Zimbabwe Birding Tour: African Pitta, Mana Pools, Miombo Woodlands and Eastern Highlands

Zimbabwe is an absolutely fabulous country – scenically wonderful, with very friendly people fluent in English and a long history in wilderness conservation. This has led to the establishment of a number of excellent and highly biodiverse reserves and national parks throughout the country. Zimbabwe has a good road network, and it also holds the distinction of being one of the few African countries in which you can see a great deal without the use of a 4×4 vehicle. With an improving political leadership and the introduction of US Dollars as tender throughout the country, Zimbabwe is once again becoming a very popular destination for birders and travelers alike.

This tour starts in the country’s capital city, Harare, before we soon transition to the famous Mana Pools National Park, a lush reserve at the bottom of the breathtaking Zambezi River Valley (here, the Middle/Lower Zambezi, one of Africa’s biggest rivers, is bounded by steep and immense escarpments on either side) and full of excellent birds. Some of our early highlights are likely to include the highly desired African Pitta (for which this tour is specifically timed), the localized Lilian’s Lovebird and a wide spectrum of mammals. Indeed, Mana Pools is a famous predator viewing area, with high concentrations of Lion, Leopard and the rare African Wild Dog, all serving as a precursor to the wonders that await.

African Wild Dog is a major target whilst at Mana Pools.

After a few days in magical Mana Pools, we make our way back south to Harare where we visit various miombo woodland birding areas around the city for the day – this is a unique south-central-African-restricted woodland that has a whole host of bird species restricted solely to this habitat and is of significant importance!

After a full day of Harare miombo birding, we transition to the spectacular Eastern Highlands for the next leg. The Eastern Highlands’ evergreen forests hold some highly localized endemics such as Chirinda Apalis and Roberts’s Warbler, as well as several birds that are more easily found here than in other countries, such as Swynnerton’s Robin. We also bird mountain grasslands for the Vulnerable (IUCN) Blue Swallow, this area being one of the last remaining strongholds for this scarce, rapidly declining species.

After four nights in Zimbabwe’s lush Eastern Highlands, we make our way back to Harare (birding our way back, of course) where the tour ends after a final night in the capital city. This exciting Zimbabwe birding tour gives you the opportunity to find the near-mythical African Pitta while also taking in some highly range-restricted specials, along with some truly spectacular megafauna highlights too.

This Zimbabwe birding tour incorporates four nights in an all-inclusive, private lodge in Mana Pools National Park, which is one of Africa’s great wildlife havens. Mana Pools has proven to be one of the most reliable locations for finding the most-wanted African Pitta, around which this tour is designed.

For those who would like to target several range-restricted and tricky-to-find Mozambique specials, you can join our Mozambique Birding Tour: Crab-plover and Lowland Forests which immediately follows this Zimbabwe bird watching tour. On this trip we spend time in the lowland forests of central Mozambique looking for White-chested Alethe, East Coast Akalat, Chestnut-fronted Helmetshrike and other desirable specials. We then move south to the coast where we search for Crab-plover, Saunders’s Tern and many other coastal birds.

The localized Boulder Chat is virtually endemic to Zimbabwe, and is a major birding target.