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Our Guides
Speyside Wildlife's small team really is the secret of our success. Enthusiasm, expertise and a sense of fun - they’ve got it! We know, and you tell us over and over again, that Speyside Wildlife's guides and behind the scenes logistics just can't be beaten.

Roy Atkins

We’ve known Roy for over 25 years. He’s a great all-round naturalist and years’ of experience in the world of teaching have made him a great people person. Our guests travel with him again and again to far-flung places such as Costa Rica, Tanzania, the Pantanal and British Columbia. His sense of fun and knowledge of birds, plants and animals make him a very popular leader.
Roy
Simon Eaves

Simon is one of Speyside’s keenest birdwatchers. He knows as much as anyone about the wildlife of the Scottish Highlands and has a real interest in scarce birds, mammals and identification challenges - with him as your guide you’ll learn a huge amount about Speyside. That doesn’t stop him taking guests further afield for us however, to places such as Tarifa/Doñana and the Isles of Scilly.
Simon Eaves
Craig Round

Craig loves Speyside and the Scottish Islands and has led tours in Scotland for 25 years, taking our guests regularly to Mull, Shetland, Fair Isle and the Outer Hebrides. He has a great combination of field naturalist skills, outgoing personality and incredibly sharp eyes; along with an astonishing knowledge of birds, mammals and insects.
Craig Round
Darren Rees

Darren is a great birder and quite simply fun to be with. He has led countless groups for us in Arizona, Texas, California, South Africa and Namibia. This year he will be taking guests to Colorado, Finland and Norway, Namibia and Spitsbergen. He is also a talented artist: ‘Bird Impressions’ is his acclaimed collection of bird paintings and his latest book ‘Ice Bound’ follows his exploits in Antarctica’.
Darren Rees
Julian Sykes

A native Yorkshireman, Julian now divides his time between there and Spain, so is the perfect guide to take you on our Andujar, Extremadura and Pyrenees holidays. Not that this stops him from leading tours to British Columbia, NE India and Wrangel Island. He has a lifelong interest in wildlife and his friendly outgoing nature makes him a very popular guide and ideal member of the team.
Julian Sykes
Sally Nowell

Sally has travelled extensively to pursue her interest in wildlife watching, particularly birds, and has been based in Speyside for the last 23 years, so has an excellent knowledge of Highland wildlife. Sally is a keen walker and loves to try and get off the beaten track to discover the hidden corners of the Highlands. She co-leads a number of our Scottish holidays.
Sally Nowell
David Hull

David has a background in education and his roles as a wildlife guide and conservationist benefit from his enthusiasm for teaching and lifelong learning. He enjoys sharing his knowledge of Scottish plants, birds, mammals and butterflies during our Day Guides and he also guides our Evening Mammal Watching and Badger Photography experiences.
David Hull
Harris Brooker

Harris is a well-rounded naturalist with a wide interest in nature and a particular passion for wildlife, botany and astronomy. He is our Evening Mammal Hide guide, based near Aviemore and you will also find him supporting our Wildlife Identification Courses and Guided Day Out.
Harris Brooker
Ailie Brown

Ailie studied Zoology at Aberdeen University before interning at Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve as a Grazing warden. Ailie has a great interest in bird watching and identifying wildflowers and butterflies too! Ailie leads on the administration of our Guided Days Out as well as guiding our local guests in the Cairngorms during their days out.
Ailie Brown
Jonathan Willet

Jonathan has been working as a wildlife guide for 25 years and has always worked up in the Highlands and Islands. He loves the opportunity to share the majesty of the wonderful wildlife we have with our guests and of course the stories that go along with! He is an all-round naturalist but specialises in dragonflies and can usually fit them into a conversation somewhere.
Jonathan Willet

Our Behind the Scenes Team
Speyside Wildlife's small team really is the secret of our success. Enthusiasm, expertise and a sense of fun - they’ve got it! We know, and you tell us over and over again, that Speyside Wildlife's guides and behind the scenes logistics just can't be beaten.

Sally Dowden

Sally owns Speyside Wildlife and is still very much hands on in the organisation. Responsible for the smooth running and complex logistics of the business, she recently instigated a wildlife identification course, designed to fill the lack of ‘on the ground’ identification skills in the Cairngorms, which is run by two of our wildlife tour guides.
Sally Dowden
Lisa Gunn

LLisa has been with us for nearly 20 years and is responsible for all the accounting and systems management. Along with the daily accounting processes, company pensions, wages, budgets, contribution schedules and VAT, she organises the logistics of both our wildlife watching hides, all of which help to keep her busier than ever!
Lisa Gunn
Susanne McCafferty

Susanne has been with us for over seventeen years. Born and bred in Speyside, she deals with all aspects of a selection of our Scottish and UK holidays to ensure your holiday runs as smoothly as possible. Destinations include Orkney, the Outer Hebrides, the Isles of Scilly, Northumberland and Mull.
Susanne McCafferty
Tania Pedersen

Tania deals with all aspects of administration to ensure you have all the information you need for your holiday. She also organises all our overseas trips, dealing with the complex logistics of the long-haul destinations, while still finding time to manage the European destinations.
Tania Pedersen
Emma Paterson

Emma leads on our marketing and deals with our design work, website and organises our guides to deliver presentations to bird clubs, various exhibitions at birding fairs, plus our own events up and down the country. Her background in hospitality and marketing, means she is best placed to ensure we get to see as many of you as possible around the UK and also to handle our tailormade itineraries.
Cath Wright