Naturetrek Newsletter

As the summer draws to an end, why not make September a month to remember by studying the Naturetrek 2006 brochure and planning your holidays for next year. If you have not received a copy of our new brochure and would like one to browse over during the chilly evenings by the fire, please give us a call and we will send one out right away.

In the wonderful world of natural history tourism there are certain well-known destinations which remain constantly popular because of their obvious ornithological attributes, whilst there are other countries, which have a magnificent avifauna, yet for diverse reasons fail to excite the same level of interest. A perfect South American example of this is Bolivia, which boasts one of the largest national bird lists in the continent but is still relatively unknown to European birdwatchers, who tend to be more familiar with the birdlife of Peru or Ecuador. It may lack a coastline but Bolivia does offer a superlative range of habitats and many North American birders regard it as the finest birdwatching destination in the Neotropics. The scenery is magnificent, the culture fascinating and above all the variety of birds absolutely stunning. The annual July/August Naturetrek group recorded over 400 bird species under the expert leadership of Nick Acheson and if Bolivia is a country you have scarcely considered as a holiday venue we feel sure that Nick's entertaining tour report will rapidly change your mind! The report, and list of species recorded, which included Andean Condor, Torrent Duck, Red-fronted and Military Macaws, Golden-headed Quetzel and White-capped Dipper, may be found when you click here.

As one of the very few companies offering a full two-week cruise around the Galápagos Islands, our special charter of the sailing schooner Cachalote is proving as popular as ever.

Our August 2006 cruise is already fully subscribed and the February cruise has just one place remaining so we do anticipate the January cruise to fill very quickly.

To view the Ecuador & the Galápagos trip dossier, full itinerary and to read previous trip reports, click here.

Or contact Andy Tucker on 01962 733051 (or email: andy@naturetrek.co.uk) for further details.

The winter holidays and festivities are looming fast. If you fancy escaping from cooking the turkey and Christmas pudding, or are looking to escape the British weather, why not join a Naturetrek holiday and celebrate the holiday season with like-minded wildlife enthusiasts.

We currently have availability (subject to flights) on the following tours. For further information on any of these tours please click on the tour title.

Please call our Cheriton Mill office on 01962 733051 or email info@naturetrek.co.uk to check the availability or should you have any questions or queries.

The Naturetrek team had a very successful few days up at the British Birdwatching Fair in Rutland. We would like to thank all our clients who visited our stand. As always it was lovely to have the opportunity to see so many familiar faces – both clients and tour leaders – and to meet those of you who have not travelled with us before.

Our 2006 brochure was launched at the fair with an exciting selection of new destinations and we enjoyed discussing your future travel plans. Many of you had just returned from recent Naturetrek trips and brought us invaluable feedback and stories of exciting sightings, together with some excellent photographs. A great number of you were about to depart on tours and we look forward to hearing about them on your return!

For those of you who have not visited the Birdwatching Fair before, we hope that you will join us next year. It is a great day out and you can get everything from your holiday to clothing, optical equipment and books to take with you! There are lectures, slide shows and entertainment and you can round the day off with drinks on the Saturday at the Naturetrek stand! A number of you took us up on this offer this year and we hope to see a great many more at our “happy hour” next year.

An annual fixture at the Bird Fair is the “Bird Brain of Britain” competition and we are thrilled to announce that this year’s contest was won by Tim Melling, one of our esteemed tour leaders. Tim leads a number of trips for Naturetrek including Mexico’s Monarchs, Norways Orcas and Spitsbergen. When he is not travelling with Naturetrek, Tim works as a conservation officer for the RSPB.

During the competition, quizmaster Bill Oddie fired as many specialist subject questions as possible at each of the contestants. Tim’s subject was “British firsts since 1983”.

We held our second Moth Evening this year on National Moth Night, Saturday 9th July. The evening proved to be a great success, also a wonderful opportunity to promote moths and to raise some much needed funds for Butterfly Conservation. We are pleased to announce that through the donations from Naturetrek clients we raised the fantastic total of £466.44 for the fund.

We were very lucky to have chosen a warm and sunny evening. The event began at 6.30pm with drinks in the grounds surrounding Cheriton Mill, our offices in rural Hampshire. As the sun began to set, short guided walks were given by Paul Stanbury (birds), David Green (moths) and Paul Harmes (botany). This was followed by a delicious BBQ laid on by Maryanne Mills, Director of Naturetrek. Trapping and an introduction to moth conservation continued until after midnight.

David Green, Naturetrek tour leader and moth enthusiast said that “the final species list stands at 72. It got a bit chilly down by the river, which kept both the overall numbers and diversity down a bit. The highlights for me were Dingy Shears, Round-winged Muslin and Double Lobed, all local species associated with the surrounding water meadows. A surprise was the complete absence of Scarlet Tiger, which I would have expected to be abundant”.

Thank you very much to every one who attended and we look forward to our next annual Moth Evening... Watch this space for further details!

Naturetrek is once again holding slide evenings at a variety of locations around the UK and we would like to take this opportunity to invite you to join us.

Come along to one of our events; take a seat, relax and allow us to lead you on a magical tour of our worldwide destinations. Our leaders and staff will transport you on an informative and inspiring photographic ‘slide tour’ of the birds, botany, mammals and other natural history of our tours. This year our speakers will include Paul Stanbury (on a variety of our birding and mammal holidays to destinations including the Arctic, Antarctica, Canada, Central America, Africa and Europe), Peter Dunn (on Europe and Trinidad & Tobago), Andy Tucker (on South America), and David Tattersfield (on our botany departures in the Himalaya, Kazakhstan, South Africa and Europe).

If you have questions or would like a chat, please come along early as we will be there 30 minutes before each show and during the 20-minute coffee break to answer any queries that you may have.

Entry is by (free) ticket only. To register, please email victoria@naturetrek.co.uk to advise us of the number of tickets you require, your address, phone number and of course which venue.

There's nothing complicated about blogs which can be simply summed up as an internet based diary. A few weeks ago we launched the Naturetrek Wildlife Blog and we'll be using our blog as a flexible way to present photography, news about Naturetrek and the locations we travel to. We'll also be writing articles of more general interest and providing links to other sites and resources on the internet that we either like or find useful. One of the advantages of a blog is that it produces an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed which allows us to deliver our new content directly to anyone that chooses to subscribe to our site. There's an excellent article explaining how to take advantage of this feature over at the BBC news website. Link: How to use RSS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/rss/3223484.stm

To view a list of the late availability for Naturetrek tours departing over the next couple of months, please click here. However, as things are constantly changing, we advise you to call our Cheriton Mill office on 01962 733051 to check for any amendments.

We hope you have enjoyed reading this edition of the Naturetrek e-news. If you would like some help planning a future wildlife holiday, please call or e-mail us on info@naturetrek.co.uk and we will be happy to assist you.

We are continually striving to improve our e-newsletter – any comments and feedback would be gratefully appreciated!

If you would prefer not to hear from us in this way, please email remove@naturetrek.co.uk

For more information on any of our holidays please call us on 01962 733051