John is a qualified nature guide and avid wildlife photographer, who leads both mammal and birding viewing and photographic safaris throughout the Cape Province.

He has an abiding respect for the wild and believes that he is indeed privileged to work within the wonders of nature and to experience its incredible wildlife “first-hand”. His appetite for wild encounters is insatiable. Ask him to find a particular bird or mammal? It’s a challenge he accepts with alacrity.

It’s this passion that led him to seek out the lesser-known and elusive nocturnal mammals and birds of the Northern Cape. Here he discovered the chance to see many of the more unusual creatures that venture out to hunt and feed at night. Sightings of aardwolf, aardvark, porcupine, black-footed cat, hedgehog, bat-eared and Cape fox, plus many other species, made for some of the most exciting and rarest wildlife viewing moments of his life. “More goes on at night than you would ever imagine” he enthuses.

John has been a professional guide since 2010 and has led many successful Birding Ecotour birding day trips around Cape Town as well as photography and viewing safaris to the Overberg, Garden Route, West Coast, Namaqualand, Karoo, and Northern Cape. His personal favorite destination is the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

His love of wildlife has taken him to various countries in Africa, including Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, and Botswana, and he has made several trips to Madagascar.

John Tinkler is an accredited nature guide registered with the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), as well as Theta-certified for skills programme Nature Site Guide. His qualification includes fynbos, savanna, and Nama and Succulent Karoo biomes throughout South Africa.

Matthew’s passion for birds began when he became infatuated with the Verreaux’s Eagles frequented Cape Town’s Cape Peninsula as a child where he grew up. His love of wildlife snow-balled from there and naturally influenced his carrier path.

 He completed a National Diploma in Nature Conservation after having spent a year working at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology in Cape Town in 1997. Following this he completed a B-Tech degree in Nature Conservation in 2003.  He is a qualified senior nature guide and holds accreditation for all of South Africa’s major biomes.

 He has worked in conservation and ecotourism in South Africa, Australia, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola. Organisations for which he has worked for include Western Cape Nature Conservation Board, Peace Parks Foundation, Queensland Parks and Wildlife and more recently the Department of Environment and Conservation in Western Australia.

 His passion for birds has taken him across southern Africa and Australia.  He has has also travelled to Papua New Guinea to photograph birds of paradise. Other remote destinations which he has visited to observe seabirds include Cosmoledos Atoll in the Seychelles and Bassas da India in the Mozambique Channel.  His interest in wildlife photography has allowed him to capture rarely seen animal interactions.

 He currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa and is now making guiding his full-time pursuit, with the mission to help others experience their wildlife interaction dreams.

Mark is an accredited bird guide registered with the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT)
as well as with the Field Guides Association of Southern Africa (FGASA).
Although Mark has always been passionate about the natural environment (having grown up in Cape Town in the heart of the fynbos floral kingdom), it was during the early 1990s that his obsession with birds and birding really took off.

In addition to being able to share a wealth of experience, Mark has also expanded his knowledge of the natural environment in general, and birds and birding in particular, by completing numerous courses and extra-mural qualifications including a National Diploma in Game Ranging from Allenby Campus and Eco-Training in 1995, as well as his FGASA (Field Guides Association of Southern Africa) examinations in 2001.

Brian has birded the Western and Northern Cape for the past 45 years. As the Vice-chairman of the Tygerberg Bird Club he is responsible for leading the monthly outings as well as the weekend camps. He has run his own bird tour operation for the past 4 years. His other interests are wildlife and plants and he understands their relationships to birds.

Mariana made a study of the natural history of the Western Cape, and is a member of the Cape Bird Club, Tygerberg Bird Club, Botanical Society of SA, Indigenous Bulb Society of SA, Field Guides' Association of SA, Vernacular Architecture Society of SA and the Friends of the SA Museum.

She actively participates in various birding and Natural Heritage Site monitoring projects.

Ian has shown a keen interest in birds since his schooldays. He has birded widely in South Africa, and in parts of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique.

His interest in birding has created an affinity for, and a working knowledge of, other forms of nature including plants, trees, insects etc. He has been in the Tourism industry since 2003 and started operating Bird Tours In 2005.

Chris, since childhood, has been an incredibly enthusiastic birder. He particularly loves tracking down owls, but other favorite birds of his are falcons, harriers, pittas and, well, all of them! His passion for birding is completely unstoppable. Chris obtained a doctorate on African sunbirds, has taught university zoology and did a 2.5-year post-doctoral research stint on hummingbirds at the University of Wyoming. For the last 10 years he has been kept very busy guiding and scouting for Birding Ecotours to a host of exciting destinations in Asia, the Americas, and especially across the vast African continent. Chris has a burning passion for bird conservation and does voluntary work for BirdLife South Africa and other conservation organisations. He has published several research papers, but he eventually discovered that that endeavor gets in the way of birding, so he tries to keep it to a bare minimum these days, ha ha!

