Birding & Bird Photography tour in Bangalore

I visted Bengaluru for two weeks in November 2022 for work, and I was keen to photograph as many Indian birds as possible at the weekend. I found Rajneesh's tour offering on TripAdvisor, and made contact with him. We arranged everything in advance, communication was excellent throughout. On the day, we were out before dawn, and Rajneesh took me to several different locations throughout the day, all very rich in variety and density of birdlife. Rajneesh is a highly experienced naturalist and field-guide, and he has an excellent eye for hidden birds, many times he pointed out something special that I hadn't even noticed (e.g. perched Shikra, Common Buzzard, Brown Shrike, Black-headed Cuckooshrike). Highly recommended.

Having been to Bangalore for business a number of times, I was keen to experience what birdlife existed in the area. I contacted Rajneesh via his Birding website and we arranged a day out. I have to say I was very impressed with the variety of habitats and the birds we saw on a fairly grey (initially) Sunday in October. Rajneesh was an excellent companion with a huge local and wider knowledge of birds and their environments. We had a full day out - pretty much dawn to dusk and I was very pleased to have had the opportunity to meet Rajneesh and see more of the Bangalore region, for example the Nandi Hills, than I had before. We spotted over 100 species...100% down to Rajneesh. If you enjoy birding, photography and good company...spend a day with Rajneesh.

As a passionate wildlife photographer with an interest in bird photography I did search the internet to find a guide for the area around Bangalore. Finally I received a recommendation for Rajneesh Suvarna, with whom I did explore the birdlife in Bangalore during a Saturday . We did explore Nandi Hill, the surroundings of Nandi Hill and Jakkur Lake in a 12 hour tour. In total we did see some 74 different species that day, from which I could take for roughly half of them more than decent images. I was extremely satisfied with this outcome. Raj was an excellent guide, on of the best I did ever use. Communication ahead of the tour went very well, a day before the tour, pick up time was confirmed and I did receive as well some recommendations for clothing. Even for a few minutes delay with the pick up in the early morning, I was immediately informed. Raj does have an enormous know how about birds and other animals, for all species he could as well share with me the English names. Not only that he did help me with all the identification, at the end of the day I did receive a list with all spotted species via eBirds. His spotting skill are unbelievable. Raj was as well very patient with me, especially when I was not able to spot the birds as fast, as he did. During the day, I was offered a home made breakfast, and we did have a lunch break in a nice typical Indian restaurant. Overall I did very much enjoy the day with Raj. I would not hesitate one second to recommend him as guide. I’m already considering to come back