Isaac Kilusu

14 Testimonials Write a testimonial for Isaac

In November I went on a 14 day birding safari with Isaac as the guide in Tanzania focussing on endemic birds and achieved 467 species. Everything was great about the trip. Isaac was always on time, organised, kind, thoughtful , checked you were ok, and ensured you had good views. I achieved most of my target species including Beesley's lark, Spot-throat, South Pare white-eye and Isaac did real-time ebird recording which ensured our trip list was up to date. The itinerary was well designed, including good en-route stops. His skill in the field was astounding , not just sight but fantastic hearing from impossible distance and picking out individual calls from mixed flocks. Isaac had heard most of the birds before they even can into view. It worked well for me that he is also a keen photographer and I had excellent photo opportunities throughout, He knew which birds were shy and which could accept approach and when to stay in the vehicle or get out. His knowledge extends beyond birds and, mammals and reptiles were also seen and identified well, and he helped me understand the Masai culture.. Even now he is happy to help with queries on what we saw. We are now talking about further trips in the region.

I hired Isaac for 2 days around Arusha, Tanzania. He displayed a very high degree of skill with keen eyes, good familiarity with bird vocalization and knowledge of current taxonomy, including subspecies. I used him as a prelude to help me plan a 5 week self-drive trip through the Eastern Arc Mts and Ruaha, Mikumi and Tarangire national parks. He volunteered to arrange 6 guides for various parts of my trip. While not as skilled as Isaac, they all were knowledgeable about their local sites and provided valuable guiding service. Isaac also organized a 12 day trip across southern Kenya. Though guided by a friend of his, James Apolloh, he was able to join the second half of this trip. His skill, enthusiasm and knowledge was a welcome addition to our trip. I highly recommend Isaac as a guide. He is completely professional. This evaluation comes from someone who spent almost 10 years training birding guides in Cambodia.

In July 2024 I and two birding friends from the US did a two-week birding tour in Kenya with Isaac as our guide. Isaac quickly showed what an excellent guide he is. His eyesight and hearing delivered new birds every day, and his detailed knowledge of the habitat and locations ensured that we got to the right spots to find our target birds. Isaac was also a very friendly and pleasant person to spend time with throughout the days and evenings for dinners. We have already talked about a future trip to Tanzania and look forward to have Isaac as our guide then and I do not hesitate to give Isaac this highest recommendation to anyone looking for a birding guide.

Isaac was our dedicated and enthusiastic birding guide during our expedition in Nyerere National Park, Tanzania. His deep knowledge of the country's birdlife, combined with insights into his Maasai culture, enriched our journey. Isaac's passion for birds was evident in his constant efforts to find new species for us, and his status as the top eBirder in Tanzania highlighted his expertise. Overall, Isaac's warmth, expertise, and cultural insights made our birdwatching adventure truly exceptional and educational. I highly recommend him to anyone interested in exploring Tanzania's avian wonders with a knowledgeable and engaging guide.

Isaac Kilusu is an amazing birder. He has eyes of an eagle and ears of an owl. It is incredible how he can spot birds. His knowledge about Tanzanian birds and birding sites is deep. He is a very nice person, an excellent birding companion, and a superb organizer of a birding tour. We spent two weeks with Isaac in North East Tanzania in January and February 2024, and are happy to give him our very best recommendations.

We have birded in all continents except the Antartic. Isaac is one of the best bird guides we have had the pleasure to guide us. He is very knowledgeable, and very good with birds calls and songs. Having said that he is also a super kind and loving person and we consider him to be our friend He was willing to give us good and important information about sites that we did bird on our own. We can highly recommend Isaac.

I am happy to strongly recommend Isaac Kilusu as a birding and wildlife guide in East Africa. After three months of teaching English in a remote part of southwest Tanzania, friends (including expert birders) and I went on a three week safari with Isaac which included the Usambara Mountains, Arusha National Park, the Serengeti, Olduvai Gorge, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara and Tarangire. Unlike my friends and others who have written testimonials, I have had little experience with birding or species identification. So I write from a different perspective as a novice. Isaac opened my eyes to birding as well as to the rich diversity and beauty of avian life in Tanzania. I, as well as my friends, were awed by Isaac's natural ability to identify bird songs and locate species which were difficult to spot. While providing excellent guiding for the experts among us, he was incredibly kind, warm and patient with me, always taking time to educate and include me in the excitement of seeing and identifying new species. He was equally adept at spotting and locating sites to observe mammals, often breaking away to more remote locations where we were able to observe lions, leopards, elephants and other animals without the crowd. I also echo comments in other testimonials about Isaac's warmth and openness in sharing his life and experiences as a Maasai, the traditions and history of his people, and stories from the ancestors. I remember a magical night in the Serengeti listening to Isaac weave the stories and memories of the land and his people. I really cannot give enough praise for Isaac both for his gifts and talents as a bird and wildlife guide and for his simple, genuine, warm qualities as a human being. I strongly, strongly recommend him as a guide for expert birders as well as for those of us who are just starting and want to learn about the wildlife, people and land of Tanzania. Thank you, Isaac, for incredible memories of a lifetime.

I was very fortunate to be guided by Isaac in eastern and northern Tanzania. I have been on many birdwatching trips on all continents, and Isaac may very well be the best guide ever. He is passionate about birds, which is evident with his deep knowledge base of birds, including sounds, habits and habitats. He is also passionate about providing his clients with the best possible experience, working hard for great sightings. I saw over 500 species with him in a 3 week trip, and the mammal encounters were exceptional and given plenty of time as well, providing an outstanding African natural experience. He is also very enjoyable on a personal level, polite, thoughtful, and consistent. I look forward to future trips with him in Tanzania and Kenya.

