2008 Tour Narrative
In Brief: This tour marked our first return to the Iquitos and Explorama Lodge system since 2005, and this region of Peru continues to be an exciting area to visit. Although Iquitos is a large city (and getting larger), and there are ever-increasing numbers of people living along the rivers, the forest is still remarkably intact, and Explorama’s excellent infrastructure makes a visit to this rich area very worthwhile. The Mishana-Allpahuayo Reserve outside Iquitos is very accessible (with loads of interesting birds), and although many of the larger species have disappeared, the Explornapo Lodge and Canopy Walkway are both still excellent for forest birding and a lot of fun. Our list of more than 300 species for the week is a good indication of how diverse the birding is in this region of Amazonia.
In Detail: We began with the better part of three days birding around Iquitos, mainly visiting the Mishana-Allpahuayo Reserve, just a short 30 minutes from our hotel. Mishana never lets us down, and we searched for several species first described to science in the past ten years after their discovery right there at the reserve! We were successful in finding the rare Allpahuayo Antbird—the reserve’s namesake—as well as Ancient Antwren and Zimmer’s Antbird, all three white-sand specialists. Other fun birds seen at the reserve included Brown-banded Puffbird, Citron-bellied Attila, Saffron-crested Tyrant-Manakin, and Orange-crowned Manakin. A few of the specialists, such as the new Iquitos Gnatcatcher and Mishana Tyrannulet, were only heard. On one afternoon we visited nearby Padre Cocha and saw both Black-crested Antshrike and Band-tailed Nighthawk, both excellent birds for Peru. The birding at Mishana was fun, and it was nice to come back to such a pleasant hotel in Iquitos!
The wonderful part of visiting the Explorama Lodge system is the diversity of habiats we have access to: from lush varzea forest to extensive river-islands to excellent terra firme forest, including the canopy walkway itself. Each of these habitats contributes to the incredible species diversity in this region of Amazonia. The river islands hold a special place in my heart, as this is the habitat I studied for my Master’s thesis at Louisiana State University. We visited a large, older island to see island obligates such as Castelnau’s Antshrike, Ash-breasted Antbird, Zimmer’s Woodcreeper, and the scarce Red-and-white Spinetail. Our visit to the sandbar scrub islands on the Napo River was even more interesting: we managed to find most of the true island specialists, including Olive-spotted Hummingbird, White-bellied and Parker’s Spinetails, Lesser Hornero, Black-and-white Antbird (one of my real favorites!), Riverside Tyrant, Lesser Wagtail-Tyrant, White-headed Marsh-Tyrant, Orange-headed Tanager, and Pearly-breasted Conebill. At a nearby oxbow lake, we saw other riverine specialists such as Hoatzin, Horned Screamer, Black-collared Hawk, Dot-backed Antbird, Cinnamon Attila, Orange-eyed Flycatcher (a bird discovered by Ted Parker at Explornapo Lodge), all five kingfishers, Black-capped Donacobius, and the scarce Band-tailed Oropendola.
And then, of course, there was the primary forest and the Canopy Walkway at Explornapo Lodge and the ACTS station. While large birds have presumably been hunted out—totally unlike the situation in the pristine forest at Manu—this forest continues to be excellent for such groups as puffbirds and jacamars, always crowd favorites! We managed to see Collared, Spotted, White-chested, and Chestnut-capped Puffbirds, as well as all three species of nunbirds, and had incredible views of Yellow-billed, Purplish, White-chinned, White-eared, and Great Jacamars. We once again did very well on understory antbirds, seeing something like 40 species during the tour; some of the better sightings included White-plumed Antbird, Reddish-winged Bare-eye, and Yellow-browed Antbird. One of our best birds was a male Black-necked Red-Cotinga. Other good cotingas included nice views of an Amazonian Umbrellabird along the river, and excellent scope views of Spangled Cotinga from the canopy. The canopy was quite good—it’s always good—and it’s fun to see canopy birds up close and personal. Some of our favorites had to include the beautiful Black-bellied Cuckoo, close views of several Many-banded Aracaris, not to mention all the other toucans we saw such as Golden-collared Toucanet, Ivory-billed Aracari, and both of the big toucans. Even some of the tiny canopy birds such as Mustached Antwren and Yellow-browed Tody-Flycatcher were very exciting. The walkway itself is an incredible experience, and certainly one of the best-constructed walkways of its kind in the world!
In all, the trip was a great success. The accommodations, while basic, were quite comfortable, and the food and service at the lodges was quite good. Although the birds were not vocalizing much (this happens sometimes in Amazonia), we still managed to see more than 300 species, a mind-blowing total for many of the participants! We even saw a few incredible mammals, such as the small group of Monk Saki Monkeys (very rare!), and the cute Pygmy Marmosets coming in to eat bananas at the lodge.
- Gary Rosenberg
Updated: August 2008