Discovering Doñana

Four experienced birders, on an excellent December morning (2023), led by José Antonio Sánchez, a very helpful guide and clearly knowledgeable about the territory. Highlights of the morning: deer, deer everywhere! Also an Aquila adalberti perched on a distant cork tree, a small group of 4 Pterocles alchata vocalizing and flying over the observers, a few Alaudala rufescens mixed with other species, a flock of Marmaronetta angustirostris and a male Circus macrourus hanging around the José Antonio Valverde visitor center. ¡Gracias por todo!

It is our second tour with Jose, after a first tour 12 years ago.

We loved it so much that we decided to ask him for another tour.

Like always, ultra pro, we managed to book a tour the week before.

Started at 8am before sunrise, we started first to see many deers including males with antlers, and looked for the lynx in the woods.

It was once again the highlight of our trips. Jose is the real lynx of the Donana, he is able to spot birds and animals in the dark. Amazing ! And his birding expertise is impressive.

I can only but recommend his team.

Regards

This was the first private birding tour we’ve ever done. It was wonderful!! We explored several different habitats by vehicle and on foot. Our guide Jose was very knowledgeable and patient with what were probably lots of silly questions. We’d definitely highly recommend this experience and would do it again.

A wonderful introduction to the Doñana and Jose's guiding was wonderfully relaxed and informative. Great variety of habitat, scenery and over 50 species of birds in a half day trip. Very strongly recommended.

We took a 5 hour tour with Jose in early May 2023 along with another English couple. We had an early start at 7am in a small 4x4 from the company's offices. We had a mix of birding expertise and I'd say the trip worked well for all of us. Jose spoke very good English and had an excellent knowledge of the area and where to find specific species. He was always happy to stop when we shouted out a bird and to manoeuvre the 4x4 to allow us a better angle for a photo. My list of birds spotted included marbled teal, thekla lark, great spotted cuckoo, iberian shrike, bee eater and booted eagle. We also had great views of griffon vultures at a horse carcass. Will call on Jose again if we return to Donana!

Fantastic morning spent with Jose on a private 4x4 tour with my partner. Jose spoke excellent English and was extremely knowledgeable. He knew where were the best places to spot different species although on this occasion the elusive lynx remained elusive.
Overall a lovely 5 hours and money well spent - thank you Jose

I'm a UK birder with a general interest in natural history, and my wife enjoys the different landscapes and habitats and really likes the feeling of being on safari. We had an excellent private half-day tour with Jose in late January. He is a brilliant guide - he asked if there was anything we specifically wanted to look for (we said not really, but it would be good to get lucky with a Lynx). His detailed knowledge of Donana and the whereabouts of the different species is amazing. We did get extremely lucky and saw a Lynx briefly soon after entering the park! After that we thoroughly enjoyed the casual pace with many short stops to look mainly for birds. We saw many special species such as Greater Spotted Cuckoo, Imperial Eagle, Iberian Shrike, Calandra Lark, not to mention impressive numbers of wildfowl, herons and egrets, and waders. Jose is an excellent birder and very good company - highly recommended.

I had really enjoyed a birding / wildlife tour with Jose Sanchez at Discovering Donana a couple of years previously so, when with my girlfiend we visited Donana in March 2024, arranging another private day tour with Jose was a priority.
Once again we had an excellent experience, benfitting enormously from Jose's knowledge of and love for nature and of course for Coto Donana.
We visited a range of sites including many that we would never have found or been able to access independently and enjoyed many very special sightings including marbled and ferruginous duck, red-crested pochard, red-knobbed coot, lesser kestrel, iberian shrike, iberian wagtail...the list goes on.
We wholeheartedly recommend Jose as a wildlife guide for Coto Donana!
Nick Burfield and Dr Pam Davis

We did a private tour. Jose was wonderful. Even though we were "unlucky" and didn't see a lot, we all had a great time (including our two small kids) searching for animals, paw prints, etc. Flamingos were a hit!

Despite the requirement for a minimum number of 3 for a shared tour Jose kindly took just myself and my wife on an extremely pleasant morning drive around the reserve. Of particular interest was a Long-eared Owl, Lesser Short-toed Larks and an unexpected Black-eared Wheatear, given it was late June. It was also a delight to see and hear Turtle Doves which is becoming rarer event in the UK.

