Soner Bekir is an enthusiastic birdwatcher and photographer, studied businessin Ege University. During his years as a student, he has established a bird watching club with some colleagues in his university, led student groups interested in watching and learning about birds and guided birdwatchers from abroad all over Turkey.

He enjoys to spend his time with birdwatchers and to show or discover new species of birds in Turkey. He has been birding since 1996, traveled Turkey extensively and has birding experience throughout Turkey. Soner has worked for many birding projects with NGOs to protect birds and their habitats. Being an avid explorer for so long, he is acquainted with Turkey's avifauna and habitats very well. He led the first Turkish-based birding tour in 2005 in Turkey, along with Cagan H. Sekercioglu, the first trip of its kind (results are in "www.turkishbirding.com" web site).

Soner has worked as a consultant for Tourism Development in Eastern Anatolia Project in 2005 and spent 3 months in Choruh Valley for the determination of fall migration routes. Furthermore, the same year, he worked as the bird photographer within the framework of the Baku-Tiflis-Ceyhan pipeline's Awareness Raising regarding Biodiversiy and Natural Resources project. He has great pleasure to show a bird to any keen birder, and he decided that he will continue to show birds and share his knowledge with the other birders and improve himself more and more.

He has much experience about eco-tourism, free diving, camping, trekking, rarest bird houses in Turkey and Greece. Now, he has been working for a freelance guide in every part of Turkey. He is also preparing long distance(7 to 22 days)twitching tours, which are including central, eastern, soutern east and Black-sea region and migration tours, included 3 bottleneck in Turkey. All of them are depending on clients birding list and requests.

 

Formerly editor of Sandgrouse (the journal of the Ornithological Society of the Middle East), Guy Kirwan is one of the most widely traveled ornithologists in Turkey, a country which he has visited regularly since 1990. He has a detailed and possibly second-to-none knowledge of where to find all of the country’s specialities and breeding birds.

Guy formerly worked with the now-defunct DHKD (Society for the Protection of Nature), the then BirdLife International partner in Turkey, on waterbird surveys and conservation, and played an important role in publishing the first comprehensive and accurate list of Important Bird Areas in the country. He regularly publishes papers on distribution and taxonomy of birds in Turkey and related areas, and has been a long-standing editor of the Turkey Bird Report. He is currently completing a book on the status, distribution and taxonomy of the country’s birds to be published by Christopher Helm (A. & C. Black) in 2006.

Guy leads both scheduled trips (see www.ornifolks.org) and privately organized groups. Either develop your own itinerary or just send a ‘wants’ list. Regular itineraries are also available. Trips are focused on finding globally threatened species and the species for which Turkey is most famed, and use comfortable, good-quality but not top-price accommodation. Small groups are a preferred. Tour reports available. Rates are sensible and competitive according to group size. Professional guidance and assistance with bookings, sites etc for your self-guided trip can also be arranged.

Hasan Safak lives in the Aladag Mountains, Central Turkey. For over 10 years, Hasan takes the guided tours into the mountains for people interested in birdwatching, walking or climbing. Having organized hundreds of tailor-made birding trips to the area, he knows the mountains extremely well and will take you directly to the areas for the mountain birds.

He also owns a small mountain pension just off the Cukurbag village for birders. Nearest city is Nigde. He has a tractor and a 4 wheel drive vehicle for the tours. He can take you to many birding areas in the Central Turkey. But, the most popular tour is the one that includes famous Caspian Snowcock in Aladag Mountains. The area is a superb home also to Crimson-winged Finch, Radde's Accentor, Alpine Acentor, Snowfinch, Shore Lark, Lammergeier, Wallcreeper, Golden Eagle, Griffon Vulture, Red-Fronted Serin and hundreds of other birds. The altitude is just under 5000 feet.

Rates include accomodation and is very reasonable. For further information or to discuss a trip contact hsafak@e-kolay.net