Amazonas Birding Tour, Peru - 5 Days

Arrive in Puerto Maldonado, capital of Madre de Dios, and join a 1-hour journey by bus with few stops along the road’s secondary forest to scan for Purus Jacamar, White-browed Blackbird, Pearl Kite, and Scaled Pigeon and a 1-hour boat till the lodge the necessary stops to search for: Pied Lapwing, Collared Plover, King Vulture, Bat Falcon, Olive, and Russet-backed Oropendolas and Ringed Kingfisher and Amazon Kingfisher.

Your first taste of the Amazon culinary will be in the river while you let the city behind to enjoy the amazing jungle landscapes

Posada Amazonas Lodge awaits – a spacious ecolodge, with bar, a massage center, and buffet service in the heart of a private concession own by the Native Community of Infierno, the guardians of the rainforest.

Accommodation includes a 45 ms square room with a private bathroom and an open wall facing the forest.

Your stay includes three meals daily, teas, coffee, guided excursions and activities, refreshments upon arriving, and transfers to and from the airport. 

This morning join a hike to the 40-meter scaffolding Canopy Tower. A banister staircase running through the middle provides safe access to the platforms above which will add a whole new dimension to our Amazon birding experience: the forest canopy. We will wait for a canopy mixed flock to appear. The mixed flock is mostly all about tanagers: Paradise Tanager, Green-and-gold Tanager, Flame-crested Tanager, Turquoise Tanager, Opal- rumped Tanager, and others. The tower also offers a good opportunity for Cream-colored Woodpecker, Gilded Barbet, Plum-throated Cotinga, and Striolated Puffbird. Macaws and toucans are seen flying against the horizon, including the Chestnut-eared, Lettered, Emerald, Curl-crested, and Brown-mandible Aracaries. We will see lonely raptors riding the thermals. This is your best chance for hawk-eagles and even harpy!

Only a twenty-minute walk from Posada Amazonas is the parrot clay lick. From a blind located about twenty meters away, you will see dozens of parrots and parakeets descend on most clear mornings to ingest the clay on a riverbank. Species such as Mealy and Yellow-headed Amazon, Blue-headed Parrot, and Dusky headed Parakeet descend at this clay lick. The clay lick is active at dawn, during the late mornings and mid-afternoons.

By the afternoon, we will bird the Shahue Trail, good for Fiery-capped Manakin, Round-tailed Manakin, Pale Rumped Trumpeteer, and Pavonine Quetzal.

We depart on a fifteen-minute boat drive to the bamboo patches around Tres Chimbadas Lake. We will leave lake birding aside and focus on the bamboo specialists. We will look for the endemic White-cheeked Tody Tyrant, Peruvian Recurvebill, Red-billed Scythebill, Rufous-headed Woodpecker, Rufous-breasted Piculet, Brown-rumped Foliage Gleaner, Large- headed Flatbill, Dusky- tailed Flatbill, Dusky-cheeked Foliage-gleaner, Flammulated Bamboo-tyrant, Dot- winged and Ornate Antwren, White-lined Antbird, Rufous-capped Nunlet, Pheasant Cuckoo, and Striped Cuckoo.

By the afternoon the Shije’eje Trail, offers opportunities to spot Variegated Tinamou, Blue-crowned and Rufous Motmot, Golden-crowned Spadebill, Curl-crested Aracari, and mixed-species flock. A small clay lick attracts Dusky-headed and Black-capped parakeet, and Cobalt-winged Parrotlets in addition to Spix’s Guan.

A thirty-minute boat ride and thirty-minute hike from the lodge will take us to Tres Chimbadas oxbow lake, which has palm swamp and grassland vegetation as well. We will try to spot Pale-vented Pigeon, Azure Gallinule, Purple Gallinule, Slender-billed and Snail Kites, Rufescent Tiger-Herons, Sungrebe, Green Ibis, Gray-breasted Crake, Rufous-sided Crake, and two of the "must-see" Amazonian classics: Horned Screamers and Hoatzin.

The secondary forest can be created in a number of ways, from degraded forest recovering from selective logging to areas cleared by slash-and-burn agriculture that have been reclaimed by the forest. Generally, secondary forest is characterized by a less developed canopy structure and smaller trees. This means we will focus on: Barred Antshrike, Short-tailed Pygmy-Tyrant, Streaked Flycatcher, Boat-billed Flycatcher, Solitary Black Cacique, Gray-fronted Dove, Ruddy Ground-Dove and others

After dinner, we will venture out near the lodge on a birding night walk to spot-light Pauraque, Tawny-bellied Screech-Owl, Great Potoo, Long-tailed Potoo, Ocellated Poorwill, and if we are lucky a Mottled Owl or Crested Owl. There is also the possibility of taking macro shoots of American Bullfrogs, Horned Frogs, tree frogs, and other creatures of the night.

It is time to say goodbye, as the expedition comes to an end.

Your visit will make a direct contribution to the Native Community of Infierno in their efforts to protect Tambopata.

You will take the journey back to the city to the airport for your national flight onwards.