Trips

We Want to Help the Birding Tourism Industry

January 25, 2021 by Corey 9 Comments

With a worldwide pandemic still raging the tourism industry has taken a massive hit. And while we here at 10,000 Birds aren’t terribly concerned about the cruise ship industry or the airlines we are greatly concerned about the impact that the lack of bird tourists has had on the many birding guides, eco-lodges, and birding tour companies. Mike and I talked it over and came up with a small idea that we hope helps to some degree. We are soliciting and accepting blog posts from any birding tour guides, eco-lodges, and birding tour companies out there and will run them through the entire month of February.

Share with us who you are, what you do, and why birders should hire you, pay you, and trust you to show them amazing examples of the avian kingdom. All of the bloggers on 10,000 Birds have greatly appreciated the services of dedicated birding guides or the joys of waking up in an amazing location with great birds coming to the feeders. We recognize the skill and hard work that goes into making sure that birders get great looks at great birds. For example, I never would have gotten that picture of a Lilac-breasted Roller in Uganda at the top of this post without the help of Herbert Byaruhanga. Help us help you by helping us convince the readers of 10,000 Birds to travel with you or to you. How? Read on!

If you own or work for a birding tour company, are an independent bird guide, or own or work for a birding-centered ecolodge, we want you to participate. Send a 500-word blog post to 10000birds AT gmail DOT com and/or 10000birdsblogger AT gmail DOT com that will convince people to give you money when this pandemic is over. You can include up to three images (sized 740 pixels across) and a single link. Put the blog post directly into the body of the email: we will not open attached documents.

Of course, we reserve the right to lightly edit any posts we receive and/or refuse to print anything that we don’t want to. Get us your materials as soon as possible. We want to get this underway on 1 February and if we end up overwhelmed with responses we may not be able to run everything we get that we want to publish.

We realize this is a small thing but we figure if enough people do enough small things we can make a big difference in the recovery of an industry near and dear to our hearts. Get writing!

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.