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Best Winter Wildlife Holidays for 2024/25
There are two ways to plan for a holiday in the long, dark months of the Northern Hemisphere winter. One is to escape completely and set forth for the tropics, or for the austral summer. The other is to embrace the winter and grab the opportunity to revel in the snow, the ice and the crisp cold. The latter can be surprisingly rewarding. For a start, not many people do this, but prefer to stay indoors, so you often have the winter landscape to yourself. Secondly, the winter months can sometimes render the wildlife tamer than usual, since there are more important things to worry about than people. Thirdly, some species are simply easier to see in winter, such as Wallcreepers and other montane species, or geese and cranes, which gather in large, noisy flocks. Finally, there are just some experiences which are better in winter, such as seeing the Northern Lights, watching Snow Monkeys or tracking Lynx.
In this article, we bring you some of our favourite tours to discover the delights of winter. All these breaks offer something very special at a quiet time of year!
Yellowstone National Park is a World Heritage Site and protects one of America’s finest landscapes, drawing visitors from around the world to appreciate its scenery, waterfalls, geysers and abundant wildlife. In winter, however, once the snow has fallen and the crowds have retreated, the park is returned to the resident wildlife. Against a spectacular snowy backdrop, herds of North American Bison huddle around the steaming geothermal pools for warmth. Moose, Rocky Mountain Elk and Bighorn Sheep venture down into the valleys, stalked by packs of Grey Wolves – Yellowstone’s most iconic inhabitants. This tour offers the opportunity to explore Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks at a time of year free from the tourist crowds. It focuses on the park’s abundant wildlife and spectacular landscapes and makes a special effort to find the Wolves.
Just inside the Arctic Circle, the remote town of Jokkmokk is set in the proverbial winter wonderland. The trees bend under a canopy of thick snow, each a marvel of sculpture under the dark sky. The covering is deep enough to take a husky ride and to try out snowshoes and do everything you have dreamed about during a damp British winter. And to cap it all, the town lies within a region with settled weather, where the chances of seeing the Northern Lights, the surreal green dancing glow in the sky, are very high. We will also spend a memorable “glamping” night further north in a tented camp, explore the forests and meet a Sami reindeer herder. Oh, and there are chances to see Elk (Moose), Siberian Tit, Black Grouse and Siberian Jay too!
Everybody loves watching birds at feeders, but nobody does feeding stations quite like the Swedes. On this 4-day break to the Black River Valley (Svartådalen) north of Stockholm, our walks among the vast forests, lakes and farmland will be punctuated by visits to these stations, where we should see some very special species at close quarters, including Grey-headed Woodpecker, Hawfinch, Nutcracker, Crested Tit and Siberian Jay! Of course, there is much else hereabouts, and we will follow forest tracks in search of Hazelhen and Black Grouse, check the roadsides for Pygmy or Hawk Owls, keep an eye out everywhere for flocks of gorgeous Waxwings and scan the skies for Rough-legged Buzzards and White-tailed Eagles. This is a place of quality species, and the late winter light in this unspoilt region can also be fantastic for photography. Click 'tour info' to register your interest.
A variety of exciting wild mammals live in the large forests and marshes of Poland. Some are elusive, but winter can offer the best opportunity for sightings, as hungry animals can be less wary of human beings. On this exciting tour we immerse ourselves in primeval Bialowieza Forest and Biebrza Marshes, and at least some of our time will be spent with expert guides who will teach us about tracks and signs of animals such as Wolf and Lynx. These are hard to find, but one night we will go out into a forest to listen for the Wolves howling. European Bison are huge and much easier to find, and are also given extra food, so we should encounter these. We should also see several deer species, including Elk (Moose) at Biebrza, plus Wild Boar, Eurasian Beaver and perhaps Pine Marten. Among the excellent birds possible are woodpeckers such as Three-toed and White-backed, plus Waxwings and Great Grey Shrike.
For many birders, Extremadura is a spring and summer location. In winter, however, many of the same birds are present, but the grass is shorter, there is little or no heat-haze and the light is often magical. Another advantage of coming at this time of the year is that many birds are in flocks, examples being two of the region’s special birds, Great and Little Bustards. These, along with Pin-tailed and Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Thekla and Calandra Larks and Black-winged Kites, are seen to advantage in the clear winter air. It is a generally good time for birds of prey, with Spanish Imperial Eagles displaying, Bonelli’s Eagles active and both Griffon and Black Vultures doing their usual carrion-hunting flights. Iberian Magpies, Spanish Sparrows, Black Wheatears and Choughs make up a delightful supporting cast. As the icing on the cake, Extremadura also boasts the spectacle of large numbers of wintering Common Cranes. These can be watched coming to roosts in flocks of up to 10,000, a sight and sound that will live long in the memory.
This tour starts in Inverness and finishes in Aberdeen, taking in a number of key winter sites for waders, wildfowl and wintering birds around the Moray and Aberdeenshire coasts. Wonderful coastal scenery will be enjoyed while we search for birds and other wildlife. Starting along the Moray coast, we will visit the bays and beaches where we can find a variety of sea ducks such as Eider, Wigeon and Scoter. Around the Loch of Strathbeg we will particularly be looking for the large flocks of geese that overwinter here, including lots of Pink-footed Geese. The dune systems may hold Twite or Stonechat and we'll keep an eye on the sheltered bays for divers. There are also haul outs of both Grey and Common Seal along the route.
