We find the gems and polish them
Rather than grabbing big names in ornithology as a draw card, and having you tag along as part of their entourage, our focus is on finding talented people from extremely varied backgrounds who we train to be the best guides all over the world regardless of what they look like or what passport they carry. Once trained to become a Tropical Birding Leader, the guides all work in a variety of countries and most are able to lead on two or three continents. The egos are left elsewhere but the varied personalities and characters combine to form a guiding culture that is as at home in Africa as it is in the Americas. When you are with a Tropical Birding guide, you understand that the trip is about you seeing as many birds as possible while having a great time.

Guiding is not a part time job
Too many times have we come across groups with leaders who do not know the birds well enough. Doing this once a year as an alternative holiday is just not acceptable in most cases. People paying for the services of a tour leader deserve the expertise of a world-class professional. Our guides spend more time in the field than they do at home. In fact, for some of them, the field is home. Not only do they know the birds and the areas we visit as well as anyone else in the world, they also understand that it is your holiday, not theirs.

We live where the birds are
Satisfied clients often ask us why we have such reasonable prices. The answer is simple: our main offices are in Ecuador and South Africa, where we not only save on operational costs and negotiate preferential rates with local agents, but we are completely up to date with the logistics of local operations. By keeping our costs down we pass the savings on to you without any sacrifice in quality. This is something US and UK based operators simply cannot achieve. We have staff from six continents, and our full time leaders live in Africa, South America, and Asia where they guide on a regular basis, giving them unsurpassed local knowledge in the areas they visit.

We are the company that actively supports bird conservation
On the next two pages you will read about how we do not just give lip-service to protecting the threatened birds our livelihoods depend on; we are active in all aspects of bird conservation. This not only involves generation of funds for purchase of endangered habitats, but also includes consulting for conservation organizations, training guides, and establishing the avitourism industry in developing nations.

We offer the best value birding tours on the market
We have managed to strike a balance by providing world-class tours without charging outrageous prices. While this is not the means by which we differentiate ourselves from the other operators, it is a pleasant side-effect of being the most efficient operator in our target destinations. A quick comparison with other companies will show that while we still stay at the best lodges and have top guides, we retain our more competitive prices.

Even our bad days are good
No matter what you do sometimes the birding is slow or the weather is bad. Although your guide is sweating and doing everything to find you the birds, he also strives to maintain a friendly atmosphere you still have a great time.

CONSERVATION AND YOUTH BIRDING

Some companies are celebrating 20 plus years of taking clients around the world, visiting biodiversity hotspots, and watching them vanish without putting a dime back into conservation or community development. Tropical Birding has a very different approach. It is not that we are altruistic; it just makes sense to protect what we have, promote the hobby to younger birders, and to ensure that birding puts money back into local communities. What's amazing is that Tropical Birding has managed to do more in just five years than many of these companies have done in the last 25.

In the past, our focus has been on generating direct funds for land purchase through co-operative projects with organizations such as American Bird Conservancy and Birdlife International and companies such as Swarovski. These projects have contributed a few hundred thousand dollars for land purchase, and have helped to establish new bird reserves in Ecuador and Colombia.

Tropical Birding actively supports the Mindo Cloudforest Foundation (MCF) in Ecuador, with it's three main projects. Seed money for the Milpe Bird Sanctuary was generated as a direct result of donor trips run free by Tropical Birding. This reserve has become an important birding site in the high foothills of Ecuador´s west slope, and has become a financially self-sustaining reserve. The Rio Silanche reserve in the low Choco rainforests is protecting an important remnant patch of rainforest. The visitors center and canopy tower is attracting many visitors. The most exciting project in the pipeline with MCF is the Eco-route which is changing the way the Ecuadorian public view their natural forests. The MCF foundation has steered these projects from the beginning and many international organizations are starting to pay a lot of attention to the project. Tropical Birding has developed many small programs to highlight these projects, and continues to generate funds for the foundation through direct donations and promotion.

Lately we have changed how we put something back into the hobby, by funding ecotourism projects in Africa, subsidizing cultivation trips for US conservation groups, and most exciting of all, running and supporting Youth and Young Adult programs for the American Birding Association.

Red-headed Picathartes is one of Africa's most sought-after birds and the prettiest member of one of the world's strangest bird families. Korup National Park has become a reliable site for this reclusive and globally threatened forest gem, and it is on the itinerary of most bird tour companies visiting Cameroon. For many years, the only easily accessible colony has been visited repeatedly by birders and bird tour groups. These skittish birds have become more difficult to see near the colony due to disturbance from increased visitation and the lack of appropriate viewing facilities.

In order to alleviate the pressure on this colony, Tropical Birding sponsored a survey by the Korup Rainforest Ecotourism Organization (KREO) in June 2005 to search for 'new' colonies in the part of the park that is regularly accessed by tourists. The survey was a great success with three new colonies discovered in rock formations within walking distance of Rengo Camp. Evidence suggests that these outcrops are being used by three separate picathartes family groups, both for roosting and breeding.

In phase two of the project, in collaboration with Cameroon National Parks and KREO, we would like develop a management plan in order to reduce the pressure on birds at any single colony, and to build sensitively designed hides that allow the birds to be observed without causing stress. We expect that these activities will not only help the birds, but generate money for the local community and drastically reduce the hunting pressure on these colonies.Promoting the birding lifestyle to younger generations is impetrative if we are going to continue our hobby. The American Birding Association (ABA) has two very exciting youth programs. The first of these, the Young Birder Program, has been generously supported by Victor Emanuel Nature Tours and WINGS, and we at Tropical Birding are helping to continue this important aspect of the ABA. Tropical Birding and Swarovski Optik are sponsoring the youth program for the 2006 ABA Bangor convention.

The new ABA Young Adult program started in late 2005, with an international conference supported by Tropical Birding and Victor Emanuel Nature Tours. The premise of this program is that there needs to be a transition from the youth program which ends at 18 and the normal ABA activities. By organizing the event at cost and providing free guides and speakers for the conference, we ensured that the program was an outstanding success and will be replicated. Tropical Birding has made a commitment to continue to fund this program and to expand it to other areas.

By supporting education programs, youth programs, conservation programs and direct land purchase, we believe that we can help protect habitat, save birds and promote birding for future generations. Conservation tourism not only feels good, it works!