The Harpy Eagle birding trip

This was my favorite trip with Jhonnier and Viviana, and Camilo! We spent a whole day at the Harpy Eagle Reserve with these magnificent raptors as well as many other amazing birds. All the lodging was comfortable and clean. The food was great. Travel was easy. Can’t wait to return!

Western Andes Specialties – customized tour

Amazing trip with Johnnier, my 4th, Chelsea’s first Colombia birding experience led flawlessly and overwhelmingly fantastic as ever! His experience and expertise in planning and leading trips celebrating all things Colombian, nature (especially birds), community, people, food will fulfill your every wish! And leave you wanting to return again and again. ❤️🇨🇴

For my first birding adventure in Colombia, 12 wonderful days and 431 amazing bird species, I was fortunate to have Johnnier Arango as my guide. Johnnier is an excellent birder, by ear and eyes, and more importantly, an excellent guide, always making sure the birds are seen as good as possible, even the Antpittas! Colombia is a beautiful country, the people are welcoming and friendly. Every aspect of the trip was well planned, comfortable, and safe. I am excited to be planning my second trip this year!

The three of us had a tailormade month long tour in 2018 for our first trip to Colombia, the first two weeks of the tour was guided by Johnnier, The Andean Birder, he was an excellent guide, his knowledge of the birds and the country was exceptional, his eyes and ears were incredible, seeing and hearing birds that we would never have seen without him. We were so impressed by our trip that we returned in 2019, another two week tailormade tour with Johnnier, his tour was well planned with good accommodation, he was also fun to bird with, friendly and always used great local guides and careful drivers, always made sure we were safe and happy, nothing was too much trouble, when I expressed an interest in Humpback whales he organised an impromtu trip from Tumaco for whale watching. Every day was new and exciting, fabulous birds, fabulous country, and a fabulous guide. We cannot recommend him enough. We would like to return again to Colombia, but only if Johnnier is our guide. if you make the trip, make sure you book with the Andean Birder.

A highly competent birding guide who has organized tours of Colombia for WINGSPAN BIRD TOURS since 2017. Johnnier put together our tours of the Andes by arranging internal flights, all meals and accommodation, transport, and drivers. His knowledge of nearly 2000 bird songs is extraordinary and he has in-depth knowledge of hundreds of birding sites. Johnnier has special bird-finding skills and works very hard to help everyone in the group to see each species. A mild-mannered man he is very amenable and approachable and enjoys a laugh and a joke. Our successful tours our a credit to Johnnier, I unreservedly recommend him for your tour of Colombia.

I credit Johnnier’s excellent ears and knowledge of hotspots and hot locations within hotspots for hundreds of birds on my life list! My first trip to Colombia was only a few days long, and some of the activities planned were cultural (e.g., touring a coffee plantation), rather than pure birding. But I even scored a bunch of life birds while learning about coffee, thanks to Johnnier! He is a welcoming, patient, enthusiastic, kind guide. His birding skills—visually, by ear, and by experience—are top notch, and he’s a pleasant and fun traveling companion. I recommend him highly and would absolutely hire him next time I visit that amazing, beautiful, mind-blowing country—if he’s available!

I was the leader of a Swedish birding group with Johnnier as a birding guide for almost three weeks in February 2018. We are completely with his services. Very good knowledge of the birds and where to find them and a very well organized and prizeworthy tour! Especially impressing is Johhniers skill with the scope, He quickly found even the smallest birds in the forests and thus could give us all very good sightings of them. Thus all of us missed very few bird species, I can highly recommend Johnnier.

I was joining Stig Holmstedt and the Swedish birding group in January 2020. I fully agree with Stig. Johnnier is a great birding guide with deep knowledge of Colombian birds. I can add that it’s very important for Johnnier that everyone will see the bird/birds. As a photographer, I was very satisfied because though it sometimes was very hard to find the birds in the rainforest, Johnnier was always trying to help and find “the right spot” through the green mass of leaves where we were able to see the bird. The trip was very well organized and went very smoothly. We could just focus on the birds and lay back when there was time for that. We saw a bit over 600 different species and a lot of rarities too.. As Stig I can highly recommend Johnnier!