WHERE TO GO BIRDING IN PERU

From Atalaya you have easy access to two lodges along the Alto madre de Dios river, still in the foothills but with a huge impact from the lowland avifauna. The first lodge, Amazonía, is only half an hour downstream from Atalaya. This nice lodge is mainly in secondary habitat in a former tea plantation. The very different habitats around the lodge and the easy access has boosted the list to around 600 species. You have trails in terra firme forest, in varzea forest, there are bamboo, an oxbow lake, canopy tower and the river itself. Add to that a garden with flowers and feeders good for hummingbirds. It seems rather pointless to list species typical for this place but birds like Crested Eagle, Long-tailed Potoo, Black-capped tinamou, Blackish Rail, Uniform Crake, Sungrebe, Fine-barred Piculet, Fiery-capped Manakin and Koepke´s Hermit are some.

3 hours downstream is the Pantiacolla lodge. The list for this lodge is some 550 species. This lodge also have a variety of habitat like varzea, terrra firme and bamboo. Some specialities here are Pale-winged Trumpeter, Buckley´s forest-falcon, Blue-headed Macaw, Rufous-vented Ground-cuckoo, Semicollared Puffbird, Scarlet-hooded Barbet and White-cheeked Tody-flycatcher to mention a few. From here you can hike 8 kms to a mirador with a grand view over the Manu lowlands. Black Tinamou have been seen here. The forest here is more of a cloud-forest type and the birds are partly different from around the lodge. It is a long day-hike and camping here is a better option. Check with the lodge. When traveling up and down the river one should see Fasciated Tiger-heron, Large-billed and Amazonian Terns.