Wildlife & birdwatching tours

11 Items

We are currently planning the following tours and would be happy to forward a brochure on request. Please use the links below to view full tour descriptions.
As well as compiling impressive bird lists, our clients always enjoy carefully selected quality accommodation and a nice social atmosphere.

Discover beautiful smiling Bhutan – £8245

March 12, 2024 – April 4, 2024

Travelling from east to west, this comprehensive tour, accompanied by an experienced local guide provided by Off to Bhutan, takes us from an elevation of 492 feet on the border with Assam, to the spectacular Chele La pass at over 12700 feet! Along the way we visit all the main birding sites including the breathtaking Limithang Road, ranked number 11 in the Top 100 Birding Sites of the World! This premier route climbs through pristine forests from 2132 feet to the Thrumshing La pass at 12,309 feet, in less than 62 miles! Along this amazing journey we travel at a comfortable pace and can hope to see all the key species among around 300 different birds, including fourteen species of laughingthrush, five different parrotbills and four stunning pheasants, like the stupendous Satyr Tragopan and Himalayan Monal, plus Ibisbill, Ward’s Trogon, Yellow-rumped Honeyguide, Fire-tailed Myzornis, the highly sought Beautiful Nuthatch and many more avian gems. We can also hope to see ten to fifteen different mammals such as Himalayan Goral, Yellow-throated Marten, Himalayan Giant Squirrel and the near endemic Golden Langur, while cultural highlights will include a visit to a traditional farmhouse to sample the local hospitality, the magnificent seventeenth century riverside Punakha Dzong (Palace of Great Bliss) and the iconic Taktsang Dzong (Tiger’s Nest Monastery) which clings precariously to a rock face 900 feet above the valley below!

Satyr Tragopan

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Discover Taiwan ~ The ‘Beautiful Island’ – £5530

April 21, 2024 – May 8, 2024

When the Portuguese first arrived in Taiwan, they called it Formosa, meaning the beautiful island. The wonderful scenery is thanks to a spine of forested mountains, which cover almost half of the island, rising to over 13,000 feet! These mountains are carved by deep river valleys and the resulting topography provides a range of habitats which are home to the second highest bird density on earth! The 500 or more species recorded here include 30 endemics with exciting names like Taiwan Hwamei, Styan’s Bulbul, Taiwan Whistling Thrush, Taiwan and Black-necklaced Scimitar Babblers, White-whiskered, Rusty and Rufous-crowned Laughingthrushes, Collared Bush Robin, Steere’s Liocichla, White-eared Sibia and Taiwan Yuhina, plus the stunning Mikado and Swinhoe’s Pheasants and the Taiwan Blue Magpie, which is the national bird of this friendly safe country. Located on the Tropic of Cancer, the island enjoys a pleasant climate in April, ranging from warm to cool according to the altitude, and at this exciting time, the exotic resident birds are joined by thousands of birds from the Asian mainland which is just 62 miles away across the Formosa Strait on the East Asian flyway. So, with all this fantastic scenery and birdlife, along with good food, and an interesting culture, Taiwan has a lot to offer.

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Marvellous Mull – £1595

May 18, 2024 – May 24, 2024

Mull is indeed a fantastic island, and a paradise for wildlife and nature lovers, and it has been so popular in the past that this will be my eleventh trip there in the last fifteen years! The varied habitats provide wonderful wild scenery, including rugged high mountains, moorland, forests, dramatic cliffs and 300 miles of unspoilt coastline, and if it’s Eagles you want, this is definitely the place to be. In addition to healthy populations of Golden and White-tailed Eagles, Mull is home to a wide variety of other raptors including Hen Harrier, Short-eared Owl, Peregrine, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Merlin and Buzzards galore. On top of all this, we can also expect to see Red Deer, Common and Grey Seals and hopefully Otters.

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Los Picos de Europa & more – £1695

June 2, 2024 – June 9, 2024

This exciting trip to the wild landscapes of the Castilian plains, the upper Duero Valley and the stunning Picos de Europa will take you through some of the most spectacular scenery to be found anywhere in the Iberian peninsula, if not Europe, and by combining these different habitats at the peak of the breeding season, each with a wealth of wild flowers and butterflies as well as a wide diversity of birdlife, we can enjoy some of the very best opportunities for birding in Spain. So, prepare for a remarkable birding bonanza.

