Oil exploration and exploitation activities have negative effects on biodiversity. This is mainly due to secondary causes such as increased colonization following the opening of new roads. However, little is known about the effects that oil industry may have on previously deforested landscapes. In this study, we characterized the avifauna of an exploratory oil drilling area in the Colombian Amazon, where the landscape is dominated by pastures and monoculture crops with some patches of scattered secondary forests. The avifauna was typical of intervened Amazonian landscapes in which most specialist forest birds are absent. The few that were present were recorded in only one or a small number of the study localities, despite the fact that the same habitats were found in practically all of them. The absence of these species and the isolation of the few remaining ones is due to processes prior to the implementation of oil activity. In this sense, the construction of new infrastructure and the adaptation of the existing one will not imply a significant reduction of the remaining forest areas which, according to current regulations, must be protected. Conversely, if the forest offsetting process required for oil exploration and exploitation is well directed, this could result in an increase in the connectivity of the remaining forest fragments, favoring species mobility and a possible increase in diversity.