Accompanied by my friend Mike Bird, I went on a birding trip to Arunachal Pradesh in N.E. India in March 2024. The trip was organised and led by our Indian friend Abid Rehman, who runs “Eastern Geography Tours” based in Assam. We were also accompanied by Abid’s knowledgeable assistant Arun and Jitoo who was our excellent driver.
This was a ‘Greenwings’ trip in search of butterflies in southern Greece in June 2022. There were 10 fellow participants and our leaders were Alice Hunter and Simon & Anne Spencer.
In May 2023 we went on a Naturetrek trip to Sabah in the Malaysian section of Borneo with a focus on mammals. After a couple of nights at Sepilok to visit the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre we spent a week in Deramakot Forest Reserve and then finished with a few days on the Kinabatangan River.
My wife Julia and I went to The Gambia with our friends Mike Bird and Colleen Welfare at the beginning of February 2023. It was a ‘tailor made’ trip organised by Naturetrek and we had an excellent local birding guide called Dembo Sonko.
We went to Panama in May 2022 on a group trip organised by Naturetrek, with the focus on mammals. We stayed for a week at the Canopy Tower, which is a converted radar tower originally built by the United States military during the Cuban missile crisis to help defend the Panama Canal. We completed the trip with a 4 night stay at Canopy Lodge in El Valle de Anton. The rest of the group left after 2 nights at Canopy Lodge when the official tour ended but we had booked an extension.
I went with friend Mike Bird on a mammal focused trip organised by Martin Royle of Royle Safaris in July 2022. The main aim was to see Western Lowland Gorillas and Mandrills
In June 2016 we visited Croatia and Slovenia with a group of friends from the Bedfordshire Natural History Society. The trip was organised by Ecotours Wildlife Holidays.
On our way to Papua New Guinea in search of Birds of Paradise we stopped off for a few days in Singapore. Whilst there we hired a local bird guide, Kim Seng, for a day of birding. He took us to Bukit Timah nature reserve, Bukit Barok nature park, and Sungei Buloh wetland reserve.
Between July 2009 and September 2016 we visited Estonia six times. Our first visit was organised by our friend Ingrid Williams whose parents were Estonian. The five subsequent trips were with Estonian Nature Tours, a company founded and run by Marika Mann.
In November 2010 we arranged a private, two week wildlife tour in Sri Lanka with the locally based company Birdwing Nature Holidays, which is run by Amila Salgado who accompanied us as our guide.