Diego Calderón-Franco

Diego Calderón-Franco is a biologist from the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín who founded COLOMBIA Birding in 2007, billed as the country's oldest dedicated birdwatching outfit. With more than two decades guiding across Colombia, Diego has personally explored some of the country's most remote birding frontiers, including the Serranía de Pirre in the Darién, the Baudó Mountains of the Chocó, the Putumayo lowlands, the Perijá range and the Guianan Shield white-sand forests around Mitú, generating new country records and contributing to descriptions of species new to science. Diego is widely recognized in Colombia's birding world for combining rigorous field expertise with a strong public profile. He appears in the documentary THE BIRDERS and in National Geographic's Birdwatching with FARC, and co-hosts The Birders Show on YouTube alongside other Colombian guides. His tours range from short Bogotá- or Medellín-based itineraries to long multi-region expeditions targeting endemics and hard-to-reach specialties. He operates as a single-guide outfit and is most often booked by international birders looking for an experienced, English-speaking Colombian guide with deep field knowledge of the country's geography and lesser-known sites.