Shearwater Wildlife Tours founder Paul Connaughton has been an active birder in Ireland for over thirty years and has been running pelagic boat trips in West Cork for over 5 years. He has also taken part in transatlantic seabird survey work on the Celtic Explorer (the Irish Marine Research vessel) and the ‘Saving the Bermuda Petrel Project’ in Bermuda.
Paul is qualified with a competent crew certificate giving him at sea survival and first aid skills along with VHF Radio and Navigation certs and ESAS qualifications (at sea bird survey techniques). During his time on the water and on land he has come across many rarities both avian and mammalian. Spending every spare minute in the field and on the water or expanding his knowledge stuck in some flora or fauna book at home, Paul has well and truly embrased a life in the outdoors observing nature.
Although family, birding and Shearwater Wildlife Tours are what drives him in life, Paul is the current Chairman of Birdwatch Ireland’s (Ireland’s largest conservation organisation) West Cork branch. He is also actively involved with and promotes conservation projects and studies in his locality.
Always the man to go to with questions about anything wild, Paul is well known in West Cork. A deep love and understanding of nature, and a want to share and promote it, is what inspired Paul to create Shearwater Wildlife Tours.