Speaking with Dean McGregor - Professional Guide

In today’s podcast, I talk to professional guide, Dean McGregor. Dean has a vast knowledge of the flora and fauna of his native Zimbabwe. I first met him in early 2020 and spent as much time as I could learning from him.

In this podcast, I talk to Dean about what got him interested in becoming a professional guide, how he goes about guiding clients and what you should expect as a client of Deans.

Dean is involved with several local groups, including the Southern Africa Field Conservation Project where he applies his knowledge to support their conservation efforts. 

Dean can also be hired directly, and you can contact him at: Deanmcgregorsafaris@gmail.com 

You can learn more about SAFCP here: Welcome to SAFCP - Southern Africa Field Conservation Project

It's time for another podcast...

Please take a look at the 2026 Wildlife Calendar. It's available now.

Transcript

>> Graham: 0:17

Okay, so, hello, everyone, and welcome to, this podcast. Now, I am here at the Southern African field conservation project known as Msango, which means into the wild in Shona. Probably got that wrong, but I'll get stumped in a minute. No, and I'm here with Dean McGregor, who I first met, six years ago, and I had a brilliant time when I met Dean. And, he's a professional tracker. he definitely has a huge amount of knowledge, and I learned a huge amount from him when I met him, and I'm, learning even more this time. So what we thought we would do in this project, first of all, just say, hello, Dean.

>> Dean McGregor: 1:01

Hello. Hello.

>> Graham: 1:03

Okay. Just not so soft. As you can tell, we get on. yes. What we would. Thought we would cover in this podcast, and we're planning to make this one of two, is to talk about how Dean basically finds animals. It's about tracking and finding animals on safari in the wild. But before we get into that, I thought it would be good for Dean to talk a little bit about his background, how he got into, being a professional guide and, and really what inspires you to keep going out and doing it. So over to you, Dean.

>> Dean McGregor: 1:38

Thank you. Thank you, Graham, and, it's a pleasure to be here, and chatting to you. Now, my introduction into the safari business is quite a story in that I blame beautiful Scandinavian women. So if you can bear with me. So, you know, in those early days when I was young and footloose and fancy free, I had heard that on a canoe safari down the mighty Zambezi, these Scandinavian girls would not only take their tops off, but they might even canoe naked. And I just couldn't imagine that. So, you can imagine I tried the hardest. How am I possibly going to see or even get close to such a beauty? So I joined up the Zambezi Canoe Company way back in the early days with shearwater. And, this was my whole focus for joining and entering the safari business. So, anyway, to cut a long story short, I didn't really find the Scandinavian beauties canoeing naked. I didn't. But then what I did discover was the whole world of safari business and, you know, the pain and the suffering and the beauty that always seems to go hand in hand. So, yes, I, the Scandinavian beauties are still out there. I'm still looking.

>> Graham: 3:18

But your wife might have something to say about that.

>> Dean McGregor: 3:23

You're right. I'm now a m. Married man, and, such thoughts should not even enter my. My mind. So, unfortunately, I do Blame them wholeheartedly. Blonde hair, blue eyes and suntan skin. And I just thought, this is it, this is what I want, you know, at the tender age of, 20. And I'm still looking. Yeah, okay.

>> Graham: 3:47

So meanwhile though, somewhere in there we were talking about getting into, being a professional guide with wildlife.

>> Dean McGregor: 3:56

Right then the grim reality took place. And yeah, a lot of my guests are not blonde hair, blue eyes and tall shapely legs. So yeah, the safari business in the early days, I thought it was just a rugged individual rushing around the bush, cut off shirt, a steely eyed kind of expression on your face. But of course it not. It's really it's so much a people's game and I had no idea of how much a people's game it is. And reading people and trying to manage expectations because we've all got these great ideas of what, what actually happens out there in the wilderness. You know, you see a documentary and fantastic footage of these wild creatures. But for us to actually achieve that is sometimes very difficult. So expectations, managing expectations, trying to.

>> Graham: 5:03

Build.

>> Dean McGregor: 5:03

Dreams and not, disappointing people is really what it's all about. Yeah, safaris.

