Mid-April I left home and flew to Auckland to spend a few days with mate and fellow Wrybill and Heritage guide, Dave Howes, before we travelled to Taiwan for two weeks of birding. For a change, we would be the clients being guided! I was hoping to grab myself a New Zealand tick in the far north of New Zealand before that. I have seen plenty of Barn Owls in my time and even had a pair breed near to where we lived in Kent in the UK. Their stronghold in New Zealand is in the

At the end of September 2025, I left my Island home and flew to Bali in Indonesia, to join the Heritage Adventurer for two back-to-back voyages. For a month I’d be travelling through Indonesia, West Papua, Papua New Guinea, The Solomons and Vanuatu. The last time I was in Bali was way back in 1989 … the place was a lot busier and built up! The journey to Bali included an eight hour lay over in Sydney. So I drank a lot of coffee, did some work on the laptop, ate a nice panini

After returning from Japan I had around at month at home on Stewart Island, with just a couple trips guiding on Ulva Island. This is...

In April I completed my fifteenth and final year of forest bird call counts here on Stewart Island for SIRCET. The weather was kind, so I...

Back in 2023 I got a phone call from my mate Sav who is co-owner of Wrybill Birding Tours wondering if I would be keen on guiding in...

In November 2023 I headed away to lead my first of this season’s 21-day birding tour of NZ for Wrybill birding tours. On the journey to...

New Zealand tours, twitching, Subantarctic Islands, Antarctica, Auckland to Yokohama and birding in Japan! Latest news … well most of...

It’s been a couple of months since my last instalment and quite a bit has happened. In brief: SIRCET bird call counts I’ve been to the...

A quarter of the year gone already and April has arrived. Time definitely goes faster the older you get. Back at the beginning of 2022...

Perhaps this should read “get vaccinated, keep calm and carry on”. It’s been almost two years since the COVID-19 global pandemic changed...

Since my last update I have fallen slightly out of love with my website. I still love the design and overall appearance but the image...

Autumn has arrived to Stewart Island and with that comes colder nights and shorter days. A few days ago it also brought plane and ferry...

It’s almost a year since New Zealand went into full lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic - how the world has changed. New Zealand has...

Oh dear, what a long time since my latest news way back in April 2020. The world then was coming to grips with the enormity of COVID-19,...

The March 2020 WPO was a small expedition vessel with 10 staff of which I would be one; 12 Russian crew and 44 passengers...