Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebecca Anthony.
Hi Rebecca, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Myself, Rebecca Anthony, and Gallus Quigley dreamed up an idea of starting a birding tour company back in 2017. Of course, like any small business it was hard work and sacrifice in the beginning, but the allure of getting to do our favorite hobby as a profession kept pushing us along.
We both have wildlife degrees and professional backgrounds in wildlife research. We got our start birding in the northeast. Myself at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, and Gallus at the Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania. For us both, birds have been a lifelong passion.
Our tours have taken us around the world and all over the state of Florida looking for rare and elusive bird species to record or photograph. We know there are lots of birding tour companies all over the planet, but we try to set ourselves apart from them by doing things a little different. We focus heavily on photography and up close encounters, selecting quality memories over quantity of species seen. We also limit our group size to 2-6 people per tour so that everyone gets great looks and great photos of the birds.
Recently, I have been offering a Swallow-tailed Kite field trip and photography session, along with Captain John otherwise known as The Airboat Photographer. We rented a pontoon boat, set up our cameras, and waited for the kites to take flight in the morning when they begin their day of hunting. We were even given a rehabilitated Swallow-tailed Kite to release into the flock, courtesy of the Avian Reconditioning Center of Apopka.
Our regular niche caters to visitors to the Orlando area who are looking for a private tour and target species of birds they need to add to their life lists. Many people are interested in seeing our rare Florida specialties, such as the threatened Florida Scrub-Jay and Red-cockaded Woodpecker, or the endangered Snail Kite. Others are more interested in wildlife like manatees, alligators, and butterflies. Or perhaps a nice pontoon boat ride through the Dora Canal. We’ll cater to everyone’s best day out enjoying the nature that Central Florida has to offer.
Currently Gallus works full time for Lake County Parks & Trails, while I am working as a mate and working towards my captains license for Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures on Lake Tohopekaliga in Osceola County. Gallus runs tours on Sundays, while I take the rest. We recently brought on a 3rd tour guide, Christian Newton, into our company as well. He’s a top birder in Osceola county and the state of Florida and can run tours on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesdays.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
We definitely struggled during the time of covid. We had several tours lined up to go to Denmark, France, and the Austrian alps that year, that unfortunately did not get to happen. I didn’t have any tour requests for an entire 6 month period. At the time, Archaeopteryx Birding and Nature Tours was my only job. Eventually, I got into the mindset of going out scouting and looking for places that I could find rare birds and working on my photography. I also reached out to other tour guides all over the world, so that we’d have a partnership in countries we’d never been to. Of course, it helps other countries when we bring tourism to them, and they help us by knowing where to find the birds on their own home area. I tried to use that time to help us along the way and grow once travel opened up again.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Each year, we offer a 5 day-10 day tour in the springtime to the Everglades National Park, Miami, the Florida Keys, and the Dry Tortugas too look for migrating songbirds, the sea bird colonies of the Dry Tortugas, and some of the South Florida/Caribbean specialties. What better way to experience a spring migration than to see it in our own state?
Even though our company is a for-profit business, we try to give back to the birding community, and to birds in general. We donate to the Audubon society and various research organizations. We also donate our time by volunteering for the Christmas bird counts (a citizen science project designed to count birds in your local area each year around the holidays) and try to take the most ethical approach to bird photography possible while in the field. I have even taken in unwanted pet birds that have no home.
My hope is that by taking people out on tours and by spreading my knowledge of birds and of the natural world, if I can spark that love of nature in a few other people along the way, the world might be a little bit better place.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
My best advice is to get out and start exploring and learning about the world around you. There are a couple of different apps like Seek and iNaturalist. Those are great places to start. An inexpensive pair of binoculars or a camera are sometimes all it takes to get adults and kids as well interested in birds and nature.
Pricing:
- $275 half day private tour (weekday)
- $325 full day private tour (weekday)
- $300 half day private tour (weekend)
- $350 half day private tour (weekend)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://archaeopteryxbirdingandnaturetours.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archaeopteryxtours/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archaeopteryxbirdingandnaturetours
- Twitter: https://x.com/ArchaeopTourx
