Samuel de la Torre

Samu is our birding guide in Madrid. A lifelong naturalist from Colmenar Viejo, near Sierra de Guadarrama National Park, his interest in wildlife began early thanks to his family, but birds quickly became his main focus during his teenage years.

While collaborating with a local conservation NGO, Samu took part in numerous bird monitoring programmes, working on species such as Black Stork, Little Bustard and Lesser Kestrel. Today he is also one of the eBird reviewers for the Madrid region.

Samu is a keen field birder with a particular interest in scarce migrants, vagrants, and pelagic birds but he also enjoys bird photography and sound recording. He completed an MSc in Biodiversity and Conservation at CSIC in 2025, where he has been involved in seabird conservation projects and research on steppe birds.

In recent years he has travelled widely across the Western Palearctic and has developed a growing interest in the birds of Central Asia, a region he continues to explore whenever possible.