Welcome to the latest news of our Bird Watching Breaks. It has been an excellent year for us and we have been very pleased to be able to catch up with so many friends over the past twelve months - at lectures, at the British Birdwatching Fair and on our tours.

We found time to take our own holiday in January to Bosque del Apache, New Mexico and Texas/Lower Rio Grande. The early morning flight of 19,000 Snow Geese and 11,000 Sandhill Cranes at Bosque has to be one of the natural wonders of the world for us and we shall never forget it. We also spent eight days in May checking out Northern Greece (Evros Delta, Dadia Forest and Lake Kirkini) and found it offered some great birdwatching so look out for a tour with us in 2003.

The style of our tours, as many of you will know, is very much as we ourselves would like to enjoy a holiday - relaxing, finding as many of the quality birds as is possible, without chasing about too much, whilst also taking time to enjoy other aspects of the wildlife and culture of the destinations visited. There is now much competition for many of the popular destinations, often with variations in cost and content. We do encourage you to explore the options and look very closely at what we have been able to incorporate into our tours - perhaps some things that will make a difference to your holiday. The use of small coaches wherever possible is just one good example. That doesn’t mean we take more people, just that we have more room and comfort and a local, professional driver - leaving us the time to find the wildlife and look after you. We find travelling with a small coach does not affect birdwatching opportunities!

The launch of the Worldwide Journeys and Expeditions brochure for 2001 - "Wildlife Journeys" was successful for us as we led tours to Lesvos, Finland and Norway and in November we return once again to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Next year’s list of tours looks even more exciting with new destinations being included amongst some old favourites.

For our Galapagos Cruise (a few places remain this year and another is planned for 2003) we shall be using Isabela II, already considered to be one of the best small cruise ships in the archipelago. In addition we have extended our stay in Quito with a full day visit to Cotopaxi being added to our tried and tested Mindo birdwatching experience. Also a day to Otavalo where local culture will take precedence over birds as it does on the half day city tour. We believe this will give a more rounded experience of Ecuador and Galapagos in the limited time we have available. Galapagos remains for us the most magical of destinations where boobies, mockingbirds, finches, Waved Albatross, sea-lions, turtles and tortoise provide us with great photographic opportunities. We expect those participating to carry the memories with them for many, many years. This year we are staying on after the group leaves to investigate Sacha Lodge in the Amazon with a view to adding this as an optional extra in 2003.

So where are we going in 2002? With Worldwide Journeys we have included a variety of destinations (you can request more detailed itineraries for any of their tours listed below). We kick of with a short break to watch the amazing dancing Cranes as they gather at Lake Hornborga in Sweden. We shall stay in a castle right on the edge of the lake - watching the Cranes fly past to their roost as we dine. We shall visit the Hornborga reserve and the surrounding woodland for the special birds of this area. Sweden, as with most of Scandinavia, is not a cheap destination. We carried out a thorough recce this year and we are using the best accommodation available, a mini-coach plus we have included a couple of special added features. We believe this will be a great short break.

This will be closely followed by the Lesvos tour which remains an amazingly popular destination and continues to get fully booked very quickly. This year the group experienced some unusually windy weather but still managed to see or hear 133 species of bird. The flowers were particularly good and as always the group marvelled at the beauty of the island. Takis, our regular and friendly driver was with us once again as he will be next year.

Also with Worldwide Journeys we shall be visiting Romania for the Carpathian Mountains and Danube Delta in late May. We went last September and looked at the areas and hotels. It was fabulous and although September is probably not the best time to visit we still had wonderful birdwatching. So just think what it will be like in the late Spring. In the Carpathians, with stunning mountain scenery, we shall stay in the shadow of Bran Castle (of Count Dracula fame) and explore for Wallcreeper amongst many species here. Brown Bear scavenging on the edge of a nearby city is also on the itinerary. Our pontoon which we shall use for three days to explore the heart of the Delta has en suite facilities in each cabin (we think you’ll find most other groups use a boat with shared facilities) and in Tulcea we have selected the best hotel in the town. Add to this an air-conditioned mini coach, a local guide who lives in the Delta and we think we have the perfect recipe for a successful tour. BUT, places are very limited due to the size of the pontoon so early booking is advisable.

Other destinations are the Seychelles (visiting Mahe, Praslin and two nights on the magical Bird Island) in September and finally Islay in October. Seychelles is another expensive destination and we make no apologies for wanting the best for those travelling with us. We have selected excellent hotels on each Island. Bird Island is the most fantastic place to spend the last couple of days of this tour. Visits to other islands are included and we have engaged the services of a most popular and well known guide in the Seychelles for Mahe and Praslin.