Well, that damn Lynx didn't show his head but the rest of the tour was excellent. I was fortunate enough to tour after the rains had started in 2023, so there was enough water to attract wildlife -- hope the rains continue and the drought finally breaks. Jose is a trained biologist, very informative and passionate about Donana, so it is a delight to travel with him. Plus the intimate nature of the tour - max four people -- makes this highly recommended n my opinion.

We went on a full 5 hour trip with Jose - he was excellent! We went with another bird watcher, from Germany, and it was good to share experiences and insights. Jose went over and above to show us different species. For a serious bird watcher this was one of the most fulfilling trips - we thoroughly recommend it.

It was a great experience. We learned a lot about La Doñana and the Wild life. 5 hours was not to long, but perfect. And El Rocio is a special place. We recoment a tour 😃

Amazing knowledgeable guides, with a good eye for spotting wildlife. Took 2 other tours in Doñana NP and this one was the best one by far!

Excellent! We did a morning tour with two other people. Very experienced driver with good acknowledge what he really enjoyed to share with us. Best experience which we highly recommend!

Like so many others, we had a simply fabulous time with José in the park. His knowledge of the entire area and its inhabitants is nothing short of encyclopaedic. Sadly, as is happening all over the country (and continent?) the wetlands are reducing in size, but there are still enough at the moment to make a visit very worth while. Apart from the actual tour itself, the booking was incredibly easy and the entire time was handled well. Highly recommended!

We were two birdwatchers and booked a half day shared tour with Discovering Donana. Our guide was perfect, as he knew do much about the birdlife and the habitats. He took great care of us and of our ornithological wishes and even managed to see many special bird species we were searching for.
Highly Recommended!

Coming across “Discovering Doñana’s” website made all the difference to our visit to Doñana on 17th January 2023. It was clear and concise and told us everything we wanted to know in order to choose our memorable tour of Doñana NP with our guide José Sanchéz and be in personal contact with him over arrangements. We booked a shared tour but being off season we were only two of us and José was happy to go ahead with us anyway and provide a personalised tour. José was easy company and very generous with his in depth knowledge of wildlife generally and of Doñana National Park and Natural Park. He obviously cares deeply for Doñana and it’s inhabitants and it’s future. We would and will recommend him. We had a delightful and informative day and hope to be back! Faye and Richard Pierce.

We had the pleasure of a half-day tour of the Doñana National Park on 10 May 2022. I chose Discovering Doñana after in-depth research and came to the conclusion that they offered the most intimate and personalised tour. The weather was fine and we started early at 0700.

Soon after we started the tour with our guide José, I realised we had chosen wisely. Aside from being friendly, a fluent English speaker and a true nature enthusiast, José has a built-in ‘nature radar’. He often spotted birds and animals at a great distance. Not only that, he was able to identify them and also bird calls, which were often overlapping.

We had no pre-defined list of things we wanted to see; we just enjoyed what the park decided to reveal to us. We were not disappointed. The bird life was fabulous – the list included storks, spoonbills, glossy ibis, herons, night herons, purple herons, egrets, cattle egrets, a great white egret, a hoopoe, 3 cuckoos (hoopoe in one ear, cuckoos in the other), bee-eaters, tufted finches, serins, a Ceti’s warbler, Dartford warbler, azure and common magpies, whinchat, stonechat, partridge, Iberian shrike, red and back kites, a buzzard, a short-toed eagle, a delightful little owl that posed on a tree stump just off the path for several minutes, plus a few other small birds I just don’t remember the name of.

Also red deer, wild horses, several gorgeous dragonflies and several interesting beetles.

The only thing we missed that we would have liked to see was the Iberian Lynx, which we’ll be back to see in future, and the purple gallinule, but my wife made up for that by spotting one in the reeds just outside our hotel and it appeared just long enough for a couple of shots.

Doñana is a truly marvellous and beautiful place and José made it a very special visit. Discovering Doñana gets a 100% customer rating from us and we’ll certainly book José again.

By the by, Hotel La Malvasia is on the edge of the park and is superb. Lovely rooms and lovely staff. They did us a special early breakfast at 0630, so we could bring the tour forward half an hour.

We really enjoyed our tour! José explained everything very detailed and had a great knowledge as biologist. What I liked most was that we focused on so many details of the environment and not only on the keyspecies like the lynx but we watched bugs, took our time to admire the blooming flowers of the beginning rain season, searched for birds and their nests and enjoyed all various habitats this Nationalpark has to offer.