Nightjar Training & Safaris

Nightjar Training & Safaris Est. in 2015, offering tailored onsite FGASA training, mentoring & assessments for the Guiding industry. FGASA endorsed with an in-house Assessor.

As an extension of this, we also offer unique Lowveld based safaris and privately guided experiences. Nightjar was established in 2015 when it was noticed that there was a severe lack of affordable training & advancement opportunities for the existing guide market. Particularly, the types of training which would allow staff to learn & gain qualifications on-the-job, without having to travel off-si

te for days, or even weeks, to conduct training and thereby hampering productivity levels for the employer. As we know, in the highly competitive world of tourism & hospitality, it is vital for game lodges to stay a step ahead of the competition to maintain their edge. One of the key aspects to achieving this is by retaining staff who have top-notch, relevant skills. For individuals, the same applies in order to ensure a long & prosperous career in the industry. Thus, Nightjar was created to provide this vital service to Game Lodges & Field Guides throughout Africa. Our main goal is to provide all inclusive & completely tailored, affordable on-site training packages with the highest standards in mind, without requiring down-time for the lodge and/or staff member. Nightjar's consultants are a unique blend of highly skilled, qualified and knowledgeable specialists in their respective fields, offering advice & training on everything from field guiding, trails guiding and r***e handling to front-of-house training & unique tailored private safaris & educational safaris throughout Africa. Nightjar is a FGASA Endorsed Specialist Training Provider with an in-house Assessor (Charles Delport). Visit www.nightjar.co.za or email [email protected] for more information.

Three sets of eyes, one shared focus, a recent birding assessment out in the field.With migratory birds returning and th...
10/09/2026

Three sets of eyes, one shared focus, a recent birding assessment out in the field.

With migratory birds returning and the bush waking up to a new season of calls and colour, now's the time to think about your birding endorsement.
The window to prepare and get assessed only gets better from here.

If it's been on your list, this is the season to start.

Ask a guide what month it is, and the good ones listen before they answer.The bush has its own calendar, and the summer ...
05/09/2026

Ask a guide what month it is, and the good ones listen before they answer.

The bush has its own calendar, and the summer migrants don't arrive all at once. They return in a sequence that repeats itself year after year.

Ian Whyte kept arrival records at Skukuza for over thirty years. Wahlberg's Eagle averaged 31 July. Yellow-billed Kites, 11 August. Then six quiet weeks before the cuckoos arrive in a rush, African Cuckoo leading on 28 September, Red-chested and Diederik through early October. The Woodland Kingfisher, the bird most people think of as the sound of a Lowveld summer, averaged 11 November. Very nearly last.

Then there are the ones that break the pattern. Klaas's Cuckoo has a population that overwinters here, so the first call of the season may not be an arrival at all. The Knob-billed Duck moves on rainfall rather than daylight. And the Southern Carmine Bee-eater on slide two isn't a spring bird in the Lowveld at all. It breeds on the Zambezi from August, then only disperses south to us around December.

This is where birding stops being a species list.

Nightjar's specialist birding guide, Charles Delport, reads seasonal movement as part of a bigger picture. What has arrived? What is calling? What hasn't shown up yet, and what does that absence tell you?

Spring has arrived, one bird at a time.

Full arrival table and the four species that complicate it: http://www.nightjar.co.za/the-bush-has-a-calendar-reading-the-return-of-the-lowvelds-summer-migrants

FGASA Advanced R***e Handling isn't about the shot. It's about everything that happens before it - the hundreds of reps...
04/09/2026

FGASA Advanced R***e Handling isn't about the shot. It's about everything that happens before it - the hundreds of reps that mean your hands know what to do before your mind has finished processing the threat.

This week's ARH assessments tested exactly that: not just accuracy, but composure under pressure, decision-making under stress, and the kind of muscle memory that only comes from deliberate, repeated practice.

A guide's r***e is a last resort. But when it's needed, there's no time to think - only to react correctly. That's what we assess for.

***ehandling

29/08/2026

A gentle giant on the move. 🐘
Anyone who knows me knows this is one of my favourite kinds of sightings - spending time with big elephant bulls. There's no rush, no attitude, just calm, deliberate movement and quiet confidence.

