Michael Warren travelled on our ‘Nepal — A Birdwatching Tour’ holiday in March/April 2016 and wrote three stunning pieces about his trip. We chose ‘Tiger Trace’ as the winning entry for our 2016 Writing Competition, and on the following page we have also included another of his entries, a beautiful and reflective piece set in Kathmandu at the start of his holiday.
Our ‘Autumn Birding in Southern Portugal', led by Philip Thompson and Barry Oxley in September, was very successful - large numbers of Pied Flycatchers and Willow Warblers were seen among Stone Pines as they moved along the coast, as well as good numbers of Red-rumped Swallow and 20-30 Black Kites.
Nudging confidently into Agadir’s traffic our driver calmly joined the throng. We’d met Mohamed and Syed at the airport along with our fellow ‘adventurers’ Trevor and Ken and Pip and Ruth. First stop: lunch and a demonstration of mint tea pouring from Mohammed - terrific.
Thanks to Joy Adamson I have been in love with Lions since I was a child. Seeing my first Lion in Kruger National Park ranks as one of the highlights of my life so far. However, after 15 ... oh, all right, 28 years of Lions dominating my affections, could Elephants be taking over? It all started in 2006 whilst on a Naturetrek tour to the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia - surely one of the best, if not the best, parks in Africa for viewing wildlife.
I shall never forget my first Naturetrek holiday, taken in June 2009. It was a cruise to the high Arctic island of Spitsbergen. Standing on the quayside at Oban waiting to embark on the cruise ship, I could only wonder at what might lie ahead and I was feeling a mixture of excitement and apprehension – after all, this was my first foreign holiday – at the age of 64!