Neil Donaghy

Born in Cardiff, Neil is a full time partner in Oriole Birding having spent the past twelve years at the helm of Celtic Bird Tours. He has travelled independently worldwide and has worked and lived in France and Germany. It is this love of travel and birds that finally convinced him to take the long desired step of combining the two. Neil is married to Ceri and has three sons – Sam, Billy and Andrew. He runs the day to day aspects of the business, arranges all your flights, guides and accommodation and other elements of your holidays and will be the first contact you have with Oriole Birding via the office. Neil also leads many of our South Wales holidays; as well as joining forces withAshley in leading a select band of international and other UK basedholidays. His birding travels so far for have taken hi m to Texas,Finland and Norway [four visits], Russia [two visits], Hungary [two visits],Turkey, Florida, New York, Morocco [two visits], Poland [three visits], Austria, Ireland [two visits], Lesvos, Madeira, Speyside [four visits], Andalucia, Mallorca, China, Israel, Romania, Bavaria, Isles of Scilly, Cornwall [many visits], Devon, France [three visits], Norfolk [many visits] and Fair Isle and Shetland [two visits]. He has also written articles for Birdwatch magazine, Welsh Birding and The Birds of Bridgend, which was published in February 2001. He has been fortunate enough to find a good number of rare and uncommon species while birding his patch at Kenfig Pool, which he does on an almost daily basis when not away leading. Away form birding and travel he is a passionate Cardiff City supporter, enjoys family life, cooking a variety of cuisines, wine, landscape photography and reading.

 Ashley Saunders

Ashley is a full time partner at Oriole Birding. He has been watching birds since he could hold a pair of binoculars and has lived in North Norfolk all his life. At 28 he is one of the youngest tour leaders in the business but with seven years of running Oriole Adventures and vast experience in tour leading in the UK and abroad, there is no-one more skilled and enthusiastic to lead your birding holiday. Conservation and bird ringing are his other passions when not tour leading, and he also writes occasionally for the UK birding magazines, not to mention a TV appearance! Ashley has birded in France [two visits], Germany, Spain [six visits], Greece [two visits], Mallorca [three visits] , South Africa [two visits), Florida, Israel [three visits], Cyprus, The Gambia [four visits], Holland [three visits], Panama, Romania and Trinidad. Engaged to Lucy, Ashley lives in Fakenham in North Norfolk and enjoys cheering on Norwich City when not plotting the discovery of his next rarity

 Steve Cale

Steve Cale Originally from Wolverhampton, Steve is now based in Norfolk and leads our holidays to Turkey, Cyprus and Trinidad and Tobago. He is an extremely talented bird artist and gives demonstrations of his skills when guiding. His work has been exhibited worldwide and he was previously involved with the Norfolk Ornithological Association in the construction of a new wetland reserve near his Fakenham home. He has a tireless enthusiasm for birds and his outgoing and friendly manner have proved very popular on previous tours. Steve has one daughter.

 Paul Roberts

Hailing originally from the north west of England, Paul is now lives with his wife and children in South Wales, and after two decades there reckons that he almost qualifies as a native! Paul is very active on the local birding scene, serving on various committees and is involved in a number of biodiversity projects. He is a dedicated patch worker, never happier than when finding his own birds. He has had a curiosity with the natural world for as long as he can remember, but only caught the birding bug relatively late, following an earlier passion for plants. Paul also enjoys studying dragonflies and butterflies, but has yet to succumb to the allure of moths! Photography has been a long-standing interest, expressed recently through a growing interest in digiscoping. Paul works freelance as an ecological surveyor and is a contributor for ‘Bird Watching’ magazine. He leads our Extremadura and South Wales Summer Wildlife Tour and will also be present on occasions when the group size requires a second leader..

 David Gosney

Dave is known to many British birdwatchers as the face and voice on most of the products made by Bird Guides including the DVD Video Guide to British Birds, the DVD-ROM Guide to All the Birds of Europe and all the videos in the Birding in… series. Prior to cofounding Bird Guides he travelled widely throughout Europe, guiding tours and researching his ever-popular series of books ‘Finding Birds in…’ which have, for many years, been invaluable aids to travelling birders wanting to find the rarest species throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. With Bird Guides he has continued to travel on many filming trips in Asia and North America but mostly in the Western Palearctic, to generate many of the film clips you can see on the definitive BWPi (BWP on DVD-ROM). His interest in identifying birds by songs and calls led to him writing and recording the commentaries for the new iDentify guides, helping birdwatchers to learn bird songs via their MP3 players. Dave is helping to devise and lead our series of short tours targeting Western Palearctic specialities and we re delighted to welcome him on board.

 Antero Topp

Antero is a well- known figure on the European birding scene. He was the former editor of the highly respected Alula magazine and co-author of the Wildlife of Antarctica. He leads birding tours all over the world for his Finnish based company Kontiki. He has put much time and effort into birding Estonia and his knowledge makes him the ideal choice for leading our fifth tour there. Antero is blessed with an excellent sense of humour, which is always popular with our participants, has an amazing ear for bird calls and is also an acclaimed photographer.

