9 Days 8 Nights Birdwatching Tour in the Peruvian Amazon

DAY 1: Welcome to your birding adventure!

• Although all of our guides have basic bird identification skills, only a handful truly qualify as birding guides – able to identify hundreds of species by sound and sight. Our birdwatching expeditions not only have an especially designed program but also a trained birding guide.


• This expedition includes a private guide and only private transportation between lodges. Comfort accommodation at Posada Amazonas and Refugio Amazonas and Standar accommodation at Tambopata Research Center 


• Upon arrival to Puerto Maldonado, we will drive to our office to continue to the Tambopata River Port. This forty-five-minute drive will take twice as long as we stop along the road’s secondary forest to scan for Purus Jacamar, White-browed Blackbird, Pearl Kite, and Scaled Pigeon.


• A private boat with individual seats and a roof will drive us upriver to Posada Amazonas. As we eat lunch on the boat, we will stop the hour-long drive as many times as necessary to search for: Pied Lapwing, Collared Plover, King Vulture, Bat Falcon, Olive, and Russet-backed Oropendolas and Ringed Kingfisher, and Amazon Kingfisher.

DAY 2: Watch birds on the most active level of the forest, the canopy

• A thirty-minute walk takes us to this 42-meters tall scaffolding tower, 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-mandibled Aracaries. We will see lonely raptors riding the thermals. This is your best chance for hawk-eagles and even harpy!


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

DAY 3: Discover birds from the oxbow lake

• Tres Chimbadas is thirty minutes by boat and forty-five minutes hiking from Posada Amazonas. Once there you will paddle around the lake in a catamaran, searching for the resident family of nine giant river otters (seen by 60% of our lake visitors) and other lakeside wildlife such as caiman, hoatzin, and horned screamers. Otters are most active from dawn to eight or nine AM.


• We depart on a fifteen-minute 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.


• During the first three hours of the boat ride, as we enter the Tambopata National Reserve, we will focus on recapping and listing. Then the fun begins and it lasts for three more hours! Numerous egrets, Capped Heron, Cocoi Heron, Large and Yellow-billed Tern, Black Skimmer, the classic Horned Screamer, Razor Billed Currasow, Blue-throated Piping Guan and Orinoco Goose and during the dry season months, migrant shorebirds, are all possibilities for this portion of the trip. Every now and then macaws, toucans, and raptors will be spotted above.


• Join our ongoing research projects nightly lectures.

DAY 4: Join a party of colors and sounds

• At dawn we will cross the river and enjoy the largest macaw clay lick where hundreds of parrots and macaws of up to 15 species congregate daily. We can expect to see ten to twelve of the following members of the parrot family: Red-and-green, Blue-and-gold, Scarlet, Red-bellied, Chestnut-fronted and Blue-headed Macaws; Mealy and Yellow-crowned Amazons; Blue-headed, Orange-cheeked and White-bellied Parrots; Dusky-headed, White-eyed, Cobalt-winged and Tui Parakeets and Dusky-billed Parrotlets.


• We will explore the quintessential rainforest on the 5 mile Ocelot Trail and the 5 mile Toucan Trail systems. The Ocelot Trail is in the floodplain with ponds and streams forming during the rainy season. The Toucan Trail on the other hand is tall rainforest that rarely or never floods. Both of these trails represent the most speciose habitats for birds. Too many possibilities to list, this is habitat for Starred Wood Quail, Pale-winged Trumpeter, several Trogons, Foliage-gleaners, Black-tailed Leaftosser, many Woodcreepers, Antbirds, Flycatchers, Manakins, and much more. Mixed species flocks are especially diverse with understory flocks led by Dusky-throated Antshrike and Red-crowned Ant-Tanagers. They often contain 30-40 species (or more!) including: Plain winged Antshrike, Bluish Slate Antshrike, White eyed Antwren, Plain breasted Antwren, Thrush-like Antpitta, White winged Shrike Tanager, Amazonian Barred Woodcreeper and Spix’s Woodcreeper. The Ocelot trail also crosses some permanently flooded old ponds inhabited by Agami Heron, Rufescent Tiger-heron, Pygmy and Green-and-rufous Kingfishers, and Sunbittern.


