We had a full day's guide tour in the with José Sanchez, which was excellent. José was very good company, & we learned a great deal from him as he clearly knows the Doñana intimately, based on a wealth of experience of the region. The harsh 3y drought meant that it was hard to find the wildlife, but José still managed to show us much of interest. We highly recommend José & Discovering Doñana & would love to go again with him.

We are keen birdwatchers but particularly hoped to see a lynx. José showed us many different bird species about which he is very knowledgeable. Thanks to his perseverance and knowledge of the area, we had the joy of seeing a lynx. We are very grateful for a wonderful and fruitful experience.

We had a private tour with José at the end of March 2023 and loved every minute of it. His knowledge of what happens in the park, concerning both flora and fauna, is incredible, and he makes the tour very initeresting. Sadly, no lynxes were to be seen, but maybe next time. I would suggest that if you are interested in the wildliife here, go soon before all the wetlands dry up and somebody builds a road across it...

We spotted many more birds thanks to José’s sharp eyes, and his help in identification. Nice to see bee orchids too! March 2023

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

El martes 10 de enero de 2023 realizamos la visita a Doñana con José Antonio guía de Discovering, día ideal por el tiempo que tuvimos, recorrimos zonas de bosques y marismas dónde pudimos observar manadas de ciervos, gamos, conejos, muchas aves como búhos, garzas, Águila Imperial, ansares, etc.., me pareció genial este tipo de visitas en grupo reducido dónde el guía te va explicando los ecosistemas, sus problemáticas ambientales, la fauna, vegetación y tipos de aves, su agudeza en localizarlos y habilidad con los telescópicos dónde rápidamente nos hacía observarlos, para mí la visita fue genial, el guía con su amabilidad y explicaciones, la naturaleza, la fauna que pudimos observar, para mí la mejor manera de visitar Doñana, aunque íbamos tras la pista del Lince no llegamos a verlo no quiso darnos ese lujo, gracias por hacerme sentir y admirar la belleza de Doñana.

On 8th October I was fortunate to take my third trip into the Donana with Jose. Our tally was 54 birds includ nine Raptors. Jose knows his park well, not only the birds, but the history and flora and fauna. A thoroughly enjoyable trip, excellent value and Jose is good company too. I hope to make my fourth trip next time I am in the area

José is a great guide - highly respectful towards nature, knowledgeable, willing to share and teach, flexible.
Despite peak temperatures in summer, we had a great time exploring the national park.
With pleasure again in winter or spring!
Thank you.
2022-08-02 Private tour with 2 people in early morning

We had two excellent half-day tours of Donana in June 2022 with Jose Sanchez from Discovering Donana. Jose is a highly capable guide, technically expert in (and passionate about) all things wildlife, fluent in English and excellent company. His knowledge of the best spots in a hot and dry season was essential to make the most of our time and I cannot recommend him highly enough. As well as Iberian lynx we saw many hard-to-find bird species including red-knobbed coot, marbled duck, iberian shrike, iberian warbler and rufous bush robin. Jose also helped greatly with our appreciation of the area's insects and plants. When I return to Donana I will without hesitation book Jose again.

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 birdlife 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.