Best Wildlife Destinations (1 Viewer)

[jqmhelios]

Can't recommend the plastic, non-self-supporting UK bustards at all (BTW nearly all of Salisbury Plain is open access, just look out for red flags flying in range areas). Wouldn't dream of visiting the Rutland Water vanity project rather than naturally expanding Ospreys in Cumbria - although Osprey is very easy to see in Southern England in autumn anyway when locations such as Thorney Island and Poole Harbour are rock-solid for birds pausing on migration.

John

The great bustard is a native bird which was driven to extinction directly by humans and is doing extremely well. Vultures are still sustained in Spain. If this is what it takes to bring a native species back, so be it. Rutland Water is also not a vanity project. It is highly succesfull and the birds need to be reintroduced to return to their former range. If this stance is taken, bringing white-tailed eagles back was wrong, as was goshawks and capercaillies.

I do recommend the bustards and Rutland water. UK native species.

 

[dandsblair]

We did Nosy Be after a pretty extensive tour of Madagascar, we really enjoyed it as accommodation was excellent after some fairly basic stuff in other areas. Lemur's and reptiles were easy to see and snorkelling was pretty good but it was quite commercial. If you want real wilderness and better selection of birds and lemur I would suggest Ampijora in Madagascar.

Other places I would recommend are

Guyana, largely unspoiled rainforest and great wildlife and birds.
Sulawesi (possibly with Halmahera), excellent endemic birds and mammals.
Borneo - Danum Valley, Kinabatang and Mount Kinabalu, super wildlife through out.

 

[lgonz1008]

We did Nosy Be after a pretty extensive tour of Madagascar, we really enjoyed it as accommodation was excellent after some fairly basic stuff in other areas. Lemur's and reptiles were easy to see and snorkelling was pretty good but it was quite commercial. If you want real wilderness and better selection of birds and lemur I would suggest Ampijora in Madagascar.

Other places I would recommend are

Guyana, largely unspoiled rainforest and great wildlife and birds.
Sulawesi (possibly with Halmahera), excellent endemic birds and mammals.
Borneo - Danum Valley, Kinabatang and Mount Kinabalu, super wildlife through out.

For South America, I would double recommend Guyana if you want a wild experience, the country is 60% protected rainforests, underbirded and with low visitors yet it still holds populations of most of the megafauna from South America such as Jaguar, Giant Anteater and Giant Otters along with being the haven for some of the legendary birds of South America like Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock, Harpy Eagle, Sun Parakeet, Red Siskin and Rufous-winged Ground-Cuckoo (the last two can still be found in Venezuela, but I would not recommend anyone to visit this country anytime soon).

 

[John Cantelo]

Africa's 'megafauna' makes it a unique destination but if we're just talking birds then Hokkaido in winter is hard to beat. More parochially from a European perspective then, as has already been mentioned, Tarifa & the Strait of Gibraltar for raptor migration is a must-see birding experience.

 

[Mysticete]

If you are concerned about "natural", than the vast majority of the planet needs to be ruled out, given the massive megafaunal extinctions, with perhaps only Africa and India still having most of there megafauna.

I'd probably vote for the Masai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya, but then compared to some of you I haven't been a lot of places so I can't really compare.

 

[Lucas_]

What birds and mammal species did you see there?

We did Nosy Be after a pretty extensive tour of Madagascar, we really enjoyed it as accommodation was excellent after some fairly basic stuff in other areas. Lemur's and reptiles were easy to see and snorkelling was pretty good but it was quite commercial. If you want real wilderness and better selection of birds and lemur I would suggest Ampijora in Madagascar.

Other places I would recommend are

Guyana, largely unspoiled rainforest and great wildlife and birds.
Sulawesi (possibly with Halmahera), excellent endemic birds and mammals.
Borneo - Danum Valley, Kinabatang and Mount Kinabalu, super wildlife through out.