Speyside Wildlife has been employing wildlife guides for 30 years and found over the years that whilst people may have a qualification in ecology, that doesn’t mean they have sufficient wildlife identification skills to take guests out for a day in the field and identify birds; at all times of year, in all plumages – when they can see them – or by sound when they can’t. We started the original year-long course to address that skills' gap in 2017 and in response to requests for a shorter in-depth training opportunity, the first of our ‘masterclasses’ began in 2019.