Anton Schultz

Anton's eBird profile

Anton grew up in suburban Johannesburg, South Africa, but it didn’t take him long to start looking for excuses to escape to the wilder parts of the country. His interest in birds began at around 14, when he started reading about them in a Kruger National Park map book. Seeing his first Burchell’s Coucal soon afterwards turned that curiosity into something much bigger, and birding has been a central part of his life ever since.

In 2019, at just 19 years old, Anton embarked on a southern African Big Year travelling through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho and Eswatini in pursuit of as many species as possible on a decidedly student-sized budget. By the end of the year, he had recorded 804 species, becoming only the seventh birder, and still youngest to pass 800 species in southern Africa in a single calendar year. More than anything, the experience confirmed what he had already begun to suspect: birds were going to be a lifelong obsession.

That passion eventually found its way into his academic life too. In 2025, Anton graduated cum laude with a BSc Honours in Zoology from the University of Pretoria. His honours research focused on the Vulnerable and highly range-restricted Red Lark, investigating the potential use of artificial shade as a conservation tool in the harsh desert environment of South Africa’s Northern Cape.

Since those early years of birding in southern Africa, Anton has increasingly turned his attention to the rest of the world. He has now (2026) begun birding Europe extensively, visiting Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Italy, and Romania so far. Much like his love for birding however, this country list will only grow.

For Anton, guiding is about more than building a bird list. He loves sharing the excitement of finding something new, getting to know the people he travels with and collecting the stories and memories that inevitably come from exploring a new part of the world together. He brings an offbeat sense of humor, plenty of curiosity and an enthusiasm for everything from wildlife and natural history to the people and places encountered along the way.

And if there happens to be a chessboard nearby, challenge him to a game. You probably won’t have to ask twice.