Birding in Northern Spain
Barcelona Birding Point is a wildlife specialist created with the aim of providing high quality guided wildlife and birding in Northern Spain tours from our base in Barcelona. Catalonia, and Barcelona, have become birding hotspots in the last few years. This is easy to understand by taking a look at a map.
The towering Pyrenees are only 75 minutes drive from the town, extensive traditional wheat fields and semi-deserts stretch immediately west of the city (hosting probably the best density of Little Bustards in Europe) and wetlands of all kind are found across the region, from the massive Ebro Delta on the coast to the really interesting ponds around Lleida.
Barcelona Birding Point offers a wide range of birding in Northern Spain tours, from half-day trips to four-day tours. It also includes a number of set departure or scheduled tours throughout the year. If you would prefer something a little more bespoke or tailor-made (from one to 20 days), these unique experiences can also easily be arranged.
Our Birding in Northern Spain tours will lead you through some of the best birding locations in the country where you can enjoy stunning views of the most sought-after species along with amazing scenery in areas of great natural beauty.
Carles Oliver and Sergi Sales have over 20 years’ experience working as professional birdwatchers and birding guides. In the past decade they have been leading tours not only in the Pyrenees and Spain but also in countries such as Morocco, Finland, Oman, Ethiopia, The Gambia, South Africa and Israel.
Both grew up as birdwatchers in Catalonia and enjoy the incredible biodiversity of the area they live in. Their philosophy is to have fun, enjoy the landscape, culture, history and wildlife in a relaxed but vivid way. Local crafts and cuisine have been elevated to art in Catalonia, in common with the rest of Spain, and should be a must for any visitor!
If coming to explore the wonderful birding spots you can find in Catalonia you will not only enjoy gorgeous specialities such as Lammergeier, Wallcreeper, Dupont’s Lark, Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, European Roller and Moustached Warbler but, in the proper season, incredible bird migration spectacles. These include good numbers of Curlew Sandpiper, White-winged Black Tern and most European Warblers, and also chances for scarcer species such as Great Snipe, Collared Flycatcher and Red-footed Falcon.
Barcelona Birding Point provides its customers with some of the best Northern Spain birdwatching experiences while playing an active role in wildlife preservation. For more information on these activities click on the “conservation” tab.
Barcelona Birding Point can also offer professional photo hides to secure exclusive images of the most iconic birdlife living in the Pyrenees.
Our Guides
CARLES OLIVER
Carles has more than 10 years’ experience as a birding guide, not only in Catalonia and Spain but also in Europe, tropical Africa and the Middle East. He studied Geography at the University of Barcelona and Fauna & Flora Management at the University of Cádiz. Since 1998 he has been involved in numerous studies of Catalan birdlife, particularly raptor migration (1998-2008) and Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring in both the Pyrenees and the Llobregat Delta. In 2010 he founded Barcelona Birding Point.
He is the main guide for scheduled and tailor-made tours running in Catalonia and he is also the lead for most of our main destinations including other parts of Spain, Morocco, Finland, Ethiopia, Uganda, South Africa, Oman, Mongolia and others.
SERGI SALES
A professional birdwatcher for more than 20 years, Sergi is an Agronomist and Environmental Advisory. For many years he was in charge of the ringing projects in many of the Natural Parks in Catalonia, including the Ebro Delta. Nowadays he mainly studies steppe birds and bird communities related to wetlands. He is a former member of both the Spanish & Catalan Rarities Committees. He takes part in bird races along with the official Swarovsky Rarebirdspain Birdracing team.
Sergi guides tailor-made tours in Catalonia and also tours in The Gambia, Bulgaria and Israel. He has been co-leading tours in other countries, including Oman & Finland, with Carles.
EUGENI CAPELLA
An avid birdwatcher and traveller, Eugeni’s passion for birds has taken him to five continents. He became a bird lover when he was 14, during a nature camp in the Ebro Delta Natural Park. Since then he has collaborated in a variety of projects related to the monitoring and preservation of birdlife in Catalonia and South America.
In 2019 he focused on being the first to record 1.000 species in Ecuador on a journey of only 75 days. His expedition exceeded expectations as 1.048 species of birds were identified and 901 were photographed. It became the expedition with the highest number of birds ever recorded in a single country with no use of internal flights. Now, his new challenge is to guide other birdwatchers through the New World birds, sharing his knowledge and passion.
He is in charge of tours covering Ecuador and will soon be taking the lead on tours in Colombia.
Government Certification
Barcelona Birding Point is a trademark of Carles Oliver, inscribed as an Active Tourism Company on the Tourism Registry held by the Catalan Government, with operator number GC4696.
Traveller Protection
Regarding Catalan, Spanish and European Laws, all bookings with Barcelona Birding Point are secured by €500.000 insurance to cover any potential insolvency or cessation of trading by the company. This same insurance covers all deposits and pre-payments made to Barcelona Birding Point.
Regarding European Laws, Barcelona Birding Point offers to all its clients travel and health insurance covering all basic eventualities throughout the contracted tour.
For birding tours in Northern Spain, Barcelona Birding Point can provide you with some fantastic experiences!
Barcelona Birding Point provides our customers with some of the best birding experiences possible while at the same time playing an active role in wildlife preservation. We are acutely aware that many areas of great importance from the point of view of wildlife preservation receive little or no official protection. Areas of cereal-growing steppes are a prime example, where there are often little local communities we work with to promote sustainable rural development. The aim is to minimise the impact on these sensitive areas while at the same time helping to raise awareness of the importance of native species and habitat conservation.
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