Birding Africa
    Birding tours from Cape Town to Cameroon and Madagascar, with the only African Birding Specialist

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Birders' Survey

Birdwatch magazine readers voted Birding Africa as one of the top 5 most recommended bird tour companies in the world. Birding Africa includes Cape Town Pelagics. (Click here for more survey details.)

Highlighted Tours 2024 - with space available

Eastern South Africa: 4-17 February - GUARANTEED
Socotra Island: 19-26 March - GUARANTEED
Tanzania Serengeti: 8-19 April - GUARANTEED
Uganda Highlights: 7-22 June - GUARANTEED

E-mail us for details.

Small Group Tours

Our South Africa (Cape to Kruger and Ultimate Endemics) and
Tanzania (Serengeti Birds and Wildebeest) tours take a maximum
of 6 participants only!

News

March 2023: Michael Mills led two Upper Guinea tours at the beginning of the year. Both tour reports are available here. Bookings are open for our 2024 Upper Guinea Special Tour.

January 2023: Tertius Gous will lead our 2023 Madagascar Endemics & Lemurs Tour in November. We have a couple of spaces still available! Here's our 2022 Tour Report.

December 2022: Merry Christmas and very best New Year's wishes to all our guests and friends. Hope 2023 brings exciting birds and travel. After a busy second half of the year, we're catching up with tour reports and our 2023 - 2026 planning and will upload new tours and reports in the new year. If you can't find what you're after on the calendar, please drop us a line for dates and info.

December 2022: Madagascar tour report added!

April 2022: Click here for our new Gabon tour looking for African River Martin in October 2022. Read our 2021 Gabon tour report.

January 2022: We have space on our 6 day post-Flock Cape Endemics Tour scheduled from 1 - 6 February 2022. E-mail us for the full itinerary.

December 2021: Happy holidays and best wishes for a hopeful new year to all our guests and supporters!

November 2021: We are adding a second Upper Guinea Endemics tour in January 2023.

October 2021: A very warm welcome to Daniel Engelbrecht who joins the Birding Africa team. Daniel is based in Polokwane, Limpopo. Read more about our Polokwane tours.

July 2021: Callan Cohen speaking at the Virtual African Bird Fair on "Africa's most sought after birds (and tips to find them)."



New tour added: Ghana in January 2022 before the BirdLife Flock Cruise.

Read Michael Mills' Kenya tour report and Uganda tour report from May and June 2021 respectively.

December 2020: Merry Christmas and best wishes for a hopeful new year to all our guests and supporters!

December 2020: Would you like a chance to see South Africa's most elusive mammals, Aardvark and Black-footed Cat? Join Michael Mills from 11 - 17 March 2021 for Birding Africa's 2nd Karoo Mammals and Birds Tour. Read the report from the 1st tour HERE.

October 2020: Join Michael Mills for Southern Kruger Birding and mammals, from 14 - 20 November 2020. Timed to coincide with the peak of bird breeding and arrival of many migrants, this tour gives a chance of seeing a wide range of local specials.

September 2020: Would you like a chance to see South Africa's most elusive mammals, Aardvark and Black-footed Cat? Join Michael Mills from 30 October - 5 November 2020 for Birding Africa's Karoo Mammals and Birds Tour.

September 2020: BirdLife South Africa's Flock to Marion Voyage has been postponed to 24-31 January 2022. Click for details of the cruise and our pre- and post- Flock tours.

July 2020: Birding Africa Local Guide Support Programme. As a company, we believe it is critical to support local communities by using the services of local guides throughout Africa and Madagascar. During these unprecedented times, the disruptions to tourism have removed the income of most of the guides we use. A few have reached out to us for support, even to help feed their families, as government support systems in these areas barely exist. We feel a strong sense of personal obligation to support these people that have supported us through the years, with whom we have established personal relationships and who provide important services to birders and enrich our travels.

We have set up a system to make monthly payments and if you would like to join us in financially supporting a select group of local guides that we trust and use on our tours, please email callan@birdingafrica.com. We are currently making plans to send funds to people in Madagascar and Uganda, and depending on the response received will reach out to other guides who may be in need of assistance.

June 2020: Please read our COVID-19 UPDATE and how at Birding Africa, we've kept working as a team, and have been using the change of focus to improve what we do, and to plan ahead.

April 2020: Coronavirus impacts the livelihoods of South African bird guides. Birding Africa supports BirdLife's Community Bird Guide Relief Fund and encourages those who have used community bird guides to do the same! See http://www.birdlife.org.za/birdlife-guide-relief-fund/ to donate. Thank you!

April 2020: New tour report from our ground-breaking Liberia and Sierra Leone tour, with details of the 2023 trip to look for more Upper Guinea endemics than any other offered.

April 2020: Tertius Gous led our June 2019 fly-in safari to Botswana and southern Zambia, including the Okavango Delta, Chobe & Victoria Falls. His trip report describes the 10 day itinerary as perfect for capturing some of the best scenery, birding and game viewing the region has to offer. Ask us about our next safari to Botswana.

Feb 2020: Our first trip to Senegal and Gambia in January 2019 netted a good selection of of localised and rarely-seen specials. Contact us for a private trip.

Jan 2020: African Pitta now a target on our Angola Endemics Tour!

Jan 2020: Michael Mills describes and details species seen during our Ultimate Zambia (including Pitta) Tour which took place from November to December 2019.



