The Kalahari, stretching from the Gariep River in South Africa to north of the equator, is the largest area of sand in the world.
‘It is commonly termed a desert,’ wrote Michael Knight and Peter Joyce in The Kalahari: Survival in a Thirstland Wilderness, ‘because its sandy, porous soils, its blistering summers, its far and often featureless landscapes, its low and unpredictable rainfall and its almost total lack of surface water. But only in a few places does it match the popular images conjured by the word, and is more properly defined as “wilderness”, “thirstland” and, rather more technically, “semi-arid biome”.’
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| |  A bat-eared fox | |
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Thirstland
The Kalahari is a desolate land of metallic cloudless skies, wave upon wave of windswept red sand dunes, sun-baked russet grasslands, dusty grey shimmering riverbeds and bleached mineral rich pans – a land where drought is the normal condition.
The 200mm or so of annual rainfall received by the Kalahari comes by way of a dozen unpredictable, erratic, patchy and fierce thunderstorms accompanied by winds that have been known to uproot ancient camelthorn trees and lightning that sometimes torches the bone-dry grass.
Within a half-hour the storm is gone. Soon the rain will evaporate, or be absorbed into the deep sands; leaving only its sweet perfume in the air. But, while the land might appear barren, it is not, for it is after these downpours that the frenetic multitude of life takes on a renewed vitality.
Drought Adapted Plantlife
‘The base upon which the Kalahari ecosystem is built,’ wrote Brendan Ryan in National Parks of South Africa, ‘and the lowest level of the food-pyramid leading up to the large carnivores at the top like the lion and the eagle, is the region’s drought adapted plantlife. This consists of perennial plants that provide food and shade for animals throughout the year and the annuals that complete their lifecycle from germination to death inside a year. Many of these annuals are programmed to respond to the region’s sparse rainfall so that they germinate, flower, produce seed and die within a month of a rainstorm, after which the seeds lie dormant in the soil until the next rains.’
The Prince of Trees
The life giving sands of the Kalahari are bound together and cooled by a sprinkling of grasses, scrub and, in and along the riverbeds, by well-spaced trees. Commonest, and arguably the most important, is the shepherd’s tree whose branches reach down to the ground to provide welcome shade. But it is not just for its parasol that life is attracted to it – its leaves, believed to be medicinal, are crammed with protein, its flowers rich in nectar and its fruit sweet.
But, the prince of trees is the ubiquitous camelthorn whose cover provides shade, its leaves and pods food, and its branches nesting for eagles, roosts for owls and scaffolding for the massive thatch communal nests of the sociable weaver. These nests – which can measure seven metres in length and weigh hundreds of kilograms – provide a tight-knit base for the nests of martial eagles and giant eagle owls and serve as apartments for pygmy falcons, pied barbets and the occasional Cape cobra.
The desert is birding heaven with some 200 migratory visitors annually swelling its 78 resident bird species. And along with the Kruger National Park, it is one of the last refuges of the martial and tawny eagles. There is also a rich variety of scoop, pearlspotted, whitefaced and eagle owls; and harriers, kestrels, hawks, kites, falcons and many migratory raptors. And above, soaring from thermal to thermal in search of a fresh kill, are five species of vultures.
Black Maned Predators
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| |  Inquisitive meerkats | |
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The animals most likely to cater for these scavengers are the famed lions of the Kalahari. An aura of myth surrounds these heavily black maned predators, with many visitors believing they are larger than other lions. But they are not a subspecies – only appearing larger in the open savannah.
Others that need to kill in the Kalahari in order to survive include the sleek cheetah, leopard, hyena caracal, yellow mongoose, bat-eared fox, reptiles, predatory insects, arachnids and even three species of frog that spend most of the year in suspended animation encased in the clay beneath the pans.
Evocative Images
But, the most evocative image of the desert is the regal gemsbok with its splendid scimitar-like horns. Also common here are pronking springbuck and meerkats often seen scoping the landscape from their burrows.
But visitors don’t only come to the desert for wildlife. There is adventure too with mountain biking, horse riding, dune boarding, white-water rafting, abseiling, canoeing and hiking.
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