Simon Wates

Simon Wates is a UK-born birding guide based on the Sagres Peninsula at the southwestern tip of Portugal. He began birdwatching as an 11-year-old in Manchester and moved to southern Spain and Portugal in 1983, building a career around environmental studies and bird and flora surveys for organisations including the Lagos county council and Portuguese conservation NGOs SPEA and LPN, where he has led voluntary field trips since the late 1990s. Trading as Algarve Birdman, Simon offers personalised birding guiding across the Western Algarve, Sagres, and Baixo Alentejo, drawing on detailed local knowledge to find the harder-to-see specialities of one of Iberia's most rewarding migration corridors.