Adam Jones Safaris

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Adam Jones Safaris

Zimbabwe Professional Guide
(1)

04/12/2023

Inzila means to follow the trail - which is the essence of our activities. Whether it be on foot or by vehicle we will take you off the beaten track to some hidden gems.

10/08/2023

This World Lion Day, I pay tribute to a lion very close to my heart. Vusi, (pictured first) came from the Camp Hwange region of the park. He sired 2 sons, Phobos and Daemos (the moons of mars) to the one of the "Supermodels," and during my time in the area, I managed to watch them grow up right to the dispersal age of three. They were incredibly close with each other and would seldom be seen apart.

They got into a fight with a larger male and one of Phobos' ears flopped a bit to the side for a while. (as seen in picture) They eventually found themselves in a remote corner of the park and one of them mated with a female called Sphynx and sired a daughter. Sadly they have both passed on, but through them, Vusi's dynasty continues and it couldn't be more apt that on World Lion Day I get to meet his grand daughter - any suggestions for a name for the granddaughter (last image, the female on the right next to the zebra)

31/07/2023

A Pearl Spotted Owlet in some glorious light. Did you know that owls can turn their heads 270 degrees and to ensure they have an uninterrupted blood supply to the brain, they have blood vessels on either side of their neck (so when one side is pinched, the other side supplies blood.)

25/07/2023

Places like this make me very grateful for the "job" I have... Paired with an ice cold G&T - bliss...

21/07/2023

My absolute happy place - Detema Dam performs again... "the rock and the hard place"
With its low angles for photography and perfect afternoon light and elephants by the hundred its always going to be a special afternoon. However, recently we were absolutely spoiled. We were enjoying the elephants when we heard the contact call of a lion so we popped out to have a look. We were literally stuck between an elephant bull and a lion - I have heard of a rock and a hard place but this takes the cake. Hwange does it again!

20/07/2023

Meet Cindy. She is a cheetah that resides with her two cubs in the Main Camp area of Hwange National Park. I have been fortunate to see her a few times over the last few weeks - on The Hide's private concession, Kennedy 2 and Ngweshla. A couple weeks ago she killed an impala and then called her cubs over to join her in the spoils. (i'll post that video in the coming days)

09/11/2022

I so often get asked about my favourite experience in the bush, and like most Zimbabwean Professional Guides, it almost always involves a walking safari. Walking safaris are my passion and it is always hard to choose a favourite. Recently, choosing a favourite just got that little bit harder…

This walk was with some young guides and I wanted to walk to a spring I had been told about where there was an old village site. We set off early and started off with an exceptional sighting of a Great Spotted Cuckoo - an intra-African breeding migrant who lays its eggs in Starlings and Crows nests, deceiving the hosts into raising their chick. While these are not uncommon birds, this one just didn't seem to mind we were there, it even flew down from a branch and drank from the river, a mere 5 metres away.
After snapping some pics we continued on our journey.

As we meandered up the now dry river bed, calls of Carmine Bee eaters got louder and louder until we rounded a bend and came across the most spectacular of sights, hundreds of carmines flying around and in and out of their nests on a steep cliff face, chirping to their mates and chicks in the nest burrows. We must have spent a good 15 minutes there before dragging ourselves away - very easily mesmerised by the carmine red, swooping and swishing metres above our heads…

The next planned stop was the spring. Using the GPS and a bit of bundu bashing, I finally managed to find the “elephant highway” that took me through the bush to the next river bed to the east. As we got to the river, a bird flew out of a giant Tamarind tree; not just any bird, a BAT HAWK - a crepuscular (active at dusk and dawn) hunter that, as the name suggests, eats almost exclusively bats. Bat Hawks are not common birds and are sought after by many twitchers (a birdwatcher whose main aim is to collect sightings of rare birds).

Carrying on downstream toward the spring, I noticed a small movement up in a tree about 10 metres away; a leopard cup was staring at me! Trying to contain my excitement, I told the rest of the group quietly, where to look and to take pictures.

Now a leopard sighting is always a special thing, but a leopard sighting on foot is incredibly special and normally a very quick flash of a sighting, but when it's a cub it can be a very different scenario. I bunched everyone together in a tightly knit unit, and we watched it for what seemed like ages. It eventually got tired of us, hopped out of the tree and disappeared. Bewildered, we all looked at each other with huge grins on our faces. An experience of a lifetime.

Arriving on the high bank of the spring in the river, I had been told to look out for some artefacts from an old village site. Three ancient baobab trees watched over the old village and the spring, standing like sentinels. Oh, the things they must have “seen” in their time... We managed to find bits of broken pottery with intricate decorations on its edges, iron slags and what looked like a broken knife blade, possibly an axe head, as well as an intact spindle whorl. Fascinating to rummage around and ponder how our ancestors once lived. By looking at the spring and the game densities through the area - great hunting grounds - we can certainly see why they would have lived there.

Matusadona certainly is a park worth exploring on foot…

(Thanks Cheyne Cleland for some of the images)

11/10/2022

Another "tough" day closes on Safari. The Sanyati Gorge, Kariba sunset, paired with a G&T, it doesn't get better...

03/08/2022

Some dead trees just lend themselves to being the perfect rifle, hat and binocular stand. While on a walk recently, I stopped with my guests for a spot of tea.

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Inzila means to follow the trail - which is the essence of our activities. Whether it be on foot or by vehicle we will take you off the beaten track to some hidden gems.