Wildlife
Savanna Waterholes: 5 Live Cameras — South Africa, Kenya
Five cameras in South Africa and Kenya, all pointed at places animals come to drink. The three at Mpala watch one waterhole from three angles.
What you can see
Five cameras that watch nothing but water in the African savanna. Where the land is dry the places with water are few, so watching the water beats scanning the grassland if you want to see animals.
The Nkorho Bush Lodge waterhole (South Africa) sits in a reserve that shares 50km of unfenced boundary with Kruger National Park, so elephants, lions and other large animals cross freely. This camera switches to infrared after dark, which puts the hours when nocturnal animals move on screen too.
The Tau waterhole (South Africa) is in Madikwe, the country's fourth largest game reserve, close to the Botswana border. Elephant, giraffe, lion, zebra and cheetah all use the same water, and Nile crocodiles live in it.
The other three watch the same waterhole at the Mpala Research Centre in the highlands of central Kenya, from different directions. The waterhole is where elephant, hippo, giraffe, Grevy's zebra, gazelle, crocodile and leopard come to drink or to soak. The lookout pulls back a little; the acacias along the bank hold vervet monkeys, olive baboons and a great many birds, so the branches are worth as much attention as the ground. The beach looks down on the widest shore of the waterhole, used by hippo, hyena, lion, leopard, giraffe, kudu and elephant.
Because the Mpala three share one waterhole, opening them together lets you follow one animal from frame to frame.
Cameras you can watch now: 5
All 5 are live video. Tap one to open it in the camera list.
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Live video
Nkorho waterhole
Sabi Sand Game Reserve · Wildlife · Nature
A waterhole in a reserve that shares fifty kilometres of unfenced boundary with Kruger National Park, so large animals including elephants and lions move freely across it. The camera switches to infrared, so the night, when the nocturnal animals are out, is shown as well.
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Live video
Tau waterhole, Madikwe
North West, Madikwe · Wildlife · Nature
A waterhole in Madikwe Game Reserve, the fourth largest in the country, close to the Botswana border. Elephants, giraffes, lions, zebras and cheetahs all use the same water. Nile crocodiles live in it.
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Live video
The Mpala waterhole
Laikipia · Wildlife · Nature
The waterhole at Mpala Research Centre in the highlands of central Kenya. Elephants, hippos, giraffes, Grevy's zebras, gazelles, crocodiles and leopards come to drink, or to get in.
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Live video
Mpala lookout
Laikipia · Wildlife · Nature
The same waterhole and river from further back. The acacias along the bank hold vervet monkeys, olive baboons and a great many birds, so the branches are worth watching as much as the ground.
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Live video
Mpala basking beach
Laikipia · Wildlife · Nature
Looking down on the widest beach of the waterhole. Hippos, hyenas, lions, leopards, giraffes, kudus and elephants all come. Most animals are about at local dawn and dusk.
When to watch
The Mpala provider says animals are most numerous at local dawn and dusk. None of the five has a season from its provider, so here the choice is one of hour, not month.
Kenya is 6 hours behind Japan, South Africa 7, and neither keeps summer time. Local 06:00 in Kenya is 12:00 in Japan and local 18:00 is 00:00 the next day; South Africa runs an hour later, 13:00 and 01:00. So early afternoon in Japan is their morning, and the small hours are their dusk.
Kenya sits near the equator, so sunrise and sunset barely move across the year. South Africa shifts by about an hour with the season.
A waterhole is a place where the empty hours outnumber the busy ones. Long stretches of water and birds are normal — and reopening at dawn or dusk often finds the scene changed.
If it isn't showing
All five also appear on the South Africa and Kenya pages. For the rivers of the same continent see African Rivers; every animal camera is gathered under Wildlife.
The waiting feels much the same as on Subjects That Keep You Waiting.
How to pick the hour is set out in Which cameras are in daylight now.
Where to find Savanna Waterholes
Agencies publishing the cameras on this page
- explore.org (Deep links and embeds OK, no image reuse) — Official site
The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.