By Chris Lotz. Published on 28 October 2025.
This was a truly epic, 36-day birdwatching and wildlife photography tour of incredible Zambia, Africa’s best-kept birding secret. Please e-mail [email protected] if you want us to send you a detailed trip report which also includes full bird, mammal and reptile lists. The purpose of this current article is to showcase a small handful of the many spectacular photos and videos that the tour participant, Tim Williams, took.
We saw some of Africa’s top birds on this birding tour of Zambia:
Any birding trip with two different fishing owl species, is already an amazing trip. Below are photos of the Vermiculated Fishing Owl (the top photo) and Pel’s Fishing Owls (underneath) that Tim photographed during this Zambia birding adventure. The former species barely gets into the southern African region, just making it into the famed (among birders) Mwinilunga area of Zambia. Here, small rainforest patches allow birders to find more typically Congolese and Central/West African species, just inside of Zambia (which is a safe and easy country to get into). The latter species, Pel’s Fishing Owl, is actually quite a widespread African species, but nevertheless one of Africa’s most sought-after birds: who doesn’t dream of seeing a giant, ginger, fish-eating owl in the wilds of Africa?
And, take a look at one of Tim’s videos he got of Vermiculated Fishing Owl during this tour. Do turn the volume up and listen to the resonating hooting of this huge owl. This haunting and very loud sound kept us awake some nights of the trip as our safari tents were right next to the West Lunga River and the owls move up and down this.
Vermiculated Fishing Owl was one of the main targets of this Zambia birding and wildlife tour, and we did well with this species as you can see from the above. One of the other top targets, a real VIB (Very Important Bird) was Chestnut-headed Flufftail. Zambia is the best country for this localized bird, one of the most difficult of the nine flufftail species that lurk (very elusively; these are Africa’s most skulking birds) in Africa and Madagascar. After lots of effort, we finally saw a Chestnut-headed Flufftail at the beautiful Mutinondo Wilderness, a land of dambos, sprawling Miombo (Brachystegia) woodlands and awe-inspiring granite inselbergs. We also heard good numbers of these flufftails at the Kalungwishi Headwaters Dambo later in the trip. Unfortunately, Tim didn’t manage to get photos of this ultimate skulker.
This Zambia birding (and wildlife) photography trip was excellent for other owls (apart from the two fishing owls) as well, and we saw a total of eight species, including the extremely cute, beautifully patterned African Barred Owlet pictured below:
Barbets were also a real feature of this unusually comprehensive birding tour of Zambia. Chaplin’s Barbet was one of our most important targets as this species is endemic to Zambia. We saw it well at the start of the trip when five individuals flew into a large fig tree; one of them is pictured below:
Another localized barbet species that we saw on this trip, was the Anchieta’s Barbet shown below; they’re thin on the ground so always great to catch up with:
We also had some great views of the similar-looking Whyte’s Barbet, another species restricted to southern African Miombo woodlands:
The very different-looking, nicely spotted, Miombo Pied Barbet is (as its name suggests) also a denizen of this same habitat, and Zambia is the easiest country to find it in (although it is often unobtrusive and sometimes missed on birdwatching tours). Tim got some great photos such as the following one:
Continuing with the barbet theme, Black-backed Barbet is very easy to see in Zambia and we found many of them during our 36-day tour of the country:
Compared to the above barbet species, Black-collared Barbet is relatively widespread and common throughout southern Africa. Since it is such a beautiful bird, and since duetting pairs of this species make one of the most characteristic sounds of southern Africa, I’ve included one of Tim’s superb photos of this species here:
Let’s not forget one of the most charismatic bird species on planet earth, the giant, prehistoric-looking Shoebill. The vast Bangweulu wetlands in north-eastern Zambia are one of the best places to find this species, although most birders go to Uganda for this sought-after monster. After a real adventure, including two ferry crossings and a mokoro (dugout canoe) ride into the swamps (seeing a great many other bird species along the way), we were rewarded with this friendly-looking fellow:
This Zambia birding vacation was indeed a hugely successful trip for birds, and we found almost all of our avian targets. These included the species pictured above, as well as all the other Miombo woodland endemics we were hoping to see, further Congolese-type birds just making it into Zambia around famed (in birding circles) Mwinilunga, Zambia’s other true endemic, Black-cheeked Lovebird, and so many other spectacular birds. But, at this point in this photo-blog, I’d like to switch to showing photos of a few of the other animals we saw, besides the feathered ones. We recorded 52 mammal species during this Zambian birding/wildlife tour, many of them rare or seldom seen.
We could have called this a rare mammal tour:
The first mammal photo and video I want to showcase is of this Zorilla (also known as Striped Polecat or African Skunk) at Liuwa Plain National Park, an immensely picturesque park that is also home to Africa’s second largest wildebeest migration. Just a reminder that all photos and videos in this article are by the tour participant, Tim Williams.
In Zambia’s largest park, the truly vast Kafue National Park, we were driving from north to south when a pack of rare African Wild Dogs with pups suddenly appeared from nowhere and ran across the road behind us, jumping around as well. They were very active, and at times sat or lay down, and gave us lots of brilliant views over the course of about an hour. It was an exhilarating experience to be surrounded by these colorful, painted, unfortunately now rare, dogs. There were no other people around, so we had these rare mammals all to ourselves; what an immense privilege. Zambia is surprisingly under-visited, yet it is one of Africa’s most spectacular wildlife havens.
In the Leopard capital of Africa, South Luangwa National Park, we indeed saw four or five different leopards during our three-night stay, including the one pictured below. And in Liuwu Plain National Park we saw a Cheetah. Lions were around several of the parks, but the photo Tim got below was from Kafue.
Zambia’s Kasanka National Park, also home to more than 10 million fruit bats during the world’s largest mammal migration event each November, must be the best place to see Sitatunga (as pictured below). In this park, these usually elusive animals routinely come right in the open, whereas in other parts of Africa such as in the Okavango, they hide in the vast Papyrus and Phragmites swamps and are certainly rarely seen mammals.
We also saw so many other great mammals on this tour and heard an undescribed galago (bush baby) species that sounds like an alien. Additionally, we saw some spectacular reptiles, the most exciting being Zambia’s second Jameson’s Mamba at our rainforest camp in the legendary Mwinilunga area. It is superb that Tim got a great photo of this snake:
We ended this fabulous wildlife tour at Victoria Falls, as shown below.
Since this was primarily a birdwatching holiday and I have digressed (it’s easy to get distracted with so many rare mammals), I’ll end this blog with Tim’s photos of two more of Zambia’s iconic birds, the endemic Black-cheeked Lovebird, and the localized south-central African endemic Bohm’s Bee-eater underneath:
Thanks for reading this blog. Again, do e-mail [email protected] if you want the comprehensive, detailed trip report which includes more of Tim’s photos, a detailed day by day trip diary, and the full bird, mammal and reptile lists.
We will be offering set departure Zambia birding tours in November each year which will include looking for African Pitta, many of the bird and mammal species mentioned above, and lots more. Or please do e-mail us at if you want a bespoke Zambia birding or wildlife tour.
Any, by the way, many people have asked me what such a long (36 day) birding and rare mammals tour would look like. A picture speaks a thousand words, so please see the tour map below:
