Hi Rob,
I can see your point and agree totally, it will make me think twice about booking tours with Rockjumper, if that’s a common occurrence with them. The lack and faulty optical equipment is more of a concern. I’ve been on a couple birding tours with other companies and have been annoyed when everyone decides to go back to the hotel for drinks and rests while there still is plenty of daylight and time for birding. It pays to check if the tour company is for hard-core birding or more casual stuff. I know Birdquest is usually for more hard-core birders. Naturetrek I have found to be good with a mix of keen younger and older people, but it’s not hard-core birding. They often also focus on butterflies, but then it’s good aussie fun to take the mickey out of big mature English birder guys excited over pretty little butterflies!
Going with a tour group will always have it’s problems, but so will having your own guide sometimes as well. My wife and I had a personal bird guide (won’t say his name on here) in Thailand, 2010 Christmas. This guy was a good birder, but had no patience and wouldn’t wait long enough at places (other guides did and got the birds). His driving was the worst I’ve ever seen in anyone and I’ve been to Asia a fair bit. He will kill himself and/or someone else guaranteed! He also drank will driving and drank heaps during dinner before driving. I didn’t take long to realise he was mainly out to get bird photos for himself and increase his bird list. It got so bad that my wife and I started making secret signals to each other when we saw birds so that he wouldn’t come running over, as he often stood in front of you to get his shot! He danced around when he saw a new bird, but made little effort to get it again if you missed it! We had to stay with him, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to do any birding, but we did have a huge argument with him over his behaviour and we thought he was going to leave us in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t a very pleasant birding trip for the first half of our birding holiday in Thailand, but the next guide we had there was brilliant.
It pays to really research your bird tour company or guide, but at the end of the day you still may not win.
Regards,
Richard King
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