 

 

 

 

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Orkney ~ birds & history – £2495

June 14, 2024 – June 24, 2024

With spectacular sea cliffs, lonely moorland, wildflower meadows and marshes, the birdlife on Orkney is prolific and varied, with half a million seabirds alone! Only Saint Kilda has more populous seabird colonies! Meanwhile, Orkney’s breeding densities of birds like Red-throated Diver, Pintail, Hen Harrier, Curlew, wild Rock Dove and Short-eared Owl are unmatched in mainland Britain! No wonder the RSPB is the single largest landowner in this wonderful archipelago, with twelve reserves! On top of all this we also visit remote North Ronaldsay, the northernmost isle in the Orkney archipelago, and one of the best places in Britain for producing rare bird sightings, even rivalling legendary Fair Isle!

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A Hebridean adventure to Saint Kilda, the Shiant Isles & much more – from £3490

July 9, 2024 – July 19, 2024

Embarking from Oban, this fabulous cruise visits numerous fantastically scenic islands such as Mull, Rhum, Canna, Barra, North and South Uist, the Monach Isles, Skye and the ‘enchanted’ Shiant Isles. Our ultimate goal is Saint Kilda, an exceptionally remote archipelago of four small islands 45 miles west of the Outer Hebrides, and yet inhabited for some two thousand years until 1930! Weather permitting, we hope to anchor for two nights in Village Bay off Hirta which has Britain’s highest cliff, towering 1397 feet above the sea! Nearby Soay is home to the Soay Sheep, an ancient breed, similar to its ancestral wild Mouflon, while smaller Dun has a colony of over a quarter of a million Puffins! Slightly further away is rugged Boreray, home to 20% of the world’s Gannet population! Saint Kilda is also one of the very few places in the British Isles where the hard to see Leach’s Petrel actually breeds, as it is restricted to islands within 45 miles of the Atlantic continental shelf. This remarkable must-see location is now a National Nature Reserve and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As well as all the seabirds we can also hope to see a wealth of other wildlife such as Orca and Minke Whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, huge Basking Sharks (at up to 40 feet long, the world's second largest fish!), Red Deer, Otters and exciting birds like White-tailed and Golden Eagles, Hen Harrier, Corncrake and Twite.

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The Pantanal & Iguazú Falls – £7990

July 24, 2024 – August 7, 2024

The Pantanal is the world’s largest wetland, with an amazing diversity and abundance of wildlife, with over 700 species of birds, including high profile ones like the flightless Greater Rhea, the beautiful Hyacinth Macaw, the world’s largest parrot, the amazing Sunbittern and the impressive five foot tall Jabiru Stork! With so many spectacular birds, the Pantanal is ranked number 15 in the world’s top 100 birding sites! In this exciting UNESCO World Heritage Site, the open savanna setting offers a superb safari-style experience, with easy birding, and so we should see around 350 species, as well as Yacare Caiman, massive Anacondas, and many mammals including Giant River Otter, Giant Anteater, Black-and-gold Howler Monkey, Brocket Deer, Brazilian Tapir, Ocelot, Tayra, Crab-eating Fox, Crab-eating Racoon, Ring-tailed Coati and Capybara, the world’s largest rodent. There is even a very good chance of seeing the magnificent Jaguar, and we shall make a special effort to find at least one, and probably more, with the aid of our local guide, as they are more common (and bigger) here than anywhere else on earth! In fact, so many are seen so often here that many of them are individually known by the locals and have been given names!
We also visit the ‘Big Water’ that cascades over Iguazú Falls! The 1.7 mile wide, 269 foot high falls form the largest waterfall system on earth and a visit here should be on everyone’s bucket list! This UNESCO World Heritage Site, amidst a sub-tropical rainforest is home to over 400 species of birds and is therefore ranked number 69 in the World’s top 100 birding sites. This amazing trip has so much to offer that even non-birding partners will love it!

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Falsterbo ~ mass migration at Sweden’s ‘Lands End’- £1225

