ABOUT
About Let’s Go Birding South Africa
Let’s Go Birding South Africa is a leading professional birding tour Company for local and international birding enthusiasts. We cater for both small groups and private individuals. We offer custom design birding-tour packages to fit your budget, dream birding vacation or short visit to the Western Cape or South Africa. We emphasize & strive to give you a worry-free, safe, well-planned birding tour with limited travel to maximize your experience. Regarding where you at on your birding journey, LGB caters for all kinds of birders including, the novice birder, listers, twitchers and also the casual birder. You can also learn more about the different bird species, ask questions about identification, birding equipment and so much more…. by joining our very interactive Let’s Go Birding Community Facebook Group.
We can help… we custom design your trip to reach your target birds!!
“Your Target Birds, Our Strength”
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Meet your Guide and Founder
Jacques Giliomee is a registered bird guide based in Cape Town, qualified from Cape Town, and South Africa. Kruger, KZN among others as well as our local birding includes the West Coast, Overberg and Garden Route area. He is experienced and passionate about birds & birding, is also the creator and admin of the Let’s go Birding South Africa Facebook group and is well known for his Bird Identification Illustrations on the group and helping the community and beginner birders to Id their photographed birds. He has built up a wealth of experience and secret birding hotspots over the last few years and has a reputation for “hunting” target birds for his local clients and international twitchers. Jacques would most likely be able to find any bird for a life list in the abovementioned areas. Jacques has trained himself out in the field, to give you the best birding adventure & experience, he will find you what you really want to see, by hearing what you cannot and seeing what you don’t. He is also well connected and likes to collaborate with other bird guides, should you be travelling to any other provinces within South Africa.
Let’s Go Birding
Day
Trips
Day Trips within the Western Cape for Individuals or Groups of up to 8 people
Let’s Go Birding
3-5
Day Trips
Customizable 3 – 5 Day Trips in and around the Western Cape, depending on your bird species lists
Let’s Go Birding
Learn
Birds
Learn more about birds, birding and bird photography by joining the LGB Community Group on Facebook
What Clients Are Saying
My wife and I booked a tour of Cape Town and the nearby wine country. We told the tour operator we would like a driver/guide who was also a birder. We got more than we expected. Jacques Giliomee met us at the airport to transport us to our hotel. After a layover day, Jacques and his wife Rene’ collected us for a whirlwind tour of the area. Little did we know, or expect, our “driver” was a card-carrying bird guide and his wife a registered cultural guide. They were simply great company and experts in their respective fields. Jacques knew all the birding hotspots and could identify birds at great distance by sight, call, silhouette and jizz. He worked hard to get us into endemic species (Cape Rock Jumper, Victorin’s Warbler and Blue Crane to name a few), and provided informative and interesting ecological commentary. If there was a 6th degree black belt for birding, he would have it! To add frosting to the cake, Jacques and Rene’ provided a surprise champagne and hors d’ oeuvres table spread on the top of Signal Hill for our 30thanniversary. This was indeed above and beyond their duties, which pretty much describes their work ethic and focus on the client. Without reservation we recommend Jacques as a bird guide. If you want to get a more rounded West Cape experience, hire Rene’ too.
Tim and Patty
Rigby, Idaho
USA
This was our first time birding in South Africa and fortunately we found ‘Let’s Go Birding’ to organize a 10-day trip for us. Jacques arranged everything so well and so smoothly. Accommodations were perfect, some could be of the most luxurious birders had ever experienced. Delicious food, good restaurants with nice atmosphere were recommended every day.
Jacques is an expert birdleader with excellent eyes, excellent ears for birds, especially when it comes to bird calls. He is very polite, calm and absolutely patient. His driving was more than perfect. He managed to carefully drive the van through a rough 4WD road, up steep mountains until we finally saw the Cape Rockjumper!
Thank you, Jacques, for the memorable experiences. We do hope to return to South Africa and join again your ‘Let’s Go Birding’ trip in the near future
I have been birding with Jacques in the Let’s Go Birding group for the last month or so. I joined because I have been a long-term admirer of his truly superb bird photography, his many Facebook birding posts, plus his very helpful annotated bird ID pictures. I have found him an excellent bird guide, being both knowledgeable and enthusiastic.
He knows which spots to go to find different bird species, and liaises well with local experts. He is also very patient, encouraging and helpful with relative novices. He allows plenty of time to get good observations and photos. I wish him all the best in his chosen goal of becoming a professional bird guide.
For the first time visiting South Africa, I had a long list of target species and only a small window of time to see them. In the months leading up to my trip, Jacques helped me to decide which birds were reasonable to seek out and which ones were unrealistic. Then he put together a custom 2-day itinerary to help maximize the number of species seen. By the time my girlfriend and I arrived in Cape Town, I felt a strong rapport with Jacques and knew that we were on the same page.
I was not disappointed: not only did Jacques take me to some of the most beautiful places in the region, we also saw nearly every bird on my list and got some of the best bird photos of my life! Jacques sure knows his local birds, and entertained us with interesting facts about all the local wildlife and culture. He also had great choices for venues when we stopped for lunch. Jacques showed up on time, made us feel safe and welcome for the duration of our birding experience, and returned us to our accommodation at a reasonable time as well. I can’t wait to return to South Africa to go birding with Jacques again.
My “Let’s Go Birding” ondervinding saam met Jacques was alles net positief. Hy het n wonderlike gawe om van beginners tot senior burgers met die grootste geduld leiding te gee om verskillende voël spesies te indentifiseer, om hulle in te lig oor waarna n mens moet kyk, asook die groep te leer oor hul gedrag, eetgewoontes, nesbou tegnieke en waar om na watter voëlsoorte te soek. Tydens elke geleentheid was hy goed voorbereid en het in beide Afrikaans en Engels leiding gegee, en ek het nooit teleurgesteld huis toe gegaan nie, met n paar nuwe spesies afgemerk op my lysie.
“We had such a fantastic time with Jacques at the Strandfontein Sewage Works! As an American tourist, I asked him about seeing flamingos and the greater white pelican, and that’s exactly what we saw! It was truly amazing. There was so much beautiful bird life and in just a short hour or two we were able to identify over 30 species, including African marsh harriers, so many cool ducks, and likely thousands of hadeda ibises. He even stopped at a spot on the way to Strandfontein to show us sparrowhawks. I’m so appreciative of Jacques and his willingness to take us out that morning, and if I’m ever back in South Africa, I know who to call 🙂 “