and suddenly it all makes sense.
The poison arrow trees (Acokanthera oppositifolia) in our garden are laden with fruit at the moment and a squadron of large fruit bats are busy gorging on the ripe berries, swooping in and out of the canopy, and dropping the odd berry on the corrugated iron roof of our house. The evidence of their nightly feast is clearly visible the next morning – our cars, the garden path, and the side of the house are all covered in purple splashes. Bat excrement is surprisingly difficult to scrub off walls, but despite the ick factor, I am delighted.
It has been some time since the bats (specifically, Peters’s epauletted fruit bat) visited our garden at night and it is wonderful to have them back. As I take the dogs for a short stroll around the house that evening, I can see them overhead, darting about in their feeding frenzy, their large wings flapping silently, and I briefly wonder whether I should be peering up at them from beneath an umbrella. Fortunately, I return unscathed.
The nocturnal spectacle in our garden is exciting, however very short. Less than two weeks and the bats have gone again. It makes me think of a place in Zambia that Squack and I would both love to visit, Kasanka. The annual migration of straw-coloured fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) to Kasanka National Park in Zambia is the world’s largest mammal migration. Up to 10 million bats from the forests of the Congo Basin fly hundreds of kilometres to Zambia each year. They can be found in Kasanka’s evergreen swamp forest from October to December, gorging on ripe fruits. The bats play a significant ecological role, dispersing seeds along their migratory route.
Bats do not fly in coordinated, graceful flocks like birds, but rather rise in a large cloud at dusk and scatter into the night sky to forage for food. Like any migration, there are predators taking advantage of the abundance of prey. Various eagles are known to hunt bats during the cool mornings as they come back to the forest to roost, and even crocodiles and other predators snaffle the occasional bat. I have seen an eagle in the Aberdares before, perched atop a dead tree, with a suni antelope (Nesotragus moschatus) in its talons. It’s extremely thrilling to watch a large bird of prey hunting and taking down their quarry. I certainly plan to see it for myself, just as soon as I can schedule a convenient time in October or November to go and visit Kasanka.
The best time to visit is mid to end of November as this is when the fruit bats gather in their largest numbers. Accessibility to the area is by charter flight, which can either be in and out of Lusaka or to/from Mfuwe when combined with South Luangwa National Park. For those after a multi-destination itinerary, Zambia pairs perfectly with neighbouring Malawi.
It’s great to note that it’s not just bats that you will see this time of the year. Kasanka has an amazing diversity of habitat, which supports the rare sitatunga antelope (also puku, roan and sable), various monkeys, warthog, jackal, baboon, many unique bird species, leopard, hippo, crocodile and elephant, to name but a few, so there is plenty to see in between the dusk and dawn observation of the bats!
If you’d like to learn more about arranging a not-so-typical safari experience in Zambia, please contact Mij or a member of our exploration team.