Welcome to the Probirder website! If you are planning to go birding in Eastern Europe you have come to the right place. In particular, if you are looking for a quality birding or wildlife-watching tour then we should be able to help as we run our own tours and guide groups for many top wildlife holiday companies. We also organise tours for ornithological societies, bird clubs, families and supply expert local guides for individual birders and self-formed parties. We are proud of the fact that we also regularly guide disabled birders. Probirder also runs tours focusing on butterflies and natural history in general. Probirder was created in the 1980s as an information source and guiding service by well-known birder and author Gerard Gorman. The Probirder website was the first of its kind for Eastern Europe.
Since our first birding tours in the late 1980s Probirder has regularly supported local conservation projects, made donations of funds & equipment & employed local people in the areas in which we guide tours. We are strongly committed to conservation in Eastern Europe. All Probirder guides are members of local and national conservation groups and are committed to conservation in their respective countries and indeed globally.
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Gerard Gorman - the original bird guide in Hungary |
Originally from the UK Gerard Gorman has lived in Hungary since the mid-1980s. He arrived in Budapest on an exchange scholarship and never left. A birdwatcher since childhood he quickly realised that Hungary was exceptional for birds, and so set about extensively exploring his adopted country. Soon after he started to make regular visits to neighbouring Romania, Czechoslovakia (later to be split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia), and then to Poland, Bulgaria and Croatia and the Baltic States - always with birds and wildlife as the focus. In a funny kind of way he is proud that during the "Communist" era he was arrested or detained in all but one of the above countries (dipped out in Poland on this one) usually for just looking like a binocular clad spy (do spies ever wear bins?) rather than actually being one. In the late 1980s (as soon as it was politically possible but actually a bit before!) he started to guide birders from Western Europe. Subsequently Gerard has spent more time in the field than any other bird guide in the region. He is now widely regarded as Eastern Europe's most experienced guide having designed, organised and led tours from the Baltic to the Black Sea, for birding and wildlife tour companies, clubs, societies and individuals from all over the world (he currently has well over 300 group tours under his belt).
When not guiding visitors Gerard's main ornithological interest is in woodpeckers, in particular Syrian Woodpecker and White-backed Woodpecker both of which he has spent several years studying. Subsequently he has published numerous articles on the European Picidae, and indeed on other birds & birding, in international journals and magazines. He is author of five books including A Guide to Birdwatching in Hungary (Corvina), Where To Watch Birds in Eastern Europe (Hamlyn) and The Birds of Hungary (Helm). His latest two books are WOODPECKERS OF EUROPE (Bruce Coleman Books) and BIRDING IN EASTERN EUROPE (Wildsounds, UK). In 1995 he was awarded the Eric Hoskings Trust Writing Bursary for a project entitled "Birds and Political Change in Eastern Europe". He is also an experienced lecturer having given illustrated talks on birds and birding at the British Birdwatching Fair, at other events and at various RSPB Members' Groups and Bird Clubs in the UK. Gerard is now a full-time birder, wildlife guide and author.
Please email any enquiries, comments or suggestions to Probirder