Tour Leaders

Brydon Thomason

A born and bred Shetlander, Brydon grew up on a croft on the beautiful island of Fetlar. He gained an intimate knowledge of the islands’ natural surroundings and their abundant wildlife, both onshore and in the marine environment. His interest in nature, especially birds and otters, was greatly encouraged from an early age, not only by the late Bobby Tulloch, but by the many RSPB wardens based on the island over the years.

His keen interest soon developed into life-long passion and he is now one of Shetland’s most experienced birders and a committee member of both the Shetland rarities committee and Shetland bird club. He is a keen photographer and also writes a monthly wildlife column for a local magazine.  His passion for wildlife has taken him on trips to Antarctica, North and South America, Asia and Africa.

Brydon is rightly proud of Shetland and its wildlife and is never happier than when sharing his interests and enthusiasm with others. His warm personality and gentle humor will ensure your trip will be an enjoyable one. So often, an experienced guide with local insight is the difference between a good trip and a really special one – and making that difference is something that Brydon sees as a highlight of his job!

Birding and otter studying since the age of 10, Brydon has over 20 years experience on Shetland’s natural history.

Vaila Thomason

Vaila, a local lass, hails from the island of Unst. She married Brydon in 2008 on the beach in Fetlar, where they now live with their son Casey. Vaila feels the stunning surroundings and incredible wildlife along with her family certainly influenced her early years; she studied biology at Edinburgh University and graduated with an Honours degree in Zoology in 2002. She has travelled extensively, whilst at university she went to Indonesia as a conservation volunteer and took part in “Reef Check” a global survey of coral reef conditions and after university Vaila took her “obligatory” year out, taking in Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, all the while searching out the local wildlife highlights from swimming with Manatees in Florida to swimming with whale sharks in Australia.

In 2005, a lifelong ambition to see penguins and polar bears (not at the same time) was achieved when she took an enviable job aboard the RV Akademic Ioffe taking tourists to the polar regions. Her first season was spent in the Canadian Arctic, sailing between Baffin Island and Greenland, followed by a season in the Antarctic, South America, the Falklands and South Georgia, an experience she will never forget.

Roger Riddington

Roger Riddington lives with his wife Agnes in the south part of Mainland Shetland. His full time job, as editor of the journal British Birds, keeps him indoors too much, but the ability to work from home overlooking the famous Pool of Virkie is a major recompense. Following a summer spent in 1992, as seabird officer at Fair Isle Bird Observatory he was truly hooked and made a full-time move to Shetland in March 1994. Following four years as the warden on Fair Isle he worked for three years as manager of Shetland Biological Records Centre, before taking up his post with British Birds. He has been birding for over 30 years, and his main interests are seabirds and migration – perfect for a Shetland Nature Guide! He has guided many trips in Shetland, and further afield, including Galapagos, and is well travelled in Europe and beyond.

Martin Garner

Described by Dominic Mitchell as ‘requiring excitement management’, Martin has been married to Sharon for 20 years and they have 2 teenage daughters, Emily and Abigail. He has been birding since he was 11 years old (a long time ago!), he has always been interested in thinking outside the box, an approach to life which has lead him to finding the first Caspian Gulls in Britain. He is currently a member of the British Birds Rarities Committee, an identification consultant for Birding World magazine and formerly identification consultant for BWPi. He is the director of the Free Spirit Trust, a Christian Charity involved in bringing transformation to tough situations in Sheffield and Rwanda as well as coaching leaders in mission and in the business community. He has published many papers on identification and his first full book ‘Frontiers in Birding’ has just sold out. He loves wild places, new discoveries and trying to inspire other people to reach their full potential in life.

Gary Bell

Gary’s passion for nature started at a young age, and by the age of 13 he recalls finding his first pod of Killer Whales while seawatching on a family holiday on the west coast of Scotland, a memory as vivid now as it was over 30 years ago.  Gary originally moved to Shetland in 1983 and spent most of the remainder of the 1980s on the islands. Leaving to attend college and university in his home town of Edinburgh, Gary was the instigator and editor of the Lothian Bird Report and has served on committees for the Scottish Ornithologists Club, as well being a group leader for them and the RSPB. He has also undertaken ornithological survey work both professionally and voluntarily for the RSPB, BTO and SNH.  Employed as an interpretive guide for nearly ten years with The City Of Edinburgh Council, Gary has a rare ability to communicate with a wide audience.

Helen Moncrieff

Shetlander Helen Moncrieff grew up in the South Mainland of Shetland where she now lives and works as RSPB Scotland’s South Shetland Warden and Education Coordinator. Helen proudly feels fortunate to have been brought up with an appreciation for the ways of Shetlands nature and our relationship with it. It was during her time volunteering to help with the Braer oil spill clean up operation that she decided that working in conservation was to be her future. Graduating with a University of East Anglia BSc in Conservation Management from Otley College in Suffolk she then spent a short while in Cape May NJ but like so many Shetlanders was drawn back to the magic of the isles.  After working as a warden for the RSPB she then spent a two years working as the Biodiversity Action Plan Officer before beginning her current post. Helen’s knowledge, passion and enthusiasm for the isles has led her to feature in and assist with wildlife documentaries about Shetland, she is also a very active committee member and Secretary for the Shetland Bird Club. Along with her passion for the natural world Helen is also a keen diver.

