Birds & nature: our passion

To become a birding guide, and moreover to go on with a travel agency especialized in birding tours, you must be a nut on birds. Yes, we do love birds and we have been involved in birding, in diferent ways, all along our lives. This is a bit of our past, helping to explain our present:

Carles Oliver
Carles is a ten years experienced birding guide in Catalonia, Spain, Morocco and other European and African countries. He coursed Geography from the University of Barcelona and studied Fauna & Flora Management at the University of Cádiz. Since 1998 he has been involved in numerous studies of Catalan birdlife, especially raptor migration (1998-2008) and Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring in both the Pyrenees and Llobregat Delta (coordinated in Catalonia by Catalan Institute of Ornithology). In 2010 he founded Barcelona Birding Point.

“Birds have always fascinated and delighted me since childhood and I count myself extremely lucky to have been able to make them my career since I decided to give up the day job and make my living as a birding tour leader. I’m glad to share my passion about birds and all nature with new people and most of them become friends at the end of our birding time together.”

Sergi Sales
Professional birdwatcher for over 20 years. Sergi is Agronomist and Environmental Advisory. During many years was in charge of the ringing campaigns in different natural parks in Catalonia, including Ebro Delta. Nowadays is mainly studying steppe birds and bird communities related to wetlands. Former member of both Spanish & Catalan Rarities Commitees. Taking part in birdraces along with official Swarovsky Rarebirdspain Birdracing Team.

“Every day I’m more satisfied of living my biggest dream, to live my passion on birds as my profession. After these years I’m still enjoying every single minute I spend as a field birdwatcher”

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Personally, birds have fascinated and delighted me since childhood and I count myself lucky to have been able to make them my career since I decided to give up the day job and make my living as a birding tour leader. I set up Barcelona Birding Point to show people Catalan nature, where steppe, wetland and high mountain birds are still all common. A relaxed, native-guided holiday is what you can expect of Barcelona Birding Point.

I still remember my first lifer (I hardly knew what a lifer was at that time). It was a male Sardinian Warbler and it was singing in a scrub area 200 meters away from my parent’s home. In my family was not the habit to walk in nature but from my parent’s apartment there’s a wonderful view on the hills around Barcelona. Since I was ten I was collecting all books and reviews that I could find about animals and nature. And one day I decided to look for all those animals in the wild. I wanted to see some wolfs… so I decided to explore the hills beside my parent’s home on Sunday morning. I spent the morning walking around. I was sure I was gonna discover several new species of fauna in those mountains… and wolfs. But of course there are no wolfs in the hills around Barcelona so I only found several people walking along the paths. I begun to come back home frustrated and sad. But then I had a perfect sight of that male Sardinian Warbler scratching its feathers and then singing. Such a vision made me immediately fell fascinated about birds. I directly went to a library and bought my first identification guide book. And this was the beginning.

Why to be a bird guide?

Since I was 18 one of my passions has been alpinisme: Pyrenees, Alps, Atlas Mountains, Balkans…

I enjoy to know new people coming from different countries, to travel around the world and to watch birds in the wild. So becoming a birding guide and a wildlife tour leader is just a natural way of life and to enjoy it with other people whom loves and respect nature.

Thanks for reading these lines,

Carles Oliver