Our Team

Tatyana Simeonova

Tatyana Simeonova is the owner and manager of the Branta-Tours Birdwatching Company.

Thanks to her numerous contacts with experts of the Council of Europe and their joint work on the territory of Berezinsky Biosphere Reserve in Belarus, Les Vosges du Nord National Park in France, Peak District National Park in the UK, as well as her visits to several national parks in the USA aimed at studying their ecotourism development models, she has acquired a great deal of experience in this field.

She spent more than 10 years of her life in the Berezinsky Biosphere Reserve in Belarus being in charge of overseas communications and working as a group leader and interpreter. She also worked as a Consulting Assistant to the Pripiatsky National Park and Belovezhskaya Pushcha Biosphere Reserve in Belarus, in elaborating programmes on wildlife-watching tourism for foreign visitors.

Her many years working in the field make her an expert in several areas. She is speaking Russian, Bulgarian, fluent English and fairly well French. Her Byelorussian nationality and a good command of the Russian language are of great advantage in organizing birdwatching trips throughout Belarus. Tatyana is also responsible for developing and operating Professional Birding Tours and General Nature and Wildlife Holidays in Bulgaria, Romania and Far-Eastern Russia.

Pencho Penchev

Pencho Penchev is one of the top Bulgarian birders who has an extended experience indeed in the field of Research and Conservation Biology (more than 25 years).

He is the Head of Branta-Tours Balkans Programme and is actively involved in Biological and ecological scientific investigations, biodiversity inventories and monitoring. Pencho has been a naturalist and a bird lover from a young age.

He started his birding experience as a bird guide in 2007, being in touch with keen birders and nature lovers from different countries. He is a knowledgeable birder with good insight into bird behavior and identification, well acquainted with the Bulgarian countryside and main top birding locations in neighbouring regions.

Nikolai Spassov

Nikolai Spassov is a well known zoologist and palaeontologist. He holds an MSc in Vertebrate Zoology at the Faculty of Biology in the University of Sofia, Bulgaria. He specialised in Lab. of Paleontology at N.M.N.H. - Paris and the Inst. of Paleontology and Evolutionary Morphology & Ecology of Moscow. He is Head of the Dept. of Fossil & Recent Mammals in the National Museum of Natural History - Sofia.

Nikolai is actively involved in huge scientific activities, nature conservation projects and important field works such as inventories of the Mammals & Birds in the Central Balkan Range, investigation on the Bulgarian threatened carnivores etc. He is the Team Leader of numerous National Projects on the conservation and status of the Brown Bear, the Wolf, the Otter and the Marbled Polecat.

At international level he is the co-organiser of a Zoological Expedition of the N.M.N.H. - Sofia in Mozambique in 1983 and a Zoological expedition in Gobi Desert - Mongolia in 1990. He has become the winner for Bulgaria in the Henry Ford award for the conservation of the cultural & natural heritage in 1997. Since 2005 Nikolai is a tour leader of Branta-Tours Carnivore Programme.

Kevin Doherty

Kevin Doherty is based in the UK and will co-ordinate our UK bookings using ABTA/ATOL bonded Travel agencies (unless self booking flights).

A frequent Bulgarian visitor and keen wildlife enthusiast, he also runs his own tourism business in Great Britain. He can provide excellent accommodation in Balchik, situated on the Northern Bulgarian Black Sea coast, just 30 miles from Durankulak Lake.

His facilities are aimed at people with a general interest in wildlife and could be especially suitable for birdwatchers and their non-birding family members that can find beautiful mixture of activities like pool, golf, marina, archaeology, history, shops, fantastic restaurants, but also learn some interesting birds and other wildlife identification with the specialists of Branta-Tours.