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This was a wonderful tour--beautiful scenery, great birds (many rare), mammals (many rare) including snow leopards. Throw in the adventure of driving through the Altai Mountains and the quest for snow leopards, it really was everything you would want in a tour. Nigel Redmond and Atilla Steiner were excellent at finding and identifying the birds and mammals. I had been to Mongolia before on a non-birding trip and very much enjoyed this beautiful and fascinating country, but most of my bird and mammal sightings went unidentified. The gers were comfortable and even the moonlight walks to the outdoor toilets were enjoyable. And I have to put in a plug for our ground agents who shepherded us around Ulaanbaatar on a quest for trinkets, souvenirs and sights.
Nigel Redman lives in Norfolk, UK, the best county for birds in Britain, and has been obsessed with birds for as long as he can remember. He had a successful career as a publisher of bird books, but an even longer one as a bird tour leader, and he loves sharing his experience and knowledge with others.
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Nigel has had a lifelong interest in birds and wildlife. Over the past three decades he has led more than 120 bird tours, and has visited over 80 countries on all seven continents. Nigel’s travels have frequently involved getting off the beaten track, beginning in the late 1970s when he travelled the overland hippie trail to Kathmandu in search of exotic Asian birds. Since then, he has led pioneering expeditions to a wide variety of places including Siberia, Central Asia, Yemen, Bhutan, Indonesia and Ethiopia. In 1992 he led the first-ever birding tour to West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya), and in 2012 took an intrepid birding group to northern Somalia. He has escorted several cruises to the Antarctic and Arctic, as well as guiding many tours to Asia and Africa, and now has field experience of more than half of the bird species of the world.
In between these extensive travels, Nigel worked as a leading publisher of bird books, latterly as Head of Natural History for Bloomsbury Publishing in the UK. In this role, he published hundreds of books, primarily on birds but also on a wide variety of natural history subjects. Notably, he was the editor of more than 50 field guides, a long series of identification guides, and the award-winning Mammals of Africa in six volumes.
Nigel is also the author of numerous articles and three books, including an acclaimed field guide, Birds of the Horn of Africa (2nd edition 2011) and the bestselling Where to Watch Birds in Britain (2nd edition 2010). He was one of the founders of the Oriental Bird Club (serving two terms as Chairman), has served on the councils of the British Ornithologists’ Union, the British Ornithologists’ Club, the Ornithological Society of the Middle East and the African Bird Club, and has been a member of the Editorial Board of British Birds magazine for nearly two decades.
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EL, Mongolia 2023RG, Georgia & Armenia 2018
Both Nigel Redman and Attila were excellent birders and very good tour guides.
RB & CM, Georgia & Armenia 2018A great tour! Both guides (Nigel Redman & Attila) were very good at sharing their knowledge and experience of that part of the world.
SM, Finland & Norway 2018I consider myself very lucky to have had Nigel Redman as our tour guide. His knowledge of the birds, as well as their habitats, and ability to spot them made for a completely satisfying birding experience. He also ensured we were all made comfortable in regards to travelling, meals, and lodging. We also lucked out having Taru as our local Finnature guide. I really cannot express how much I appreciated them both. Thank you for a great birding tour.
SM, Finland & Norway 2018I consider myself very lucky to have had Nigel Redman as our tour guide. His knowledge of the birds, as well as their habitats, and ability to spot them made for a completely satisfying birding experience. He also ensured we were all made comfortable in regards to travelling, meals, and lodging. We also lucked out having Taru as our local Finnature guide. I really cannot express how much I appreciated them both. Thank you for a great birding tour.
FO, Finland & Norway 2018I got most of the high-value targets that I wanted. The local guide Taru was excellent; she was fantastic at knowing the sites, and knowing what might be there, and in identifying the birds. And she was excellent by being in contact with other members of Finnature, and in looking up the local sightings pages to look for sites for specific species. Nigel Redman is a very nice guy. I like him and we got on well. I would be happy to go with Nigel again on a cruise (e.g. Antarctica, Spitzbergen, etc). It was a very good trip.
FO, Finland & Norway 2018I got most of the high-value targets that I wanted. The local guide Taru was excellent; she was fantastic at knowing the sites, and knowing what might be there, and in identifying the birds. And she was excellent by being in contact with other members of Finnature, and in looking up the local sightings pages to look for sites for specific species. Nigel Redman is a very nice guy. I like him and we got on well. I would be happy to go with Nigel again on a cruise (e.g. Antarctica, Spitzbergen, etc). It was a very good trip.
SH, Ghana 2018The Rockjumper guide, Nigel Redman, was great.
ND, Tanzania 2019Our Tanzania: Highlights of the North tour was a wonderful experience. Nigel Redman was a superb leader with an in-depth knowledge of the birds of East Africa which he generously shared throughout the trip. His many years of experience in leading birding tours showed: he was an expert in spotting and identifying birds and, most importantly, getting participants on the bird quickly. Nigel's own enthusiasm and delight in birds was contagious and his good humour set the tone for a very enjoyable tour. He and local guide Roger were true professionals and we would love to travel with either again.
JM, Ghana 2020Mr. Nigel Redman's knowledge of the birds, mammals, and other wildlife was extraordinary. His enthusiasm was contagious, and his pleasant demeanor was a joy to be around. He also was great at looking after the participants' "creature" comforts. I would consider it a privilege to travel someday again with him.
JM, Georgia & Armenia 2022The Georgia and Armenia Tour was wonderful. It was a joy traveling with Nigel Redman and Attila. The birding was fun and the scenery was absolutely spectacular. I would travel back to those countries for the scenery and wonderful culture and people in a heartbeat.
JM, Georgia & Armenia 2022The Finland & Norway tour didn’t get my highest ratings because weather conditions made parts of the tour rather unpleasant. Unfortunately, this was a year when much colder than normal weather prevailed in northern Europe. I was pleased with the results, i.e., number of life birds that I saw. In fact, I saw just about every species on my “wish list” that would have been possible, given the late winter that Finland and Norway were experiencing. So from the viewpoint of “productivity,” it was a very good tour.
IB - Uganda 2022Nigel was a great guide, and very enjoyable to work with, as well as being very knowledgeable about the subject matter, not only the birds!
EA - Thailand 2024This was my first ever birding tour, so my expectations were not based on any previous experience. I found the birding aspect to be stellar, with many new species added to my life list. The tour leader and the tour guide were both superb. Transportation was very comfortable in vans with captain's chairs.
This was the first group birding tour Ive ever taken (meaning, more than myself and either one or two other persons). Rockjumper and Nigel Redman made it a very pleasurable experience, with wonderful birds, beautiful landscapes, and good flexibility and adaptability to the various challenges and obstacles thrown our way on the trip. I heartily recommend both this tour and Nigel Redman as a tour leader! I would happily go on any tour for which Nigel was the leader; his knowledge of ornithology, history, and birding folklore is encycylopedic, and his easy humor and casual nature made for happy hours in our vehicles or over dinner tables (this, in contrast to the group next to us in some of the dining halls, where hardly a word was spoken by any tour member when the trip leader was going through the days list; that was a dictatorship; Nigels tour was a democracy in many ways.)