01 January, 2020: Happy New Year to all our birding friends around the world! May you enjoy health and happiness; and many wonderful birding experiences during 2020!

Nov 2019: Michael Mills' Comprehensive Angola tour report with full annotated species list is now online.

July 2019: See our new 18-day Comprehensive Ghana itinerary with the first tour scheduled for January 2021 to be led by Michael Mills. Ghana offers outstanding lowland forest birding, and an excellent selection of West African savanna birds at Mole National Park. This is the best tour on which to see picathartes, with two chances planned to see these great birds!

For previous updates, please visit our News Archives.


Why choose Birding Africa

Birdwatch magazine readers voted Birding Africa as one of the top 5 most recommended bird tour companies in the world.

Choose Africa: 2500 bird species, 20 endemic bird families, the world record for bird species seen in a day and the most exhilarating primate and mammal watching on earth. Join the only specialist of African birding tours: Birding Africa.

We are bird guide authors and conservationists living in Africa, drawn together by a common passion: sharing our enthusiasm for Africa's birds with the world. We pride ourselves in our expert guides, who share their knowledge of Africa's birds and wild places.

Our expert consultants handle seamlessly the logistical challenges that African touring presents. Expertise, personalised service, attention to detail and best value tours are why, after 13 years, we're arranging more birding tours for top international companies and small groups than ever before. In sum, have a look at our clients' comments!
Please contact us to organise or guide your next African birding tour or Cape day trip. For couples, groups and bird clubs with mixed interests, we also organise special bird, mammal and botany tours.

Birding Africa has also sponsored conservation and research of the species you'll see on tour, we've run African Bird Club Conservation Tours, consulted to the BBC Natural History Unit and even shown Bill Oddie the endemic Cape Rockjumper in the mountains around Cape Town...



Rockrunner photographed by Ian Merrill on a Namibia Birding Tour.
See Rockrunner on a Namibia Birding Tour © Ian Merrill.



Yellow-headed Picathartes (White-necked Rockfowl) can be seen on a
Birding Africa tour to Ghana © Callan Cohen

Birding Africa teaming up on 28 March 2017 to save migrant birds at Champions of the Flyway
Birding Africa teams up to save birds at Champions of the Flyway

Madagascar Birding Africa group, November 2011 www.birdingafrica.com
Madagascar participants after watching Madagascar Harrier
© Callan Cohen www.birdingafrica.com.

African Green BroadBill, Uganda Specials tour,5 July 2018 © Mayur Prag
African Green Broadbill photographed by Mayur Prag on our 2018 Uganda Specials tour led by Michael Mills.

Birding Africa is a tour company partner of The Biggest Week in American Birding and Ethan Kistler and Callan Cohen have been leading tours and guiding on the famous Magee Marsh boardwalk.


Spot-breasted Plover, Ethiopia © Callan Cohen Birding Africa www.birdingafrica.com
Spot-breasted Plover on a Ethiopia tour © Callan Cohen www.birdingafrica.com.


Tertius Gous, Ethan Kistler, Callan Cohen, Marje and Jon Hemp at the British Birdwatching Fair 2014.

A second Shoebill flew in and started to display on our Uganda tour © Callan Cohen & Deirdre Vrancken www.birdingafrica.com
A second Shoebill flew in and started to display on our Uganda tour
© Callan Cohen & Deirdre Vrancken www.birdingafrica.com.

Boehmm's bee-eater on a Malawi tour © tour participant Jon Hemp.
Böhm's bee-eater on a Malawi tour © tour participant Jon Hemp.

Red-headed Picathartes on a Birding Africia Cameroon tour © Ian Merrill
Red-headed Picathartes on a Birding Africa Cameroon tour, photographed by tour participant Ian Merrill.


Yellow-bellied Sunbird-Asity on our Madagascar tour © C Cohen.



Lesser Hoopoe-Lark, endemic to Somaliland. Click here for more pictures © Callan Cohen & Michael Mills www.birdingafrica.com. See Red-collared Mountain Babbler on a Rwanda Birding Tour © Ray Tipper
Red-collared Mountain Babbler on a Rwanda Tour © Ray Tipper.


About Birding Africa

Birding Africa is a specialist birding tour company customising tours for both world listers and more relaxed holiday birders. We combine interests in mammals, butterflies, dragonflies, botany and other natural history aspects and will guide you to Africa's and Madagascar's most diverse birding destinations. Our guides' knowledge of African birds and birding areas is our greatest strength and together we have rediscovered species, shared exciting observations with the birding community and had a fun time exploring our home continent. We've even written two acclaimed guide books on where to find Southern Africa's and Madagascar's best birds. Birding is more than our passion, it's our lifestyle, and we are dedicated to making professional, best value trips filled with endemic species and unique wildlife experiences. Since 1997, we've run bird watching tours in South Africa and further into Africa for individual birders, small birding groups and top international tour companies. We've run Conservation Tours in association with the African Bird Club and work with and consult for a number of other top international tour companies and the BBC Natural History Unit.

For feedback from our guests, please see our Client Comments. Please also browse our Latest News and Trip Reports.

This website is maintained by Birding Africa.
Copyright © 1997-2023 Birding Africa

Please do not use any text, images or content from this site without permission.
Black Harrier photograph courtesy of Keith Offord.
© Birding Africa 1997-2023 info@birdingafrica.com

[African Tailorbirding CC (CK2003/020710/23) trading as Birding Africa]
P.O. Box 22727, Scarborough, 7975, South Africa.


 

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