Chris lives with his wonderful wife Megan in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Dylan grew up in the suburbs of Johannesburg, and fortunately, due to a very supportive mother, was able to experience the joys of the then largely still wild surroundings on a regular basis. From a young age, the beauty of birds was instilled in Dylan, and it would go on to shape his life.

Turning annual “family holidays” into pure birding adventures was one way how he and his family went about this. The warm, coastal forests of Natal were a regular stomping ground, and in recent years he has expanded and largely covered the bird-rich nations of Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.

At the ripe young age of 20 he has caused many a surprise in local birding circles, not only with the knowledge of birds he possesses but also with his experience beyond his years. It has been his lifelong passion to become a bird guide, and he is definitely on the right track! Fluent in the art of birdsong, his hearing abilities only add to his repertoire!

Dylan is mastering many birds of the Americas with trips to Peru, the United States, and the Caribbean. In addition, he has birded a large part of Europe. His incredible ability with bird calls is an asset to any tour participants in Africa, Europe, and other places he guides.

In the meantime, he is currently studying Nature Conservation and works for Birding Ecotours on a part-time basis. When he is not engrossed behind a few books or completing assignments, he readily ventures to his local patch – a wetland basin within an extensive band of grassland, finding such skulkers as Red-chested Flufftail and Barrow’s Korhaan.

Jason, 26, is studying a BSc Environmental Science part-time while doing office work for Birding Ecotours, he is also leading some of our tours. His energy, enthusiasm and knowledge are bottomless, and his people skills are absolutely superb. He has been fascinated by birds ever since he could see them. He has loved the journey that birds have taken him on up to this day, having been birding for over 16 years and couldn’t imagine the next 30 years without them.

Jason has spent most of his life in Pretoria, South Africa, with a 2-year stint in the Western Cape. He has an incredible passion for leading outings and teaching others about the wonders of the birding world, nature and the environment – from the “Grasslands of the Lark” to the “Mountains of the Eagle”. He is very well-known for his involvement in young birders’ groups and contributes a great deal to research and conservation projects, such as the Southern African Bird Atlas Project. His passion for birds is contagious (so beware of catching it from him!). He knows southern African birds thoroughly and has recently started birding elsewhere; his most recent trips include, Gabon, Israel for the Champions of the flyway race for conservation as well as Tanzania.

Justin is a South Africa-born birder and wildlife enthusiast, whose interest in his natural surroundings were sparked at a very young age. He holds an undergraduate BSc degree in Zoology and Botany and a BSc Honours in Biodiversity and Conservation.
Justin was born and raised within the city limits of Johannesburg, and it was the hustle and bustle of his surroundings which sent him venturing further afield to look for tranquility. It was in nature he felt most at home, and sharing this passion with others is his only goal.
His interest in birds started while still a toddler, when he got his hands on an old photographic guide to the Birds of Southern Africa. Barely able to speak at that age, he spent hours a day paging through it and any other field guides he could access, and it wasn’t long before he set out to find them all himself – a quest he still actively pursues two decades later.
An interest in birds led to one in reptiles, which in turn proceeded to mammals, butterflies, and arachnids, and it was not long before Justin set himself a goal to find and photograph as much of South Africa’s biodiversity as possible. He is an avid photographer and has traveled in the Southern Africa subregion extensively a number of times.
After school he decided to take his interest one step further by completing his BSc Honours in Conservation and Biodiversity at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, where he focused on effects of deforestation on bird and butterfly densities along forest edges as well as on the genetic variation within and between rodent populations in isolated forest patches.
Justin has worked on a number of conservation projects throughout the country as well as numerous biodiversity studies for various organizations. He regularly helps at the Animal Demography Unit (ADU) to identify citizen science records, which aid in plotting distributions maps for the country’s fauna and flora. All of his free time is spent studying, collecting, photographing, and admiring wildlife wherever he sets foot.

Etienne lives in Pretoria and knows the birds of Eastern South Africa intimately, having birded the region extensively for over 25 years. Although well known for his exploits in South Africa’s birding competition “Birding Big Day”, Etienne enjoys birding with people from novices to experienced international birders, and is a patient and energetic guide.

A former Council Member of BirdLife South Africa, Etienne has an MBA degree, and also consults in the eco-tourism industry.

He has operated bird tours throughout South Africa for the past five years.

Bob is based in Durban and spent a major portion of his life there in insurance and risk management.

He has been a professional bird tour operator for 6 years working mostly in the KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga regions.

Apart from being a bird-watcher, he is a keen naturalist and conservationist.