Peru
Tambopata Research Center – Birdwatching Tour – 9D/8N
- Duration: 9 Day
- Difficulty: Easy
- Max People: 10
- Min Age: 10
- Detail
- Itinerary
- Map
- Photos
Tour details
If you are a self-proven or a hardcore birder this nine-day rainforest birdwatching program is the right one for you. A productive, birdwatching expedition in the extremely diverse rainforests of the southeastern Amazon of Peru. We have a great number of easily accessible lowland rainforest habitats close to our lodges Posada Amazonas, Refugio Amazonas, and the Tambopata Research Center.
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Place of return
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Recomendations
Tour Considerations
If you are a self-proven or a hardcore birder this nine-day rainforest birdwatching program is the right one for you. A productive, birdwatching expedition in the extremely diverse rainforests of the southeastern Amazon of Peru. We have a great number of easily accessible lowland rainforest habitats close to our lodges Posada Amazonas, Refugio Amazonas, and the Tambopata Research Center.
Itinerary
Although ali of our guides hove 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 hove an especially designed program but also a trained birding guide.
Transfer Airport to Puerto Maldonado Headquarters
Upan arrival from lima or Cusca,we will welcome you at the airport and drive you ten minutes to our Puerto Maldonado headquarters. While enjoying your first toste of the forest in our gardens we will ask you to pack only the necessary gear for your next few days,and leave the rest at our sote deposit. This helps us keep the boats and cargo light.
Puerto Maldonado to Tambopata River Port
Upan arrival to Puerto Maldonado we willdrive 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 sean for Purus Jacamar, White browed Blackbird,Pearl Kite,and Scaled Pigeon.
Transfer Prívate Boat - Tambopata River Port to Posada Amazo
A prívate 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 apwing,Collared Plover,King Vulture,Bat Falcan, Olive and Russet-backed Oropendolas and Ringed Kingfisher and Amazon Kingfisher.
Boxed unch Orientation
Upan arrival,the lodge manager willwelcome you and brief you with importan!navigation and security tips. Dinner
Room at Posada Amazonas - Overnight
Breakfast
Posada Amazonas Canopy Tower
A thirty-minute walk takes us to this 42-meters tall scaffolding tower,which willadd a whole new dimension to our Amazon birding experience:the forest canopy. We will woit for a canopy mixed flock to appear. The mixed flock is mostly ali about tanagers: Paradise Tanager,Green-and-gold Tanager,Flame-crested Tanager,Turqoise Tanager, Opal- rumped Tanager and others. The tower also offers good opportunity for Cream- colored woodpecker,Gilded Barbet, Plum-throated Catinga 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!
Lunch
Shahue Trail
Today we will bird the Shahue Trail,good for Fiery-capped Manakin,Round-tailed Manakin,Pele Rumped Trumpeteer and
Pavonine Quetzal.
Dinner
Room at Posada Amazonas - Overnight
Breakfast
Tres Chimbadas Oxbow Lake
Tres Chimbadas is thirty minutes by boat and ferty five minutes hiking from Posada Amazonas. Once there you will paddle around the lake in a catamaran,searching fer the resident family of nine giant river otters (seen by 60% of our lake visitors) and other lakeside wildlife such os caiman,hoatzin and horned screamers. Otters are mast active from dawn to eight or nine AM.
Bombeo Forest
We depart on a fifteen minute drive to the bombeo patches around Tres Chimbadas Lake. We will leavelake birding aside and focus on the bombeo specialists. We willlook fer the endemic White-cheeked Tody Tyrant, Peruvian Recurvebill,Red billed Scythebill,Rufous-headed Woodpecker, Rufous-breasted Piculet, Brown-rumped Foliage Gleaner, Large- headed Flatbill,Ousky- 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.
Transfer Prívate Boat - Posada Amazonas to TRC
During the first three hours of the boat ride,as we enter the Tambopata National Reserve,we willfecus on recapping and listing. Then the fun begins and it lasts fer three more hours! Numerous egrets,Capped heron,Cocoi Heron,Large and Yellow-billed Tern,Block Skimmer,the clossic Horned Screamer,Razor Billed Currasow,Blue-throated Piping Guan and Orinece Goose and during the dry season months,migrant shorebirds, are all possibilities fer this portienof the trip.Every now and then macaws, toucans and raptors will be spotted above.