 Gerard Gorman

 Originally from Merseyside, Gerard lives in Budapest and is recognised as a leading
expert on birds and birding in Eastern Europe. Indeed, he has led over 500 tours
around Eastern European destinations. He is author of several books including The
Birds of Hungary, Birding in Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European Wildlife.
He has also travelled globally in search of birds. His main interest lies in
woodpeckers: he is author of the handbook Woodpeckers of Europe, the monograph The Black Woodpecker and is currently working on a guide to all the world's picids. We
are delighted to retain his services for our Hungary, Bulgaria, Czech Republic,
Slovakia and Romania tours.

 

  Dr. Robert Flood

Bob is a Doctor of Science and a Doctor of Philosophy. He has been an active and enthusiastic birder since the age of twelve when his parents, recognizing a zeal for birdlife, bought his first pair of binoculars. Subsequently, Bob has pursued his avian passion from the tropics to Antarctica, across all continents and in very many countries. More recently, Bob has semi-retired and focused his energies on his two core ornithological interests, birds of the Isles of Scilly and seabirds across the world. Bob has become well known in the UK for pioneering pelagic trips off the Isles of Scilly and for the many extremely rare birds he has found in the Isles of Scilly. Bob’s name hit the international press in 2003 when he and friend Bryan Thomas became the first people to positively identify and locate a population of the thought to be extinct New Zealand Storm-petrel in New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf. Bob leads our Scilly pelagic tours and has taken on the mantle of our Madeira tour since 2007, but also watch out for exciting new tours that we have developed with Bob in future years including California in 2010 and New Zealand in 2011

 Svetlana Annenkova

Svetlana is originally from Russia but lived in Kazakhstan for over 25 years where she led scientific research in wildlife biology and was lecturer in environmental studies at the university in Almaty. She is founder of and principal tour leader for Kazakhstan Bird Tours having extensive knowledge of all aspects of Kazakhstan natural history and culture. She has travelled widely around the world including Russia and other former Soviet Union countries, India, Africa, North, South and Central America and the Middle East. Svetlana speaks fluent English and now lives in the UK.

 Nikolai Dilchev

Nikolay is rightly recognised as the foremost expert on Bulgarian birds, having led tours there since the mid 1980s. He runs his own company – Pandion D, which is dedicated to promoting Bulgaria as an environmentally friendly birding destination. He is highly qualified and speaks excellent English. Nikolay is married to who is one of the countries leading botanists. He led CBT’s previously very successful autumn tour and we are delighted to have his services for our new spring to Bulgaria

 Andy Jones

Andy began his career in conservation and leading wildlife holidays in the UK. He was a warden on Skomer Island, a ranger with the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, the RSPB's senior investigations officer and a Wildlife Trust director. He trained as a geologist and is an enthusiastic bird and whale-watcher. He has been leading wildlife holidays for more than twenty years – in between telling an array of jokes so poor they almost rival those of Steve Cale!! Andy runs his own very successful company – Iceland Naturalist and we are delighted to have him on board again for our tour.

 Nick Bray

Nick has been birding since he was very young when his dad first pointed out the different birds in his garden on the edge of Plymbridge woods in Devon. Since then he has birded all over the Western Palearctic before outgrowing his twitching instincts to explore further field. Nick has been guiding bird watching groups for the past ten years on a full-time basis all over the world. Having led tours in North America, Costa Rica, Ecuador & Galapagos, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Kenya, New Zealand and over a dozen tours to The Gambia, he now spends most of his time in Asia and has a particular affinity for the Indian Subcontinent, especially the Himalayan region. Nick has built up an enviable knowledge of that regions avifauna, as well as other destinations in south-east Asia. He will lead our new Peru tour in 2011, where he has led a number of tours and spent several months in the field. He also has an interest in mammals, cetaceans and butterflies and is always willing to pass on his knowledge to fellow travellers.

 Neil Tovey

Neil hails from South Wales. He has been bird watching since the age of seven when his father started taking him on RSPB/ YOC trips. Extensive birding throughout the UK meant Neil has seen just short of 400 species there. Neil has also visited a number of European and neighbouring countries on birding trips including Ireland, France, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, The Canary Islands, Greece, Turkey and Tunisia. Neil has also birded Canada, USA, Th Caribbean and South Africa. More recently he has visited India, Oman and Jordan. Based in Dubai since May 2005, Neil has covered over 80,000 kms in that time and knows the sites and locations throughout the UAE very well. More recently Neil has been involved in the Government backed Avian Influenza Monitoring Programme and was part of the Consultancy Team that resurrected Wasit Nature Reserve, making him the ideal person to lead our tours to the Arabian Peninsula.