Your Guide to Birds and Nature on Safari – Not Just the Big Five

A native of the UK, James Wolstencroft now lives in Arusha, Tanzania. He guided his first East African safari in 1976 while he was a student at Cambridge; before that, his pursuit of birds had already taken him around Europe, across North America, through Russia, and to Turkey, Iran, Israel, Arabia, Nepal, and the Himalayas. James’s love affair with the Oriental tropics really took off during longer periods in India and Indochina in the 1980s; he guided his first birding tour to Assam in 1988. During the 1990s James lived in Thailand, Ethiopia, in Lao PDR, and in the Seychelles, where he worked for ICBP/BirdLife. He has watched birds in fifty-nine countries, one country for each year! Three years in southern Spain preceded his move in 2005 to Tanzania, where he lives with his wife, Elsie, and their two teenage sons.

James is a specialist bird guide and nature tutor. He arranges and guides tours for singles, couples and small groups lasting from a single day, such as a specialist add-on to a family safari: “Birding For Larks – Around Arusha”, to birding tours of a month’s duration.

He can be contacted via : gonolekATgmail.com

Please remember though:

“Is a day with a great birder worth the same as an engineers time? Or a Lawyer’s? A Doctor’s? A Manager’s?  As a long term tour operator (wildlife, not bird specific) I known the costs. I know that most small, genuine tour operators are excellent but under-valued and under-paid.

A good bird tour operator gives you something that no lawyer, engineer or manager can give you. That feeling of wonder, excitement, the thrill at seeing a wild creature you’ve never seen before. Do you remember that for the rest of your life? Is that worth paying that guide a decent living wage? I think it is.”

Janine Duffy, Australia.