Audubon Peru Birding Trip September 2010

By Doris Valencia Puclla

(01/19/2011) This was certainly a sucessful 10 day trip with lots of contrast, we started in Cusco, the capital city of the Inca and made our way to the lowlands of Manu, covering major habitats and enjoying its wonderful wildlife, ending at the marvelous site of Machupicchu. Of course Cusco could not be left behind so we spend time visiting the amazing site of Sacsayhuaman where we did see some birds too.

The highlights of the trip were certainly the early morning visit to the Cock of the Rock Lek in San Pedro, where we enjoy 9 males dancing vividly for a mate, females were not interested that day!! adding the numerous species of tanagers, flycathers and, hummingbirds. As we drove our way from the cloud forest at San Pedro to the foothills we spend two very productive days at Hacienda Amazonia where the star bird was the gorgeous Rufus-crested Coquete seen very easily from the main building porch, the trails were very productive as well with several species of flycathers, woodpeckers, tanagers and antbirds.

As we continue down the upper Mother of God River we spend 4 nights at the Manu Wildlife Center Lodge, walking trails, visiting oxbowlakes, canopy platforms and the most spectacular and most accesible Blanquillo Macaw Clay-lick, Blue-headed Parrots are very abundant we saw hundreds of them, Orange-cheeked Parrots are extremely cute and only come in small flocks, amazons were very active that morning, Mealy and Yellow-crowned were certainly very vocal as well as Tui and Cobalt-winged Parakeets. The show wasnt complete until the arrival of around 125 Red and Green Macaws that spend several minutes taking bigs chunks of clay, the sound was amazing and we were all amazed and lucky because in previous days people saw very few of them, it was certainly the icing of the cake!!!

It was sad to leave but the adventure wasnt over, we ended in Puerto Maldonado and took a commercial plane back to Cusco, birded the wetlands of Huacarpay and enjoy a delicious picnic lunch prepared for us by Carlos Unda who is certainly the best cook I know. The Sacred Valley of the Inca was awaiting for us which is were we ended our day. Machupicchu was certainly a visit people was waiting for, so next morning we were on the first train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, we spend a wonderful day up in the site and birded the area for the peruvian endemic Inca Wren. The next morning was dedicated to bird the area where we added several other species of tangara Tanagers, Highland Motmots, Golden-crowned Flycatchers, White-capped Diper, Torrent Ducks, Dusky-green Oropendolas and many, many more. This trip ended up with a list of 360 species plus 7 monkey species, considering that hardly any playbacks were used and just relied on people´s pacience and Dan´s Van den Broek amazing skill to imitate bird sounds. Muchas gracias to all of you that participated in this trip.