Dorset Discovery Tours
With the RSPB and local charity ‘Birds of Poole Harbour’
This year along with a local partner, the RSPB are offering a series of 3 day wildlife tours around the beautiful county of Dorset. The tours are led by the actual people who manage and survey the sites we visit; by the people who know them best. The group has exclusive access to areas and even whole reserves that are not usually open to the public and profits go straight back into conservation; what could be better?
Our next tour is running from midday on Monday 29th June until 4pm on Wednesday 1st July.
The Dorset Discovery Summer tour will be a fantastic opportunity for participants to get amazing wildlife experiences. We’ll be visiting one of the best places to watch nightjar in the UK, trying to track down all 6 British native reptiles including the insanely rare smooth snake, visiting noisy common, sandwich and little tern colonies, keeping an eye out for hobby, Dartford warbler and a whole host of other wildlife that calls Dorset home.
All details of the upcoming tour and how to book can be found on our partner’s webpage here http://www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/dorset-discovery-summer-tour-29th-june-1st-july
On our first two tours, ran in January and April we saw a whopping 106 and 104 species of birds respectively, 4 out of 6 British reptiles (including the two rarest), red squirrel, otter, bottlenose dolphin, carnivorous sundew, green tiger beetles, had an exclusive ringing demo at the Portland Bird Observatory. You can see the full list of species spotted on these tours here
Winter
http://www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/birds-poole-harbour-and-rspb-dorset-discovery-winter-tour-report-january-12th-14th-2015
Spring
http://www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/birds-poole-harbour-and-rspb-dorset-discovery-spring-tour-april-27th-29th-2015
Our lunch spread. Not a bad view eh?
These tours are absolutely great fun and a pleasure to run, but don’t just take my word for it though. Here are some comments from those who came on the first two tours:
“You were all so helpful and pleasant and fun to be with and, of course, your birding skills were second to none. Finding, handling and showing us reptiles, identifying flying sea birds half way to the horizon, imitating particular birdsongs: it was all magical and I learnt a lot. The body of knowledge that you have, individually and as a group, is most impressive.”
“We would like to thank you for your unflagging enthusiasm and good humour over the 3 days and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.”
“...having had guided trips in the past with various birding companies we can confidently confirm the levels of enthusiasm, knowledge and attention to detail given by the Dorset team is as good as it gets.”
“Without doubt the best thing about the tour was you guys - not just your superb knowledge but your enthusiasm and the way you considered every aspect of the tour, not just the birds (great catering, Tom). We saw a lot, loved the reptiles too, and the beautiful scenery. It's rare to get the balance right on a tour of this nature but you did it!”
“Great that so much time spent birding rather than travelling. Fantastic locations often not accessible to the public.”