It’s just a ripple in the sand; a wavy, serpentine line, embroidered on the dune face, as though a child has traced the pattern with a stick. Except there are no children’s tracks here — or, indeed, tracks of any kind. And the line, about eight metres long, is fading as we watch, the wind erasing its contours as surely as an etch-a-sketch drawing.

2026 marks a major milestone for Naturetrek as we celebrate our 40th anniversary. Four decades have passed since David and Maryanne Mills produced Naturetrek’s first brochure from a small Berber house in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains and, to celebrate the occasion, 69 Naturetrek clients gathered in Poole to board the Ocean Nova for a special voyage around some of the wildest corners of the British Isles.

In this article we share a gallery of wildlife images taken by tour leader Oliver Smart on our Costa Rica - A Wildlife Photography Tour holiday.

Often overlooked in favour of Europe’s better‑known wildlife destinations, the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – reward the curious naturalist with a rich blend of forests, wetlands and coastline and a remarkably intact natural heritage...

Along the rugged coastline of British Columbia, dense temperate rainforest meets a labyrinth of inlets, islands and open ocean, creating one of the richest marine ecosystems in North America...