About Bellbird Tours
Bellbird Tours
Peter Waanders established Bellbird Birding Tours in 2013. It is the successor to Southern Birding Services, which Peter established in 2005, which started by offering bird guiding in South Australia. Due to demand Bellbird Birding Tours was created to offer a wide range of top quality, small group birding tours throughout Australia and beyond, led by passionate, experienced and professional local guides. Browse our website to see what’s on offer!
Bellbird Tours Team
Peter has been conducting professional bird guiding trips since 2002 and has pioneered many off-the-beaten track birding destinations. To cope with the increasing demand, the Bellbird team has grown to 15 guides and 4 office staff. All our guides are fully qualified birding guides with current Senior First Aid certificates and Advanced 4WD vehicle training. Your safety is important and on all our trips a satellite phone, GPS and up-to-date first aid gear is carried. Our efficient office team arranges all aspects of our tours and is on stand-by to assist with any issues that may arise. Scroll down to meet our team!
Peter Waanders – founder and owner
Peter has been an avid birdwatcher since age 10. Born and raised in the Netherlands, Peter obtained a B Sc degree in Environmental Management and has worked in National Park management planning in the Czech Republic, ecological research in the Netherlands and Australia, and natural resource management planning and environmental project management in Australia.
Peter has travelled extensively to over 50 countries all around the world in pursuit of his main interests: birdwatching and nature photography. His life list of bird species currently totals almost 5,500 and his collection of digital images exceeds 100,000. In 1997 Peter moved permanently to Australia and was employed by a semi-government catchment management authority to manage large environmental projects with a focus on floodplains, wetlands and biodiversity. Peter started conducting professional bird guiding trips in 2002 and is now full-time managing a very successful bird guiding and tour business, Bellbird Tours, showing birders the unique, rare or hard-to-find species of Australia and beyond.
Michael Greenshields – co-owner
Michael Greenshields spent his childhood in rural South Australia and spent family holidays in all areas of regional and outback Australia. He now loves to take his young family around Australia instilling the same interest in nature into his children. His passion for the flora and fauna of Australia is evident to everyone.
His introduction to birding came at age 19 when visiting a local wetland and he found a Black Fronted Dotterel pretending to be injured to protect its nest, his interest was immediately piqued and his obsession has grown ever since.
He was fortunate enough that early in his career as a chef he got positions that took him around Australia and further afield to New Zealand and Uganda where he discovered the pleasures of international birding. Birding has now taken him to many countries across 4 continents.
Anyone who asks, will be informed that he has the greatest job in the world, currently guiding full-time for Bellbird Tours and is particularly passionate about taking people to the far-flung, hard to reach, rarely birded areas of Australia.
His personal highlights from guiding with Bellbird include a flock of Princess Parrots in the sand dunes near Uluru and finding 3 separate Grasswren species in a single day more than once!
Bellbird’s Bird Guides
Martin Allen
A bird keeper at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Martin has been an avid birder for over 20 years and particularly enjoys showing our guests the birds of the east coast and outback.
Mike Barrow
Based in Sydney, Mike has been a professional guide for decades. His knowledge extends from his local patch to birds further afield in NSW and the Outback.
Donna Belder
A conservation ecologist, Donna has a PhD in woodland birds and is a fully-licensed ringer. She is also enthusiastic about plants, wildlife and other nature while in the field.
Tim Dolby
Tim has lectured at major universities, and authored several best-selling bird books. Tim has birded and guided for many years across Australia and shares a wealth of knowledge with birders.
Tim Field
Tim has worked in threatened bird programs and is an expert in the river Murray environment. He has extensive bird guiding expertise in South Australia and particularly Kangaroo Island.
Steve Grainger
Steve has 20+ years’ guiding experience and a lifetime of knowledge of the Australian bush. His favourite areas are the Queensland tropical regions.
Helga Kieskamp
An environmental contractor, Helga’s projects include bird surveys, bird workshops and studying endangered birds. She has been guiding for us since 2011.
Brett Kingston
Melbourne based, Brett shares a lifelong passion for birding with his family since childhood and takes great joy in helping others ID birds in Victoria and across the country.
David Kowalick
An outdoors enthusiast since a child, David enjoys and has great experience guiding across Australia having lived, worked and birded around the country for decades.
Elliot Leach
Elliot Leach is an enthusiastic and skilful birder and ecologist based in Brisbane who guides and leads our tours in Queensland.
Louis Masarei
Louis is a zoologist focusing on birdlife. He has extensive knowledge and field expertise in Western Australia and the Outback.
Greg McLachlan
A Sydney birder, Greg is knowledgeable, experienced and skillful in finding and ID’ing birds in the wider Sydney area for our clients.
Rob Morris
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Steve Potter
An avid birder, keen surfer, photographer and traveller, Steve has been guiding for us since 2013 and leads many of our Australian and international tours.
Ashwin Rudder
Ashwin guides throughout Australia. An unparalleled knowledge of the birds and an excellent ear, he ensures nothing is overlooked on tours.
Jen Williams
Jen has a love for nature and a degree in Conservation. Based in Cairns, she is passionate about showing visitors the beauty of Queensland’s birds and further afield throughout Australia.
Bellbird’s Office Team
Debra Rein-Tourenq
Linda Hogan
Administration & Logistics
Nicole Field
Administration
Anthony Cirilo
Website Development & Maintenance