Micky Maher

Micky is a tour leader and ecologist based in Newcastle-upon Tyne. He spent ten years living on Shetland where he was the county bird recorder between 2003 and 2007, he was also the secretary for the islands records committee and an active member of the Sea Mammal group. Over the passed 18 years Micky has worked for Britain’s leading conservation organisations on various projects and a former warden of Noss National Nature Reserve and North Isles ranger for the Shetland Amenity Trust. Micky has always been fascinated by the natural world and his diverse knowledge ranges from birds, cetaceans, botany and bees! He loves foreign travel and has embarked on natural history adventures on five continents including long-term studies of passerines, seabirds and turtles in the Seychelles.  Micky remembers leading his first ever group at the age of 17 and says the proudest moment in his life so far was being best man for Brydon and Vaila at their wedding in 2008!

Rory Tallack

Rory Tallack has lived in Shetland since the age of 8, enabling him to build up an intimate knowledge of the islands.   A relative latecomer to birding, he became hooked during his two seasons working as Ranger at the Fair Isle Bird Observatory.  Such an unrivaled introduction to birding, coupled with mentoring from step father Roger Riddington, soon fueled his knowledge and passion for birds. Rory has travelled extensively in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australasia but has finally settled in Unst, the most northerly of the Shetland Isles.  Here he holds the post of North Shetland Ranger, a job which has allowed his interest in Shetland’s diverse natural heritage to extend far beyond his love of birds, with botany in particular coming a close second.

Rob Fray

Rob originates from Leicester, where he was, amongst other things, County Bird Recorder and Chairman of the Leicestershire and Rutland Ornithological Society. He first visited Shetland in 1986 and after many years visiting the islands became a permanent resident in 2007. He is now part of the editorial team that writes the Shetland Bird Report and is jointly responsible for maintaining the Nature in Shetland website.

Rob won the national ‘Young Ornithologist of the Year’ competition (organised by the junior section of the RSPB) in both 1984 and 1985, and since then has been employed in a variety of professional and voluntary capacities relating to wildlife, including recent spells with the RSPB and the Shetland Biological Records Centre. He has been a wildlife tour guide since 2006.

One of his main interests is writing, and Rob has recently written ‘Where to watch birds in the East Midlands’ and ‘The Birds of Leicestershire and Rutland’, both published by A & C Black/Helm. His passion for wildlife is not just restricted to birds, with butterflies, dragonflies and especially moths being particular interests.

Rob is widely travelled, and has visited South and North America, the Caribbean, Asia and large parts of Europe in search of birds and other wildlife.

Paul French

Paul’s introduction to Shetland came with YOC trips to Fair Isle in the summers of 1995 and 1996. Quickly becoming hooked with the heady mix of stunning scenery and seabirds, he vowed to return as assistant warden on Fair Isle as soon as he was old enough. This ambition came to fruition during the seasons of 2001 and 2002. After two successful seasons on Fair Isle he spent two seasons as RSPB Assistant Warden on Fetlar, followed by a season at Sumburgh Head.  He is currently a warden of the RSPB’s Lincolnshire Wash reserves.  Paul is a member of both the Lincolnshire and British Birds rarities committees and has published articles on identification in both Brithish Birds and Birding World. His passion for birds and wildlife has taken him to thirteen countries on four continents.

Andy Foote

Andy has been involved in research on cetaceans for the past decade. He studied killer whale vocal behaviour for his Masters at the University of Durham between 2002 and 2005. Andy is currently finishing up his PhD on the ecology of killer whales in the Northeast Atlantic at the University of Aberdeen and is the co-founder of the North Atlantic Killer Whale ID project. This work has included cataloguing over 100 individual whales through photo-identification around Scotland. This project was awarded a Shetland Environment Award in 2008. Andy has worked on a number of other marine mammals species such as minke whales, bottlenose dolphins, common dolphins, grey seals, harbour seals and harbour porpoise and in such diverse locations as the Aleutian and Pribalof Islands, Vancouver Island, Scotland, Norway, Greece and Wales. Andy’s work has been published in several high profile scientific journals including Nature, Biology Letters, Molecular Ecology and Evolutionary Ecology and has been covered by the media on the BBC, CBC, in the Times, New York Times, Telegraph and the Guardian.

Volker Deecke

Volker was born in Germany and raised in Austria, but has lived most of his life abroad. He started studying biology in Berlin, but soon transferred to Vancouver where he completed a masters degree investigating the evolution of vocal dialects in resident (fish-eating) killer whales. He received his doctorate from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland focused on the vocal behaviour of transient (mammal-eating) killer whales in British Columbia and Alaska and the response of harbour seals to killer whale calls. After post-doctoral research at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Deecke returned to St. Andrews where he is currently a research fellow at the Sea Mammal Research Unit studying the behaviour of killer whales in Scottish waters. Volker’s speciality is underwater acoustics and he has all the technological gadgets tfor eavesdropping on the underwater communications of whales, dolphins and seals. In addition, Volker is intersted in all aspects of animal behaviour and even knows a thing or two about plants.