>> Graham: 5:11

So what's the kind of. So if you're going out on safari with somebody, what's the process that goes on from first thing in the morning when everyone's getting together, they're having the breakfast or whatever and then you're jumping in the car and off you go. What's your process as you start that drive, that game drive?

>> Dean McGregor: 5:28

Well, that process actually started during the night. So while you're lying there in your tent or your chalet, you're listening and you desperately hoping for the cry of a, lion or a leopard. It's always good to keep your ears open for hyenas, what they're up to. And you got to sit up, you cannot get their positions while you're lying down on the bed. You must sit up and try and lock in, see just any noises, any clues as to what's going on. And you generally try and aim yourself in that direction in the morning. You know, if the lions were calling lions, man, you very special. You've got to get hold of lions. I mean everyone wants to see lions. And of course lions don't always want to see us. So I'd have to say it's good to get the big cats out the way as soon as possible and then you can start to focus on the smaller and also very interesting creatures. unless you've had very frequent sort of Africa goers who have managed to get the cats out of their system and have relaxed about the whole lion, leopard, cheetah and all the interactions with, you know, it really is all about the cats.

>> Graham: 6:51

Yeah.

>> Dean McGregor: 6:52

And. And big game. So, so that's really what you're thinking about straight off the bat.

>> Graham: 6:57

Ah, you.

>> Dean McGregor: 6:58

I love seasoned, guests who have been there, done that and are, more relaxed, you know, not really holding their breath for lion sighting. Yeah. Because that gives you. It takes a lot of pressure off and you can relax and enjoy and have a look at all the smaller things from squirrels to monkeys. All the way up. All the way up, yeah.

>> Graham: 7:28

So basically you've got, I guess, two categories of guests. You've got your first time people who are focused on lions and the, the things they've seen in documentaries and presumably probably think you just drive out and they're there waiting.

>> Dean McGregor: 7:42

That's right.

>> Graham: 7:43

And then you've got the people who've been there before and understand the realities of it, that you get lucky or you don't. But that's the reality of seeing wildlife anywhere. And so they're more open to presumably learning about the animals, getting that deep connection. Because it's one thing to just see them, but in one way they're just almost caricatures. Because a lion, you know, if you don't know much about it, doesn't mean very much. So what, what do you do in terms of education? How does that work for you when you're with guests? Yeah.

>> Dean McGregor: 8:15

You get a chance to sound them, sound them out and get a feel for how much they would like to immerse themselves in.

>> Graham: 8:25

Yeah, it's like here, Dean's sitting back a little bit and I'm not sure the mic's going to pick up too.

>> Dean McGregor: 8:31

Well, no, no, it'll pick up. I've got a very good voice. it projects. I project it because I've got to reach the people in the back seat of the vehicle. You'll have your guide wafting on in the front and you'll be like, what is he saying? Mumbling to himself again. But no, you will. You'll get a feel. Some people do not want to go deep into, the knowledge aspect, but would rather just stay with the visual and instant, instant gratification and fun. So, no, that's a tough one. Now, that's, hard to learn. Takes years. It does take years. And in the beginning, I can see I definitely made so many mistakes. M. So many mistakes. And I couldn't understand it at all. M. Why yeah, but that's, that's wisdom. That's wisdom.

>> Graham: 9:27

Now it's connecting with people. So going back to tracking. So explain what spore is for those, because that's a fair, a fairly important part of the tracking process.

>> Dean McGregor: 9:40

Yeah, it's true, it's true. You know, as you, you should watch your guide and what he gets up to and you know, as he's driving, he's looking left and right and on the ground and up and down. And I guess he's just picking up information. We like to refer to the spore, the tracks that are left on the ground, as a newspaper kind of. It reveals a whole lot of information about who's been there and when. So the aging, the aging of the tracks is the hardest skill to learn. The actual identification of the tracks is pretty easy. so, you know, from a water buck track to, a kudu to an impala to a buffalo, all these kind of hooves will be learned quite quickly. But of course, the aging of a track and whether it's worthwhile to invest in following that animal, that's the real tricky one. And that all boils down to moisture loss and either the spit or whilst it's feeding on the vegetation, the drying out of the vegetation, or perhaps the dung that is left behind. And, according to the times of year from winter to summer, these dungs will dry out faster or slower. And, often, often with glee, guides will be dipping their fingers into the dung and feeling temperatures. And, this is never to be done with carnivore, shit spore never dip in there. There's just loads of bacteria. But, with the herbivores, buffalo and elephant and rhino, Very good. That's the way to do it.

