ABOUT PHOTO TOURS

In 2008 Exotic Birding was the first North American company to offer tours specifically focused on bird photography. Within a year, every North American birding tour company was doing the same thing. Many people have a strong interest in bird photography and wanted to spend more time getting photos than serious listers wanted to tolerate. This created a demand for tours designed for those who wanted to spend more time getting photos even if it reduced the number of species seen on the tour. Now, many years later, many birders carry cameras and want to get photos on an ad hoc basis during regular birding tours. There is still some conflict, with tour leaders of larger groups often requesting no photos to be taken until everyone has seen the bird because simply pointing a camera at a bird can scare it away. This problem simply does not exist on private tours. For this reason we no longer offer separate bird photo tours. Our birding tour itineraries work quite well for bird photographers as the destinations for photography are typically the same as for serious listers. In some cases a slightly different itinerary is better for photographers. With custom tours, we can adjust itineraries according to the participants' interests. The main difference between birding tours and bird photo tours is pace, and pace can be adjusted to that desired by our participants because our tours are specifically customized just for them.