• After long hikes, we can continue to bird within the confines of TRC. Species possible on the TRC clearing include eventual canopy flocks, Squirrel Cuckoo, Masked Crimson Tanager, Cinnamon- throated Woodcreeper, Speckled Chachalaca and Yellow-tufted Woodpecker.

DAY 5: Let's got for Amazonian mixed flocks

• Literally, hundreds of bird species live in these forests and we often see a different set of birds on the same trails as the day before. We will search for ant swarms attended by such exciting species as Black-spotted Bare Eye, Black-banded Woodcreeper, Sooty Antbird, and maybe even a Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo, and will keep an eye and ear out for uncommon ground birds like tinamous, Striated Antthrush and Razor-billed Curassow.


• We will also look for such targets as the stunning Pavonine Quetzal, Black-bellied Cuckoo, Amazonian Pygmy-Owl, Great Jacamar, Ringed Antpipit, Casque-headed Oropendola, Speckled Spinetail, big mixed flocks led by White-winged Shrike Tanager, and many other species. Rare surprises such as Crested or Harpy Eagle, forest falcons, and Yellow-bellied Tanager are also possible in these exciting rainforests.


• We will bird at the transitional forests above the clay lick. These were bamboo forests until they flowered and died out a few years ago. Now they are akin to riparian forests but will eventually grow into terra firme as they are not affected by yearly floods. Here we will spot White-throated Jacamar, Buff-throated Saltator, Grayish Saltator, Scarlet-hooded Barbet, Crested and Russet-backed Oropendolas, Piratic Flycatcher, Yellow-billed Nunbird, and others. While birding these spots we will have extraordinary views of the Tambopata winding its way from the highlands.

DAY 6: Riparian habitat and bamboo forest

• We will explore older river-created habitats at the pond five minutes upstream from TRC – forests of Cecropia and Balsa Wood with a bamboo understory. This is the habitat of the legendary Rufous-fronted Anthrush, and the Lemon-throated Barbet, Spot-breasted Woodpecker, Cabanis Spinetail, Amazonian Antpitta, Blackish Antbird, Fuscous Flycatcher, Guira Tanager, and Troupial. As we exit the pond’s forests, we will bird on grassy areas with Tessaria and young Cecropia trees. These are not very diverse for birds but are the main habitat for Plain-crowned and Dark-breasted Spinetails, Mottle-backed Elaenia, Spotted Tody-Flycatcher, Black-billed Thrush, Orange-headed Tanager, and Seedeater species among others.


• We will 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.


• After dinner, we will venture out near the lodge 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.

DAY 7: Explore the canopy of a Brazilian Nut Forest

• A thirty-minute walk from Refugio Amazonas leads to the 34-meter scaffolding canopy tower. A banister staircase running through the middle provides safe access to the platforms above. The tower has been built upon high ground, therefore increasing your horizon of the continuous primary forest extending out towards the Tambopata National Reserve. From here views of mixed species canopy flocks as well as toucans, macaws, and raptors are likely.

DAY 8: Birds of secondary forest

• This 2 km trail will bring us along the Tambopata River. Diversity is guaranteed as the trail crosses both Terra Firme Forest and Secondary Forest. We will look for black-fronted sunbird, bluish fronted jacamar, fiery capped manakin, gray crowned flycatcher and yellow-browed tody-flycatcher, among several other species.


• Since Refugio Amazonas is built on land which was once part of a timber concession and cattle ranch the forest on parts of our trail system are secondary. 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.

DAY 9: Thank you

At this point, we hope you have increased your birds' list with at least 200 to 300 birds species. Besides that, your comprehensive expedition has made a meaningful impact on the Native Community of Infierno and our ongoing conservation projects. Thank you.