This particular bull is one I've crossed paths with countless times over the past few years. I don't name him - he's wild, not a character in a story - but there's a quiet familiarity in seeing him again and again , watching him move through this landscape on his own time, in his own way.

Their energy is genuinely revitalising. No posturing, nothing to prove. Just presence.
This is why I do what I do. Charles.

26/08/2026

AUTHENTICITY IS THE NEW LUXURY

In a world where AI can create the so-called perfect wildlife image in seconds, what makes a real safari truly special?

According to Charles Delport of Nightjar Training & Safaris, the answer is authenticity.

In his latest blog, “Authenticity Is the New Luxury: How Guides and Lodges Can Win in the Age of AI”, Charles explores how guides and lodges can respond to the growing expectations created by perfectly curated, and sometimes artificially generated, wildlife content.

His message is an important one for the guiding profession: AI can generate an image. It cannot generate the journey.

A professional guide brings something technology cannot replicate: local knowledge, ethical judgement, interpretation, calm leadership, storytelling and a genuine connection with the environment.

Charles encourages guides to shift the focus away from chasing the “perfect sighting” and instead create meaningful moments throughout the safari, from tracking and bird behaviour to interpreting spoor, plants, insects, weather and astronomy.

He also challenges lodges and operators to consider the expectations their marketing creates. Social media, he argues, is effectively the guest’s first safari briefing. Showing only spectacular sightings can create unrealistic expectations before a guest even arrives.

And authenticity does not mean rejecting AI.

For the professional guide, the message is powerful: Safari is not a checklist. It is a living system.

As Charles puts it: “Authenticity is not just a value, it is a strategy.”

Read Charles Delport’s full blog here:
https://www.nightjar.co.za/authenticity-is-the-new-luxury-how-guides-and-lodges-can-win-in-the-age-of-ai

About Charles Delport: Charles is Director of Nightjar Training and Safaris and has more than two decades of experience in the safari and guiding industry. His career has spanned prestigious 5-star and Relais & Châteaux lodges, professional guiding, FGASA training, assessments and facilitation.

While we were all eyes on a leopard, this African Scops Owl sat motionless in its nest just metres away - completely unn...
25/08/2026

While we were all eyes on a leopard, this African Scops Owl sat motionless in its nest just metres away - completely unnoticed until it wasn't.

Scops owls are masters of camouflage, relying on their bark-like plumage and that classic "freeze" posture to disappear in plain sight. Despite being one of the most common owls in the region, they're far more often heard than seen - that unmistakable single-note "prrrup" call is a familiar part of the bush at night.

A good reminder that safari isn't only about what you're looking at - it's about what you might be missing right beside it.

21/08/2026

🎧 Turn your sound on. Glass-like water. Birdsong drifting in from every direction. No agenda, nowhere to be.
This is the other side of safari - not the chase, not the sighting, just stillness. A moment to let your senses settle and simply be present.

Some of the best safari memories aren't always about the big five. They're the five minutes of quiet at the water's edge, coffee in hand, letting the bush wake up around you.

12/08/2026

Happy World Elephant Day. One of our favourite mammal species🐘 .

Today, 12th August, marks World Elephant Day, first launched in 2012 by filmmaker Patricia Sims and the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation of Thailand. The purpose was straightforward and urgent: to unite people, organisations, and governments around the conservation of both African and Asian elephants, and to confront the very real threats driving their decline. Poaching, habitat loss, human-elephant conflict, and the ivory trade remain the primary drivers of a population that has dropped from an estimated 12 million across Africa in the early 1900s to roughly 400,000 today.

Two days ago we marked World Lion Day, established in 2013 with the same intent: to shine a light on a species in serious trouble. African lion populations have declined by around 43% since 2001.

The fact that these two days sit back to back in August is not coincidence. August is historically a period of heightened vulnerability for many wildlife populations, and the proximity of these dates is a deliberate reminder that the challenges facing Africa's iconic species are interconnected. Lose the apex predators, and the ecosystem unravels. Lose the megaherbivores, and it unravels differently but just as surely.

Both species. Both essential. Both worth fighting for.

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