Bird Watching Arenal Oasis

Tour guide Carlos was openly sexist and made the women feel uncomfortable. You can see birds in Costa Rica without risking your safety. He also failed to find rainbow toucans, the main bird advertised on their website. Terrible experience.

The bird watching was beautiful, but booking with this tour company isn’t worth it. Our guide, Carlos, made the women on the tour feel uncomfortable.

I am not am experienced bird watcher but love seeing wild life in its natural habitat. I went out with a guide Mau and driver Enrique. It was an early start but well worth it. Mau went through with me how to watch, how to identify especially at a distance different birds. It was really helpful in understanding how the guides are so accurate in finding and identifying birds. We drove to a place and we all got out and Mau and Enrique listened, identified birds they could hear then began scouring the landscape from a tree we stood under literally to the horizon. I was delighted with what I was shown although Mau seemed to think we had not seen many as usual but we had seen birds that were not common to see. I think we spent at least 1.5 hrs there perhaps longer. We then moved to Arenal Oasis for breakfast with seating looking onto a bird feeding area. O we spotted as we ate and again saw many different species very close up so keep your camera and binoculars close to hand. We saw a trogon very close - being able to that detail was magical. Oasis is a lovely setting and following breakfast we walked around for maybe an hour with Mau listening out then setting up the telescope so i could get to see the birds. He was keen for me to see some hummingbirds but they are so fast I kept missing them. I thoroughly enjoyed this tour as an inexperienced bird watcher but i had a very strong impression that a highly experienced birder would be impressed by Mau but also Enrique who as a second pair of birdwatching eyes helped to spot some of the birds. Highly recommended.

Knowledgeable guide who adapted to the group. Communication was very good with clear explanation and involvement of the group. Made good decisions about finding birds with the day.

Guide was skillful. Even I was a solo traveler, he found many bird for me. I highly recommend this tour.

Great communication through WhatsApp and very easy to schedule an early morning bird tour. I ended up on a private tour for 3 hours with guide Aaron Ugalde and I had such a great time! Despite muchísimo lluvia (as has been the norm here lately during this “dry season”), Arenal Oasis reserve has a feeding station where we can stay dry and observe so many birds…and one quite unexpected Tayma (a weasel) and a mama 3 toed sloth with her little baby. I wish I had a few more days here to soak up more of Aaron’s knowledge of the wildlife and the ecology. I’m sure the other guides are equally great, but I could not have been happier.¡Gracias Aaron y Arenal Oasis!

Loved it. So many birds! We never knew we would see almost the whole bird book of colorful beautiful birds. The countryside was stunning as a backdrop. Very sweet accommodating people in Costa Rica. Hope to return soon and to bring others to share the amazing experience. What an education.

Fantastic early morning birding tour complete with driver, guide, breakfast, binoculars, use of high-end scope. Good mix of in-field and staged bird theaters

Best bird tour ever with Aaron. Saw over 20 species and he provided photos and videos of all via Air Drop. The breakfast was tasty and we enjoyed interacting with other birders.

I really enjoyed learning about bird watching with Jose Pablo (JP) - JP met me promptly at the entrance to the lodge and within a five minute drive of arenal oasis we situated ourselves in open patch of land and found so many species of birds!! JP has a magic eye and so many years of experience -- I learned alot and this experience has inspired me to carry binoculars everywhere now . I was amazed how he can spot birds at such a distance ! We even saw a rare woodpecker, one of the smallest in costa rica. He explained things to me with such patience in a way that was really interesting! JP also sent me the list of 30+ bird species we saw and I appreciated that he checked with me multiple times after to ensure I got it loaded into EBird . JP's passion for birds and the outdoors was contagious ( Separately, I also really enjoyed his red eyed tree frog tour! ) This bird watching tour was well worth getting up for at 5am , do it if you get the chance! JP was one of the best tour guides from my whole trip. Thank you JP!