August 27, 2024 – August 31, 2024

Ranked number six in the top thirty birding sites in Europe, with over 350 species recorded, Falsterbo should be on everyone’s radar. It has been estimated that around 500 million birds leave Scandinavia every autumn, and most of them pass through Falsterbo, Sweden’s ‘Lands End’, at the southernmost tip of Sweden, before crossing the Öre Sund to Denmark and far beyond. This vast stream of migrants makes the Falsterbo peninsula one of the greatest bird migration watchpoints on Earth! Each autumn, literally thousands of passerines including larks, pipits, wagtails, hirundines, thrushes, warblers, flycatchers, finches and buntings pass through each day, providing an amazing spectacle, and amongst all this action we may find scarcer species such as Wryneck, Red-throated Pipit, Bluethroat, Red-backed Shrike, Icterine Warbler, Nutcracker or Lapland Bunting. Despite this incredible exodus, Falsterbo is particularly famous for raptor migration, as the numbers are staggering, with mixed flocks in the hundreds per day! Virtually every European raptor is regularly recorded here, including rarities such as Spotted and Lesser Spotted Eagles and Pallid Harrier! At the time of our visit Honey Buzzard numbers will be near a peak, with hundreds passing through on a daily basis, making a seasonal tally of around 5000! Meanwhile the shoreline offers plenty of wildfowl and waders, such as Brent and Barnacle Geese, Pintail, Eider, Velvet Scoter, Red-breasted Merganser, Grey and Golden Plovers, Little Stint, Spotted Redshank and Wood Sandpiper, and a little further afield we can also look out for Whooper Swan, White-tailed Eagle, Red Kite, Goshawk, White Stork, Common Crane, Caspian Tern, Eagle Owl, Black Woodpecker, Marsh Tit and northern white-headed Long-tailed Tit.

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Go wild in Borneo! – £6045

September 12, 2024 – September 28, 2024

Borneo is a truly remarkable island. It has the oldest rainforest on the planet, with gigantic trees towering more than 260 feet above the ground! This magical environment is one of the most biodiverse places on earth, where the profusion of plants, animals and birds has to be seen to be believed. There are over 700 species of orchids alone, plus insectivorous Pitcher Plants and enormous parasitic Rafflesia flowers which mimic the sight and smell of rotting flesh! The rich diversity of rare mammals includes Bornean Pygmy Elephants, Clouded Leopards, numerous primates such as the bizarre endemic Proboscis Monkey and of course the great Orang Utan, which we have good chances of seeing in its wild jungle stronghold! It’s surely worth the trip for this alone, but Borneo is also birding heaven with over 500 species, including spectacular birds like Great Argus Pheasant, Whiskered Treeswift, Red-bearded Bee-eater, Rhinoceros Hornbill, Gold-whiskered Barbet, Black-and-yellow Broadbill and Great Slaty Woodpecker, the largest in the world, plus over 40 endemics such as Crimson-headed Partridge, Kinabalu Serpent Eagle, Bornean Ground-cuckoo, Whitehead’s Trogon, Blue-headed Pitta, the exotic Bornean Bristlehead and White-fronted Falconet, which at just 6 inches long is the world’s smallest raptor!

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Mexico magnifico ~ Whales, birds & butterflies! – £4995

February 8, 2025 – February 24, 2025

This remarkable adventure offers a unique opportunity to combine intimate encounters with some of nature’s largest and smallest creatures; majestic Monarch Butterflies in their millions and magnificent Grey Whales at arm’s length!
We begin in the cool forested mountains of central Mexico at around 9000 feet, where the Monarchs congregate each winter in spectacular numbers. Estimates range from 60 million to one billion butterflies!
Meanwhile the Baja coast is the end point for the longest migration of any mammal, where 36 ton Grey Whales congregate after a 6000 mile journey from the Bering Sea to give birth to their calves. These ‘friendly whales’ voluntarily seek close encounters with people and may look you in the eye while you stroke them!
If I had to pick just one trip from the New Horizons schedule, this would be it, without a doubt! Even non-birding partners will love it!

Event Details

A Hebridean adventure to Saint Kilda, the Shiant Isles & much more – from £3590

July 9, 2025 – July 19, 2025

Embarking from Oban, this fabulous cruise visits numerous fantastically scenic islands such as Mull, Rhum, Canna, Barra, North and South Uist, the Monach Isles, Skye and the ‘enchanted’ Shiant Isles. Our ultimate goal is Saint Kilda, an exceptionally remote archipelago of four small islands 45 miles west of the Outer Hebrides, and yet inhabited for some two thousand years until 1930! Weather permitting, we hope to anchor for two nights in Village Bay off Hirta which has Britain’s highest cliff, towering 1397 feet above the sea! Nearby Soay is home to the Soay Sheep, an ancient breed, similar to its ancestral wild Mouflon, while smaller Dun has a colony of over a quarter of a million Puffins! Slightly further away is rugged Boreray, home to 20% of the world’s Gannet population! Saint Kilda is also one of the very few places in the British Isles where the hard to see Leach’s Petrel actually breeds, as it is restricted to islands within 45 miles of the Atlantic continental shelf. This remarkable must-see location is now a National Nature Reserve and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As well as all the seabirds we can also hope to see a wealth of other wildlife such as Orca and Minke Whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, huge Basking Sharks (at up to 40 feet long, the world's second largest fish!), Red Deer, Otters and exciting birds like White-tailed and Golden Eagles, Hen Harrier, Corncrake and Twite.

Event Details