Boxed Lunch
Orientation
Upen arrival,the lodge manager willwelcome you and brief you with important navigation and security tips. Dinner
Macaw Project Lectures
Alter dinner scientists will provide an in depth look at the biology of macaws, their feeding habits,the theories fer clay lick use,their breeding and feeding ecology,population fluctuations and the threats to their conservation.
Room at Tambopata Research Center - Overnight
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 tento twelve of the following members of the parrot fomily: 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.
Breakfast
Floodplain and Terra Firme Forest
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 floodplainwith 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, severa! Trogons,Foliage-gleaners,Black tailed eaftosser, 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: Plainwinged 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 sorne permanently flooded old ponds inhabited by Agami Heron,Rufescent Tiger-heron,Pygmy and Green-and-rufous Kingfishers,and Sunbittern.
lunch
TRC Gardens
Alter 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, Cinammon- throated woodcreeper,Speckled Chachalaca and Yellow-tufted Woodpecker.
Dinner
Room at Tambopata Research Center - Overnight
Breal<fast
Second visit to Floodplainand Terra Firme Forest
Alter breal<fast,we willventure bacl< into the beautiful rainforests at TRC. literally hundreds of bird species live in these forests and we often see a different set of birds on the sorne trails as the doy before. We will search for antswarms attended by such exciting species as Blacl<-spotted Bare Eye,Blacl<-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 Cuclkoo,Amazonian Pygmy Owl,Great Jacamar,Ringed Antpipit,Casque-headed Oropendola,Speclkled Spinetail,big mixed flocks led by White-winged Shrike Tanager,and many other species. Rore surprises such as Crested or Harpy Eagle,forest falcons,and Yellow-bellied Tanager are also possible inthese exciting rainforests.
Lunch Overlooks
We will bird at the transitional forests above the clay lick. These were bombeo forests until they flowered and died out a few years ago.Now they are akinto riparian forests but will eventually grow into terra firme as they are not affected by year ly floods. Here we will spot White-throated Jacamar, Buff-throated Saltator,Grayish Saltator,Scarlet-hooded Barbet,Crested and Russet-backed Oropendolas, Piratic Flycatatcher, Yellow-billed Nunbird and others. While birding these spots we will hove extraordinary views of the Tambopata winding its way from the highlands.
Dinner
Room at Tambopata Research Center - Overnight
Breakfast Riparian Habitat
We will explore older river created habitats at the pond five minutes upstream trom TRC - forests of Cecropia and Balsa
Wood with a bombeo understory. This is the habitat of the legendary Rufous-fronted Anthrush,and the emon-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 birdon grassy oreas 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.
lunch
Bombeo Trail
we will focus on the bombeo 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.
Dinner
Night Birding
Alter dinner,we willventure 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 Frog,tree frogs and other creatures of the night.
Room at Tambopata Research Center - Overnight
Breakfast
Transfer Private Boot - TRC to Refugio Amazonas
A three and a hallhour boat ride brings us to Refugio Amazonas. Boxed unch
Canopy Tower
A thirty minute walk from Refugio Amazonas leads to the 25 meter scaffolding canopy tower. A bannistered staircase running throughthe middle provides sale 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.
Dinner
Room at Refugio Amazonas - Overnight
Breakfast Overlook Walk
This 2 km trailwill bring us along the Tambopata River. Diversity is guaranteed as the trail crosses both Terra Firme Forest and Secondary Forest. we willlook for block fronted nunbird,bluish fronted jacamar, fiery capped manakin,gray crowned flycatcher and yellow-browed tody-flycatcher, among several other species.
Lunch
Secondary Forest
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 Block Cacique,Gray-fronted Dove,Ruddy Ground Dove and others.
Dinner
Room at Refugio Amazonas - Overnight
Breakfast
Transfer Boat - Refugio Amazonas to Tambopata River Port Transfer Tambopata River Port to Pto Maldonado Headquarters Transfer Puerto Maldonado Headquarters to Airport
We retrace our river and roadjourney back to Puerto Maldonado,our office and the airport. Depending on airline schedules, this may require dawn departures.