>> Graham: 11:36

But if they ask you to lick it to work out whether it's a male or a female, don't.

>> Dean McGregor: 11:42

Geez. I know when I was young and impressionable, I thought this is what had to be done. Because in Zimbabwe. That's right, when we get trained, we are apprenticed to another professional. And, of course you live and breathe everything that this guy teaches you. And yeah, you can be led down very slippery road. Yeah. Ah. And tricked and tricked multiple times.

>> Graham: 12:10

So what makes you, what are the things you're really looking for that would make you say, if you're on foot, decide, okay, this is, a track worth following. What are the key things that determine that for you rather than other tracks that may be a little bit older? And you immediately think, no, that's no good.

>> Dean McGregor: 12:28

Yeah, it's the, it's the crispness. So a fresh track has a, a great deal of definition to it and as it gets older it gets blurred it. The wind ages this track and of course other animals might walk over it. Doves, guinea fowl, other, other creatures. So it is, it's just a absolute newness, newness of it. Yeah. Which really gets you going. And then of course to fine tune it because when, when we in the guiding world sets fresh, it's definitely at least six hours old, right? Yeah. So something magical happens to the track after six hours in that the wind starts to pick up or your guinea fowl have walked over it or a porcupine, has walked over it or some sort of creature has left. Another important point for you to remember. so things like guinea fowl will only operate during the day. So there's a nice easy one. If a guinea fowl has walked over this track then nat. Guinea fowls woke up early in the morning and there's a time clue for you there. let's see what else? Civet Civet cats. Our civet cats are mostly nocturnal. So if the civet cat is on top of your, your say your lion track, then you know, lion was first. The civet walked on top of it. this civet had the whole night.

>> Graham: 14:05

Yeah.

>> Dean McGregor: 14:06

Okay. So these, these little things will fine tune and the longer you stay on the tracks the more information you get. Yes. So don't be discouraged and write it off. And yeah, the most important thing I think is just perseverance. If we are lucky enough to pick up tracks, you try and stay with them. You stay with them and we use the sun a lot. The sun. You'll see a good tracker will always try to get the sun to play onto the tracks and that creates a little bit of a shadow. Okay. So best tracking is an early morning or late afternoon when the sun is at the furthest extremes. Midday, it washes the track out and it flattens it and that's very tricky. So you get a lot of bounce back from the ground and you feel like you're, your retinas are just getting fried. Yeah, you really do. You get washed out. Yeah. So you've got only limited, limited opportunity, you know, while the sun is still at a nice angle and that's when you need to close in. You need to catch up to your, to your quarry.

>> Graham: 15:22

Yeah.

>> Dean McGregor: 15:23

Your quarry can have a six hour head start on you and who knows what they're going to do in those six hours? Sometimes they only walk 100 meters. They walk 100 meters and go to sleep under a tree. Other times they have patrolled 12 km. And every step takes you further and further away from your vehicle or your camp. If you're walking straight from camp. Yeah.

>> Graham: 15:48

When I was with Dean on the last occasion, I did a couple of trackings on foot with him. Once with elephants, once with Rhino. And, So perhaps looking at that, when you're on foot and you've been following a trap, what's going through your head then? When you're. When you know that you're getting close to something because you know the dung's fresher and this kind of thing.

