Nature Tours to the Americas

Birding the Americas is one of the most rewarding experiences you can treat yourself to and we have the perfect collection of destinations! Not only do our tours offer a wonderful number of bird species, but they also give you a real feel for each of the countries we visit. From the stunning scenery of the high Andes to the tropical complex of the Amazonia, from the Galapagos with its unique and very special wildlife to our extremely popular tours in Costa Rica, an incredible destination with almost 1% of the world’s biodiversity! Each of these tours offer special and comfortable accommodation, great food, easy pace and by limiting the number of the tour party, we can offer attention to the needs of each of our fellow travellers, including opportunities to take time off from the group and spend time on your own. Great birds, incredible scenery, wonderful plant life and most of all holidays to enjoy and remember.

Brazil – Pantanal the world’s largest wetland

Gentle boat rides through the heartlands of the Pantanal, accommodation amidst a dazzling array of birds and other wildlife, all conspire to make this tour a wonderful experience for our fellow travellers. Why the Pantanal? Quite simply it is stunning for wildlife; it is the largest wetland in the world containing 3,500 known plant species and 650 bird species, many endemic. Our leisurely pace ensures getting close to many birds and mammals, providing unbeatable opportunities for not just the interested observer, but photographers too! And just to put some icing on the cake, Jaguar Panthera onca has a stronghold here and we have an extremely good chance to see this magnificent feline. One of our favourite birds, the Hyacinthine Macaw Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus can also put in an appearance daily and is sure to both thrill and entertain us. Certainly we believe this tour offers the travelling nature lover just about everything and also an opportunity to join our fabulous optional tour extension visiting the Atlantic Forest in the Rio Janeiro region. Take a look at the full tour details and options to appreciate the itinerary and prospect

Costa Rica – Join us in Birding Heaven

An amazing tour for both scenery and birding, we have chosen our route very carefully to embrace the greatest diversity of habitats and excellent accommodation. It is a tour as appealing to the non birding partner as it is for the avid birdwatcher. It is a holiday that combines several possibilities for relaxing and alternative excursions. Of course fine cuisine, friendly people and spacious surroundings at each of our accommodations, make taking timeout a pleasure and strolling around the many different gardens and private reserves is highly recommended. Having always recorded over 400 bird species on this tour, ensures the enthusiast will never want for some quality birdwatching and those memorable birding moments!

Ecuador – A Dream for Nature Lovers

In this Birding Holiday we will stay in the subtropical zones on the lower slopes of the Andes. 
The western subtropical zone is an easy zone to do bird watching, with good forest remaining alongside the roads. The eastern subtropics are less well-known but even more bio diverse than the subtropics of the west. The eastern sub-tropics feature amazing tanagers and hummingbirds. The eastern subtropics are also a good place to see the Crested Quetzal and Torrent Duck. Above the forested slopes of the Andes lies a rolling grassland called “paramo.” Here the birds are refreshingly easy to see and quite distinct from those of other zones. This is the place to search the sky for Andean Condor, the Andean Snipe and Tawny Antpitta. 
As an extension a 5 nights/6 days tour to the Amazonia can be booked. Staying in Napo Wildlife Center you will get the very best of steamy tropical lowlands of the Ecuadorian Amazon

Galapagos Islands – In Darwin’s footsteps

Americas_GalapagosThis tour can be booked as an extension of our tours to Ecuador or as a separate one. The actual cruise is 7 nights/8 days, but we have planned to stay 2 nights in Quito, to assure connections and to start relaxed with your cruise.
The enchanted Galapagos Islands are located in the Pacific 0cean some 1000 km off the Ecuadorian coast. The Galapagos province and region is formed by 8.010 km2 of volcanic islands, islets, rocks and boulders, and 70.000 km2 of marine area.
As the result of continuous volcanic activity and heavy underwater eruptions the Galapagos islands emerged some four million years ago from the pacific sea-bottom. Evolution, ocean currents, climate, and the lack of predatory enemies -including man- made the Galapagos a living museum of evolutionary changes, indeed one of the strangest and most compelling places on our planet. Flora and fauna, arriving across the waters from the mainland, colonized the original Galapagos lava beds, developing species unique to the world. Many of the invertebrates, 25% of the fish, 30% of the plants, half of the birds and all of the Galapagos reptiles are endemic to the Galapagos.

Peru – A True Paradijs of Birds

Our tour will cover 3 completely different areas of Peru.

We will start in Northern Peru, flying from Lima to Tarapoto and travelling all the way back to Jaen, from where we fly back to Lima. This route is packed with endemics and restricted-range threatened species. Facilities are generally good and travel is easy. We will have a stop of some days in Moyobamba, going from there to the lodge at Abra Patricia which is a highlight of the route, along with the Marvelous Spatuletail reserve at Huembo where male Spatuletails can be seen at the feeders. Before going on to the Amazon region we will stay a day in the Lima area. From here we will visit some interesting sites such as the Pucusana fishing port. For the final part of our tour we will fly to Puerto Maldonado (with a stop in Cusco) to visit the Peruvian Amazon.  This is the fourth largest rainforest in the world, with a remarkable biodiversity in terms of flora and fauna. The rainforest is home to more than 800 bird species and a variety of mammals.

Los Llanos de Venezuela – One of the Gems of South America

Los Llanos is a large flat region which become shallowly flooded during the wet season and then progressively drain and dry out during the dry season. As the areas of water gradually shrink the birds and animals become concentrated in and around the water holes providing unsurpassed opportunities to view large numbers and great diversity of birds, both resident and migratory.   Although the landscape of Los Llanos is flat there is a variety of habitats ranging from the large expanses of grassland where cattle are grazed to gallery forest along the main watercourses and these different habitats support the wide range of species present. There are a great number of different waterbirds present at Los Llanos, but undoubtedly the signature bird of Los Llanos is the Scarlet Ibis.

A visit to Los Llanos should be combined with trips to other parts of the beautiful country of Venezuela. 

Travelling together as friends