Without doubt among the very best of bird guides in Afrcia. Knowledgeable, passionate, friendly, generous - cannot recommend him highly enough

I Spent about 3 weeks travelling and birding with Isaac through the north and eastern parts of Tanzania in August/September 2023. It soon became apparent that his skills in bird ID both visually and by song/call was exceptional. I have traveled widely and used the services of many bird guides around the world over many years and I can confidently say that Isaac is among the very best. His identification is clear and decisive and invariably accurate. His manner is patient and polite and his knowledge base for his subject is vast. I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Isacc as a guide and brilliant traveling companion. Thank you Isaac for all your hard work. 500 species in 20 days speaks for itself!

Isaac is amazing!!!! He knows really well the voices of all Tanzanian species which help him to to go straight to them. I would highly recommend to hire him if you want to spot a lot of species in Tanzania.

i had a pleasure to be guided by isaac in our recent 15days birding trip in Tanzania,he made the tour outstanding. i have had the good fortune of working with a number of very good guides in many parts of the world but isaac kilusu ranks as one of the best primarily due to his extraordinary memory of bird songsand calls. He is very familiar with identification, distribution and status throughout Tanzania and Kenya,has superb field skills,uses laser pointer and playback very effectively for getting good views and was patient with me when i made mistakes,which was more often than i would liked. i appreciate learning bird vocalisations and field marks and isaac was very willing to work with me,even though it made his guiding job harder.But mostly we benefited from his incredible mental library of bird sounds.The prime example and one of the many trip highlights for us was discovering several territorial male friedmann's larks in mkomazi Np ,the first Tanzanian record in about two decades.isaac quickly identified them by song before we saw them based on his memory of the song that he heard a couple of times in kenya years ago.Isaac is the best Nature and bird guide you wish to have in any of your trip to kenya and Tanzania.His knowledge in Natural history is unrivalled and always willing to share.We also learned alot from him about the maasai traditions and beliefs

We highly (highly) recommend hiring Isaac as a guide in Tanzania. Why? He is a Maasai guy (speaks perfect English, Swahili and the Ma language), and grew up walking the Serengeti area before (and after) going to school. In other words, Isaac knows the ways of birds intimately...indeed as a boy he won a contest for protecting a bird's nest near his home - and thus began his lifelong love of birds. These days he makes recordings of bird calls/songs (check Xeno-Canto - many/most of the bird calls recorded in Tanzania are his contributions). He has been bird guiding for several years now and will make your life so much easier because (a) he knows all the parks and best places to find birds; (b) he knows the non-park areas throughout the country (and especially in the northern circuit including Zanzibar all the way west to Lake Victoria)...so instead of you and your group spending hours looking around, Isaac will take you to exact locations to find the species you want and the best birding areas; (c) Isaac will regale you with stories of encountering elephants, lions and everything else in the wild - as he did in his younger years (do you know how to tell a right handed elephant from a left handed elephant? Do you know how/why even young Maasai boys chase away lions? Isaac will tell you so many fun stories - having lived that life); (d) he will solve your logistical problems such as the best places to stay (for the least amount of money); how to get the best rental car deal (and he has associates who have safari vehicles and can drive if you ask - we recommend that option as well); and where to eat the best local food...restaurant food...and how to deal with the numerous roadside police who will stop you while driving. Overall he will save you money and time...as well as being the most fun/knowledgeable person you could have to be with you or your group. Did we mention that Isaac knows how to ID all the Tanzanian birds...the endemics...the special species...and he will use sound to bring them in for good looks (and photos)? We cannot recommend him highly enough - and if you have never experienced Maasai culture - Isaac is the man to show you just how special these people are. 100% positive experience - I have a PhD and have run bird tours for many years (and have done much international and USA research on birds with lots of publications). All I can say is that every country should have an Isaac Kilusu. There are lots of people in Tanzania who will claim to be bird guides and happily take your funds. Isaac is special: honest, smart, kind, curious - and so helpful. He just got married and his wife is about to have a baby - so any business you can provide him with benefits an entire family...and his tribe.

We were blown away by Isaacs knowledge of nature. He knew all the birds by sound and sight, his field skills and tracking were top class and it was a pleasure to be in his company. He is from the masai tribe and was basically a cultural guide as well which was great for us because we were interested in a broad experience and not exclusively finding rarities or endemics of course we did that too! We were a group of 3 from Ireland and Spain and decided to go to Arusha NP and the Lark plains so that we could see two different environments in two days (note if you want to avoid the park fees you can go birding outside the NP too which we did for the 2nd day). We saw over 150 species of birds, large mammals, Montane forrest, grassy plains and acasia scrubland. The diversity was fantastic. Afterwards we had a prebooked four day safari to the Serengeti ngorogoro crater and tarangire with a budget safari company which was great but we really missed Isaacs identification skills and focus on birds and the slower pace of our trip with him. I became aware of Isaac after seeing his regular pictures on the Tanzania birding Facebook group and his orniverse profile where I found his number and contacted him through watsapp. We were really lucky to get him for 2 days because the day after he was booked into a 15 day guiding trip. I liked that he contributes to various projects like with sound recordings and setting up a bird club for kids. He has an admirable perspective on life's journey, a natural leader and has gained wisdom and stories from his grandfather past down through an oral tradition of story telling it was really cool to hear these stories such a rich and authentic experience for us. Writing this testimonial because we would like to help our friend Isaac in any way we can asante sana kaka! If your looking to do a trip with Isaac it's best to have a chat and see what the options are depending on your time frame, preferences and the season. He can advise because there's so many things you could do in Tanzania and Africa.