With the inclusion of Islay in October you have probably gathered we love islands and we are also big fans of Scotland, returning most years since 1975 for our own holidays. When we visited Islay a couple of years ago we just fell in love with it. It has everything - gorgeous scenery, fabulous birds, a feeling of isolation, a great small hotel with excellent food and of course - seven distilleries! We hope to experience all these features plus the Paps of Jura.

In late May this year, following the success of the previous visits to the Spanish Pyrenees, we repeated the tour for Avian Adventures and once again had a marvellous time but was it hot!! The locals said temperatures were just like July/August. This must have suited the birds of prey as we cannot ever remember seeing so many Red and Black Kites plus fantastic views of Short-toed Eagle, Golden Eagle and Lammergier. With so much else on offer in 2002 we have decided to rest it but hope to re-instate it again in 2003. So what do we have planned with Avian? Three five day breaks to Holland (January, August and November) plus a tour of Iceland in late June. We are really looking forward to returning to Iceland and consider the route we have planned with Avian and the local agents will provide a varied and spectacular tour - for scenery and birds. Thousands of seabirds plus divers, Slavonian Grebes, Harlequin Duck, Red-necked Phalaropes, Snow Bunting, Sea Eagle and Gyr Falcon are amongst the quality birds we shall have the opportunity to view at close quarters.

Holland is an old favourite of ours having visited or led groups more than 12 times over the past 15 years. We love the winter wildfowl watching from the comfort of a small coach - upto 10 species of geese, sometimes 1000’s of Smew and Goosander (depending on temperatures in the Baltic), birds of prey include Common and Rough-legged Buzzard, Merlin, Goshawk and Sea Eagle. Black Woodpecker and Crested Tits are in the woods. In August we concentrate on migration and post breeding species including passage terns and waders plus Marsh Harriers, Ospreys, Purple Heron and Spoonbills.

We continue our close association with Bird Watching magazine. You may have seen our articles, binocular reviews and contributions to "Go Birding". In February we returned to another favourite of ours with a Readers’ Break to the French Lakes. Stunning views of the Cranes, Black Woodpeckers and added bonuses of White-billed Diver, Smew and Great White Egret contributed to a very good weekend. (Look out for this again in 2003 with Avian Adventures.) We have UK weekends in Chichester (late September) and Dorset (late October) still to come this year. More will no doubt be planned for 2002 - keep an eye on the magazine or our web-site.

We also continue our Birdwatching holidays with Wallace Arnold. Some of you will remember the very wet December breaks we hosted from Peterborough and King’s Lynn with the highlight for both groups being the swans flying in to the floodlit lake at Welney. Not even the British weather could dampen our spirits as we watched that spectacle. We have tours based in Bolton, Swansea and Leyland planned for the Autumn/Winter 2001/2 programme. With the summer and autumn 2002 still under discussion - again, keep an eye on our web-site.

There are still a few places left on The Field Studies Council Wader and Wildfowl Workshop which we shall be running this October - we visit the fabulous Wetland Centre at Barnes in London on one day and Langstone Harbour/Farlington Marshes in Hampshire on the other. The small numbers attending these weekends make the use of the Centre’s mini-bus and driver more cost effective but also make for a very intimate and special weekend - particularly if you are a novice and want more individual attention. In 2002 we shall be once again holding the Birdwatching for Absolute Beginners weekend in April and repeat the Wader and Wildfowl workshop in November.

Our lecture programme takes us to various parts of the country and we have been pleased to meet up with some of you at these lectures. Indeed, it may be as a result of adding your name and address to our mailing list at one of those lectures that you are receiving this newsletter.

If you want either company brochures or more information about individual tours do please get in touch with us. If you would like us to give a lecture to a local club or society just let us know. You can also look at our web-site which we endeavour to keep as up to date as possible with tours and lectures. We shall be at the British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water which is our main opportunity to meet many of you face to face - we shall be on the Worldwide Journeys and Expeditions Stand (10/11 in Marquee 6 - same place as last year, we think) over the whole weekend and look forward to meeting and chatting with you.

Other than that, we hope to see you over the coming year on one or more or our tours but if not, do continue to enjoy your own wildlife viewing and birdwatching.

With best wishes

Ralph and Brenda Todd

Summer, August 2001