.jpg)
|
|
|
About Our Leaders
& Tours
|
|
All Inclusive Policy Our price includes:
Despite the increasing popularity of our tours, Bird Holidays remains a small and friendly organization, enabling us to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction. Our small team of expert leaders also handle the tour administration, from devising itineraries to booking flights and hotels. Importantly, we are available in our office to answer customer queries or describe the tours in detail. Specialists in small friendly groups We cater for enthusiasts of all abilities
|
|
|
Recces and Trip Planning At Bird Holidays, we pride ourselves on the way we plan tours. We do not use customers as guinea pigs. Usually we plan a new tour about one year before running it. This means that we visit the destination and do the whole tour. This means checking sites, local guides, hotels and restaurants, as well as taking the time to make sure the birding is the best the area has to offer. We often discover new sites never visited by birders before. These frequently become part of our itineraries and those of other companies that follow us. For example in 2000 we visited Estonia and Italy to choose an itinerary at a time when there were no British bird tour companies visiting. We undertook our first tours there in 2001, and in subsequent years have come across representatives from other companies doing a quick dash around, clearly intending to add these destinations to their brochures. The information they provided, particularly about bird species likely to be seen was incomplete, based on a lack of experience. Before you book a tour, you are welcome to ask us about the likelihood of seeing some key species. We will give an honest answer based on previous expedience. Many sites that we have discovered have later featured in some 'where to watch birds' guide books and reports. We pride ourselves on doing thorough research and planning, and consider it a complement when others follow. Because our leaders have experience and good local knowledge, we often know of alternative sites to visit should weather and conditions alter. We are also keen to try new sites occasionally based on up-to-date information received from local contacts, and the flexibility of our participants allow us to maximise our time on tour, often with excellent results. In many cases, our leaders are equipped with more knowledge of a site than birdwatchers based in that country, at other times we will use local help. We try to choose the best local guides available, and they usually become very good friends. You can be assured that we never take a group to a destination that a Bird Holidays leader has not visited beforehand. On some occasions where we have not been for a season, a leader may travel out early just to ensure everything is perfect for your arrival. We also offer clubs and societies our slide show/lecture facility if you would like to get a taste of the wildlife in a certain country. During the reccees, our leaders take photographs for use on this web page and for use later in lectures. For example, our experience has led to our specialist knowledge being used for lectures at the British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water among others. Phil's lectures have included Galapagos, Spitsbergen, Midway and Namibia. His Alaska lecture filled the marquee to capacity so get there early! Our Namibia and Alaska trips are widely regarded as the best value tours to these regions so after seeing a lecture, why not chat to us about them on our stand?
Each year more people are realising that a Bird Holiday is something special. |
|
We
will be glad to arrange alternative flights, local departures and tour
extensions
|
|
OUR LEADERS Our most important asset are our Leaders. Unlike almost all other UK wildlife tour companies, they are full time professionals. They are not leading your tour during time off from other jobs. As a result, they are usually able to deal with those unpredictable events that can arise in far off lands. They are committed conservationists and use their knowledge to contribute to a variety of organisations throughout the world.
PAUL WILLOUGHBY Paul is one of Bird Holidays' principal tour leaders, having originally set up Flamingo Holidays in 1990. Fourteen years of tour leading have left him no less enthusiastic about birds or travel. Working full-time in the office when not away with groups, he is one of your first points of contact if you have any questions relating to the holidays. Over the last 14 years Paul has lead numerous birdwatching holidays around the world. He now has no less than 46 foreign destinations to which he can lead, and completed his one hundredth foreign birding trip in 2002. Very little escapes Paul in the field and his discovery of rare birds in the UK, led to many people enjoying their first views of Desert and Blackpoll Warblers at Flamborough, in East Yorkshire. His friendly and relaxed manner ensures that all members of the group will have an enjoyable and rewarding holiday. While his tour leading expedience. ensures that any problems can be dealt with quickly and efficiently.
ANDREW WOODALL Andrew has a BSc Honours degree in Ecology and has taught Biology, Ecology and Ornithology at field centres and evening classes. He went on to teach in schools, but left to become a full-time wildlife artist. After a number of years of guiding in his spare time Andrew took the quantum leap into full-time bird tour leading in 1999. A renown fungi expert in the UK, Andy ensures that other items of natural history value are not missed during his time in the field. Along with Paul, he will be your first point of contact at our office. Andrew's command of Spanish makes him an ideal tour leader for Spain as well as Central and South America. His relaxed, but enthusiastic manner make him the ideal tour leader.
PHIL PALMER
Phil joined our team in 2000 as principal tour leader, and works full-time in our office. He is well known for his photographs and articles that have appeared in many books and birding magazines as well as being the author of First for Britain & Ireland 1600 - 1999, launched at the 2000 Rutland Bird Fair, where it was the best seller. (The photos on this website and our brochures are his handiwork.) He regularly gives lecture tours based on his photographic trips. His informative and humorous talks accompanied by his high quality slides are very popular, as the queues outside the British Birdwatching Fair lecture marquee each year testify. If you wish to discuss photographic opportunities on our tours, he is your man. He enjoys the quiet, remote, wild parts of the world and on recent expeditions, his groups rediscovered two bird species in Peru not seen for over 20 years and photographed a new species to science. Invited on an expedition to a region of Siberia accompanied by Chukotka natives, he was joined by a bear while taking a bath and found a Western Meadowlark, the first outside North America! Conservation work is important to our leaders and Phil is a council member for the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and chairman of their reserves committee. For the past 20 years he has been involved in a project, studying Nightjars, and is widely regarded as an authority on the species. He undertook a radio-tracking project for English Nature.
ROGER BARNES When working in India over 20 years ago, Roger visited Bharatpur and has been hooked on birds ever since. Subsequently he has been on conservation expeditions to South America and Africa, and his high point was rediscovering the Helmeted Woodpecker in Paraguay. He has published many papers on bird and mammal conservation, and his illustration work includes the Bradt guide to Ethiopia. His relaxed, yet assured demeanor will be one of his strongest points when away with our groups. He has the knack of finding parts of Europe to visit that the local birders have kept quiet for years. His network of local contacts have ensured that we have seen many of the rarities that have turned up. For example in 2003 he found a Pallid Harrier in Spain after being tipped off by locals as well as discovering a Wallcreeper in the heart of the steppes, well away from the usual mountain haunts! Roger joined our team in 1999 and now works full time for Bird Holidays. When not away leading trips, Roger will spend some of his time in the office, as well as continuing his own business designing jewellery.
|
|
If any of our tours interest you, please feel free to email us and check on availability. If you wish, we will hold space for you and send you our brochure, which includes a booking form that you will need to complete if you decide to go ahead. BIRD HOLIDAYS, 10 Ivegate, Yeadon, Leeds, England, LS19 7RE TEL
& FAX:
(0113) 3910510
E-mail info@birdholidays.co.uk...OR... phil@nightjar.connectfree.co.uk |
all photographs & text are copyright