>> Dean McGregor: 16:12

That's right, that's right. Such. Such an exciting moment as you close in on your quarry. yeah, perhaps you've tested the dung. A big elephant, bolus. You stuck your fingers in there and it's almost red hot. And you're like, wow. So now, more than anything, you're going to try and keep your ears open for the breaking of a branch or perhaps a vocalization from that, from that elephant. If it's rhino, you'll be listening for oxpeckers, you know, the birds that sit on these animals and glean them for parasites and also keep wounds clean. And, these birds will chatter constantly. So oxpeckers never sit on elephant. that is something that elephant is just not willing to even participate in. And I think they learn that the hard way, these birds, because with that trunk, the elephant swishes them off. So you'll see, you'll never see oxpeckers on elephant, but certainly on the rhino and buffalo and giraffe and these sort of creatures and our, antelope species. Yes. So, it's very exciting. Then you're closing in, then your senses really, really come to the fore. It's important not to be looking at your feet. You want to try and look as far ahead as possible. So your eyes do an amazing job because you focusing far ahead, then you're focusing close, far ahead, close, far ahead, close.

>> Graham: 17:47

And presumably you'll be. You're very conscious at that point of the wind direction.

>> Dean McGregor: 17:52

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for reminding me. Yeah. Wind. So important. And, so many of us have not been able to close up on our quarry because the wind betrayed us right at the crucial point.

>> Graham: 18:05

Yeah.

>> Dean McGregor: 18:06

And our scent was blown and. And wow, it must be like a slap in the face because I've watched some of these animals and the startled Expression upon them getting our wind. Yeah, it's really, it's really like almost a blow to the face. Yeah, yeah, they, they react so incredibly strongly.

>> Graham: 18:29

Yeah.

>> Dean McGregor: 18:30

I can only imagine what we smell like, you know, deodorant or sunblock and maybe washing powder from our ah, shirts, you know, and even just raw, raw human scent.

>> Graham: 18:49

Yeah, that's a good point because when I was with era, there are podcasts about ERA and what they do in Namibia. But we spent a few days tracking elephant and we were told no deodorants, no nothing. You're kind of au natural as far as how you smelt. And that was so that the elephants didn't have to deal with an unusual smell that they were trying to work out. So maybe that's a good tip. If you are going on safari, don't invest in the very, expensive cologne or whatever it might be because you might be clearing a radius of animals depending on which way the wind's blowing.

>> Dean McGregor: 19:26

You can only imagine what these animals get subjected to with the sense of a sense of smell. So good. Yeah. let's see with otherwise, with trekking. I, I loved reading the books of Jim Corbett back in his India days when he was tasked to deal with man eaters. And he would listen a lot to the birds. He had birds that would betray the presence of the tiger or the leopard that he was after. Same in Africa. We have birds that can assist us. and one of them is the gray go away bird. That is its actual name, gray go away bird. And this bird will sit above predators and scold the cats. Yeah, it can also scold us, you know, as, as we're sneaking. And I've had gray go away birds sitting above me also. And they make this peculiar little. Yeah, scolding.

>> Graham: 20:33

Warn everybody that you're about including.

>> Dean McGregor: 20:36

That's true. Yeah, that's true. The birds will scold us.

>> Graham: 20:41

So maybe, something that might be useful is for anybody who's listening, who's thinking about going on a safari. I always recommend going on a volunteer program and I've spoken about that before. But basically you, I believe you. First of all, you get to learn an awful lot more about the animals and the threats to them particularly because I think in a lot of the tourist stuff they kind of gloss over that a bit. you may well get involved in doing hands on work to support the conservation of those animals. You also often get involved in the local communities and who are living with the animals and often you get pretty much exclusive access to the animals, which is another thing, because a lot of game reserves, get like a circus. Somebody finds a lion and you might have 20 vehicles around them. It's just crazy. So that's my recommendation. You look at a volunteer project. But, Dean, for anybody who's thinking about going on a trip like this, what would you recommend they do by way of preparation?

>> Dean McGregor: 21:41

Well, let's see.

>> Graham: 21:44

I drop you in that one.

>> Dean McGregor: 21:45

No, no. Yeah, absolutely. Good drop. I'm not sure.

>> Graham: 21:54

Well, I was talking about research for people to have a.

