Norfolk in Autumn

Brian was a teacher for 12 years and lives in Suffolk with his wife. He has guided tours since 2000, leading over 100 tours to 30 countries, including Malaysia, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Georgia and New Mexico. He has a special affinity with the birds and butterflies of Switzerland (walking on the glaciers with his dad from the age of 7) and Cape May on the New Jersey coast.

He is also a talented bird artist - examples of his work can be seen in the acclaimed Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW), and the Helm Field Guide Birds of Madagascar and the Indian Ocean - and his current projects include work on two major new guides: the Birds of Southern Brazil and the Birds of Greater Southern Africa.

In his spare time at home, he concentrates on working his local patch at Southwold, Walberswick and the Blyth estuary on the Suffolk coast, searching especially for migrants and gulls.

Born in Norfolk, John has been birdwatching in the county for almost 40 years. He is currently the county liaison with the British Birds Rare Breeding Birds Panel, and has been involved in the production of the Norfolk Bird & Mammal Report for over 25 years. More recently John has worked in wildlife conservation for over 15 years filling various roles with RSPB, Natural England and Norfolk Wildlife Trust. John has also travelled quite extensively to over 20 countries, many of which were visited on birdwatching or wildlife trips. His experience gained working within Norfolk on breeding shorebird protection along the North Norfolk coast from Scot Head Island to Stiffkey Binks for Natural England (including several years working on the Holkham Estate NNR), on monitoring CAP agri-environment schemes and barn owl projects with RSPB, and operating wildlife watertrails on boats at Hickling Broad NNR and at Ranworth Broad nature reserves for Norfolk Wildlife Trust means he has acquired a broad knowledge of the fauna and flora of the county. John also has his own environmental consultancy and has been working on a long-term bird monitoring scheme (15 years to date) in operation on a lowland organic mixed farm in North-west Norfolk. His interests extend to all forms of natural history but John also has an extensive understanding of the past history of Norfolk and is particularly well-versed in the areas of Broadland, North and North-west Norfolk.