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Santiago Villa
Member of the Spanish Ornithology Society (SEO/BirdLife), the local environmental association ADENEX (from Extremadura) and co-founder the SEO-Cáceres group, Santiago has taken an active part in various nationwide projects such as the Monitoring Programme of Common Breeding Birds in Spain (SACRE in Spanish initials), the Atlas of Nesting Birds in Spain and the "nest monitoring campaign of threatened species" conducted by the Vertebrate Conservation Society (Sociedad para la Conservación de los Vertebrados: SCV). He is also in charge of the Membrío-Brozas Area (Important Bird Area = IBA). Before founding Spainbirds, Santiago worked part time guiding small groups of birders around Extremadura and Madrid and was also involved in various environmental education activities in diverse natural sites in the South of the country. He has been leading for several tour companies such as Sunbird, The Travelling Naturalist, Celtic Bird Tours or Jaeger Tours, amongst others, being also in charge of the trip organized by the American Birding Association to Spain on september 2007. He has also taken part as an expert in meetings about birding & Tourism in different places such as Madrid, Cádiz, Trujillo, Monfragüe, Doñana and Lisbon (Portugal). Thanks to his wide knowledge and experience as a field ornithologist he is nowadays the resposible of the trips organized by SEO/BirdLife , the spanish partner of BirdLife International, with acctually more than 10.000 members. |
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Paul Hackett
Paul Hackett, one of the UK’s leading bird digiscopers, has been at the forefront of the digiscoping revolution and has pioneered many of the techniques and best practice used to great success today. As well as having his work widely published in all the leading birding journals such as Birding World and Birdwatch, Paul’s bird images and footage have been used by both regional and national news services. Perhaps Paul’s most famous image was his portrait of the pair of Bee-eaters that bred in County Durham in 2002 that made it onto the front cover of the Daily Telegraph. A regular at Birdfair, Paul has held many digiscoping lectures and field demonstrations. Most recently, Paul organised and led the world’s first digiscoping holiday that was held in Extremadura (Spain) in 2005, and then in 2006 into Doñana National Park. |
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Juan M. Soria
Juan M. is nowadays the responsible of the Andará Rutas S.L., an Spanish company specialist in offering hiking trips all around Spain. He was also founder in 1995 of the "El Club Viajero" Mountain Association having a deep knowledge of the Spanish mountains and its nature. Juan M. has been leading trips from 1995 with a total of more than 500 guided tours with groups having organized also trips to France, Portugal and Morocco. Amongst the most important travel agencies who has been working for are the El Corte Inglés, Marsans (in Spain), Exodus (England) and Nomad (South Africa). His love by nature and hiking led him to travel throughly the Himalayas, Kenya, South Africa and Costa Rica. |
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| Jose Antonio Sánchez Born in Seville, José A. Sánchez studied Biology at Seville's University. For the next 10 years he organized walking a nature tours all around Andalusia. In 1992 he moved to El Rocío to work as an educational monitor in Doñana National Park for several years; it was then when he got interested on birds and involved in numerous activities related to the local avifauna with the Doñana Biological Station. He spent 3 years living in the UK and travelling around Asia and became a fluent English speaker. Back in Doñana he has been working as a nature and birdwatching guide for the company Discovering Doñana, which he now runs, since 2000. He has been guiding independent travellers and working as a local guide for Naturetrek, Travel Naturalist, Greentours, local RSPB clubs, Natura Aragon, Reisen in die Natur, Swiss Orni-Group and other specialized companies. He has achieved a good reputation as a bird guide in Doñana. |
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