>> Dean McGregor: 21:56

Yes, yes. Because a lot of these volunteer operations have a flag, a flagship animal or. An aim, a specific aim. You know, the rest is all wonderful. let's see.

>> Graham: 22:13

So, in fact, on the videos, so where I was at, Quantu in India, they actually had. There was a program, ah, I'm sure you can find it on YouTube. But it talked about the park and the history of the park, the animals, their conservation efforts. You could get quite a good background to what had happened before you went. And obviously that will depend on where you're going. But, yeah, I think looking at the. What you might expect to see, maybe also the times of day that these animals are active, because you can't expect to drive out and have a whole, you know, cabaret of amazing animals.

>> Dean McGregor: 22:47

That's right.

>> Graham: 22:47

That's right past you.

>> Dean McGregor: 22:48

Yeah. The early mornings, late afternoons, it's the best time. And then during the heat of the day, if you just sit quietly, even, you know, even in the camp, even in the surrounding areas, just sit quietly. There's so much going on. Birds and, of course, so many. So many lizard species habituate themselves to our camps. Yeah, yeah. So there can be a wealth of wildlife. Right. Right in camp. And, Yeah, it's mostly early mornings, late afternoons. Yeah.

>> Graham: 23:19

But for photographers is also the best time to get them because your light's good. just finally, just as a final thought for anybody who's thinking about getting into, you know, maybe being a professional guide, do you have any suggestions other than the Swedish ladies, which probably leave them out. but any other suggestions for them that may be the kind of thing they should look for in, where they're getting their training? Maybe there are, ah. The standards vary from country to country, the accreditations and things like that. So maybe you could say. Say a little bit about Zimbabwe and how it is here.

>> Dean McGregor: 23:53

Yes. So Zimbabwe, we will not be in really a position to help you. I'll tell you why. It's because you have to be a Zimbabwean. You have to be a local to get involved in, our safari business. So if I can, then South Africa lends itself to training of international, guests into the fine art of safaris. And they actually do this with a whole bunch of a, series of academies. And they, they are very good at that. So they've got the. The learning material, they've got the fantastic areas to do this. So I would thoroughly recommend the South African method of training.

>> Graham: 24:43

Right.

>> Dean McGregor: 24:43

M. And that's called the Field Guides association of Southern Africa. They call it fagasa. Yes. And, that is open to all. All members. All members. Whereas, you know, the Zimbabweans are very. Just Zimbabwean orientated.

>> Graham: 25:03

Yeah, yeah.

>> Dean McGregor: 25:04

So I have done. I've done it twice now in South Africa. And, they have a level one, which is a beautiful place to start.

>> Graham: 25:14

Very nice. So just before we sign off, is there anything else you'd like to say, Dean, to people who are listening? Any. Any final thoughts? No, that's okay.

>> Dean McGregor: 25:26

Thank you, Graham. Thank you.

>> Graham: 25:28

So, and as you might be able to tell from listening to this, we've had a ball on, so we're carrying on. This project is new. this is the first time it's run. we're on day four. And, we've had an absolute ball and I thoroughly recommend it to anybody. And I'm sure there are people out there who've met Dean before, because Dean was previously at another program at Victoria Falls. And, I've met, ah, many people. You remember Dean, so I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear his voice again. As I say, this is, the first of a couple of podcasts we're planning. So, we will, speak to you on the next one. There will be. Well, there will be when I put them in links to this program and if you have any other questions, about anything we've spoken about, please just drop me a line and, I will do my best to answer them. So thanks for listening. Thank you, Dean.

>> Dean McGregor: 26:17

Thank you.

>> Graham: 26:17

And I'll speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for now. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Now, I just want to say thank you for tuning in and joining me in the, Wildlife and Adventures Photography podcast. If you have enjoyed today's episode, please give me a. Like a subscribe, maybe tell your friends, and by all means leave a comment. And if there is a subject you would like me to cover in the future, please let me know and I'll be very happy to do my best. So thanks again for, joining me, and I look forward to seeing you again. Next podcast. Bye for now.