One of the most exciting holiday destinations at any time of year, Japan in deep winter is simply magical. Just think of the famous “Snow Monkeys” (Japanese Macaques) enjoying bathing in the hot springs near Nagano, the rare, elegant Japanese Cranes dancing in the frozen fields of Hokkaido, or the gatherings of mighty Steller’s Sea Eagles on the pack ice of the Okhotsk Sea. Add in the huge Blakiston’s Fish Owl, flocks of Harlequin Ducks and other wildfowl, a wonderful range of Japanese specialities such as Varied Tit, Japanese Wagtail and Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, and you have the potential for a truly thrilling and memorable wildlife tour. Even without these spectacles, the culture, architecture, food and history of Japan is marvellously novel and compelling, and you even get to take a bullet train!
Norfolk offers some of the finest winter birdwatching in the UK, offering a unique combination of large, spectacular flocks, as well as scarce wintering species such as Shore Larks and Twite. During the weekend we are likely to see enormous flocks of waders such as Knot, while both morning and evening skeins of geese will fill the skies with their neat V-formations and wild, evocative calls. The north Norfolk coast is a superb area for rafts of seaducks and offshore divers and grebes, while unusual gulls, such as Glaucous or Iceland, often turn up. The extensive reedbeds will hold Marsh Harriers and Bearded Tits, while Norfolk’s premier raptor site may add Merlin, Hen Harrier and Barn and Short-eared Owl. The beaches here are wondrously lonely, bleak and windswept, ideal for Snow and Lapland Buntings and Shore Larks (rare birds this far south). All in all, north Norfolk offers just about everything – and a lot of everything, too!
Most of the holidays listed here embrace the delights of winter; this one is a little different, a visit to balmy northern Spain to escape the worst of the cold weather. But that’s exactly what our main targets for this holiday are also doing; they are migrants from harsh conditions. One, the Common Crane, is coming from higher latitudes, breeding across Fenno-Scandia, sometimes above the Arctic Circle. Here in northern Spain, it feeds on fields by day and comes to roost at the Laguna de Gallocanta, a giant saltpan near Zaragoza. On migration, between 30,000 and 50,000 can be seen each evening here, with many wintering, too. The other highlight, the Wallcreeper, comes from higher altitudes. It inhabits the highest peaks and towering cliffs of the Pyrenees in summer but descends much lower in winter. In the Sierra de Guara, a land of canyons, columns and pinnacles, many Wallcreepers winter at readily accessible altitudes. These are the stars, but on this tour you can also see Lammergeier, sandgrouse and Thekla Lark, among many others.
On this tour you don’t have to choose between red and rosé; you can have both. This short break offers a contrast between the rugged and scenic Alpilles hills where the Wallcreeper occurs, its wings as crimson as the finest wine, and the flat, but very bird-rich wetlands of the Camargue to the south, which are home to thousands of pink Greater Flamingoes. The Wallcreeper is exceptionally difficult to find in its high-altitude summer home, but it retreats downhill in winter and can be found at Les-Baux-des-Alpilles, not far from our hotel, as well as the highly scenic Roman marvel of Pont du Gard, which we will also visit. In the hills we should be able to add Blue Rock Thrush, Crag Martin, Alpine Accentor and, if we’re lucky, raptors such as Golden Eagle. The Camargue will be bursting with waterbirds such as Common Cranes, Glossy Ibises, Black-necked Grebes and Slender-billed Gulls, as well as hundreds of other waders and wildfowl.
Throughout the deep winter months, the Somerset Levels plays host to one of the greatest wildlife spectacles in Britain, the gathering of a million Starlings which roost in the vast reedbeds around the Avalon Marshes. Nobody should allow themselves to miss this incredible sight and sound, which takes place both at dusk and dawn; the swirling of the masses makes moving pictures in the sky, while the wingbeats of the birds collectively add a dramatic roaring sound. Unforgettable though this is, there is a lot more to see in the Levels in winter: huge numbers of ducks and waders (mainly Lapwing and Golden Plover), Bitterns, Cranes, egrets including Great and Cattle, plus Barn Owls, Marsh Harriers and Otters, to name some of the delights. Based in the attractive cathedral city of Wells, this short break is a midwinter must.
If you’ve followed Autumnwatch or Winterwatch in recent years, you will know all about the Cairngorms, so why not come up to see some of the iconic wildlife yourself? This part of Scotland is home to Red Deer, Mountain Hare, Pine Marten and Red Squirrel among other mammals, and the birds are just as impressive, with Golden Eagles, Ptarmigan, Black Grouse, Crested Tit and a bewildering set of Crossbills all featuring. This tour takes in the forests, mountains and rivers of the Cairngorms, as well as the neighbouring coast near Inverness, where Bottlenose Dolphins are often easy to see and the seaduck include Eider, Long-tailed Duck and both species of scoter. We will visit Strathdearn (Findhorn Valley) for its Mountain Hares, Red Grouse, Red Deer and Golden Eagles, the Cairngorm ski lift for Snow Buntings, and the Insh Marshes for flocks of wild geese and other wildfowl. In this part of Scotland there is something exciting around every corner!
