Amazonian Peru Jul 21—31, 2006
Posted by Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty is the senior author of A Guide to the Birds of Colombia, and the recently published Birds of Venezuela, both by Princeton University Press. Other credits inclu...Related Trips
The weather during our 2006 Amazonian Peru trip was remarkably pleasant (for this area, which is typically hot and muggy), but the humidity was high and we experienced some rain one afternoon and during one night. We packed more activities?more boat trips, more island visits, and extra visits to swamp forest areas?than on previous trips (how did we do it?) and, as a result, this trip recorded more species than almost any previous trip of this length. Here’s a sample of our week in the Amazon: Harpy Eagle, Black-faced Hawk, Black-banded Owl, Crested Owl, Sunbittern, Blue-and-yellow Macaw, Black-headed Parrot, Black-bellied Cuckoo, Pygmy Kingfisher (asleep), Spotted Puffbird, Lanceolated Monklet (not once but twice!), lots of aracaries, Ringed Woodpecker, Allpahuayo Antbird, Black-necked Red-Cotinga, Purple-throated Cotinga, Pompadour Cotinga, Orange-eyed Flycatcher, and Black-and-white Tody-Flycatcher.
The great complexity and diversity of a rainforest avifauna is, perhaps, better illustrated in western Amazonia than anywhere else in the world. In such a large and diverse avifauna as that of the Iquitos area much of our enjoyment should result from the sum of many different kinds of species, and in observing their behaviors, their unusual and often novel songs, duets, and breeding behavior, and habitats where they live. In a way, this is more important than mere numbers on a list. And, after spending a bit over a week searching for some of the avifaunal pieces in this greatest of all natural jigsaw puzzles, we came to appreciate, a little better, how this diversity fits together. And, not all the pieces are in the forest. In addition to a rich and varied river island fauna, there are some long distance migrants, and isolated regions of white sandy soil with some strikingly distinct vegetation.
Superbly constructed and maintained, the rainforest canopy walkway is a marvel of engineering in an environment that is not kind to longevity, but almost everyone quickly adapted to the springy feel of the walkways, and the slight sway. I would be the first to admit that one’s first trip across the walkway is both exhilarating and frightening, but confidence builds quickly. For sheer access to the third dimension of a tropical avifauna?the canopy and emergent treetops?the walkway is unparalleled. We saw birds and interactions between birds in and above the canopy that could never have been witnessed from the forest floor.
For decades the Iquitos area has been under intense pressure from hunting and trapping of birds and mammals for food, and it has been a supplier of caged wildlife and wildlife products for international markets. The results of this history of persecution are immediately obvious to a naturalist?species that are edible, or have value for their hides, feathers, or for cage purposes are absent or rare. This, combined with a dramatic (almost frightening) increase in human population during this same period of time suggests a future of hard decisions and discipline if Iquitos is to remain as wild as it is now, much less return to its more pristine earlier condition. Nevertheless, the Iquitos area remains one of the top rainforest destinations anywhere in the New World.
Jungle lodging in the Iquitos area is basic, indeed primitive, compared to the plush, comfort-filled homes and lives we have come to regard as normal, even essential. A decade ago two ladies remarked to me that the Explorama lodges had everything one needed but nothing more. Their comment is instructive because what we absolutely need and what we want are separate issues. These lodges lack electricity, plumbing, window screens, hot water, and just about every other convenience modern travelers might “want,” but most visitors quickly adapt and discover that wants and needs are indeed different. Here we washed in metal pans in our rooms and pitched the water out an open window; dressed in the dark by kerosene lamps; and found our way to outhouses and showers 30 yards away by the light of still more kerosene lamps. We shared outhouse toilets with occasional bats and other forest creatures, and there were little shrieks when we stepped under showers that took our breath away. Here we were taken out of our normal daily routine (removed from the modern comforts we’ve come to regard as our right), and placed in another where almost everything was basic and unfamiliar?and curiously (perhaps disconcertingly) we found the adjustment wasn’t difficult, and maybe even fun.
If Iquitos is a menace of noise, fumes, and free-wheeling, three-wheeled mototaxies clogging streets, and of markets overflowing with the “stuff” of modern societies, and sidewalks jammed with vendors and pedestrians of an alarmingly young average age, then the Explornapo and ACTS lodges are the perfect antidote?simplicity elevated to an art form. There we lounged in cotton hammocks, ate delicious meals of wholesome fruits and vegetables, slept beneath mosquito nets, looked up at radiantly brilliant stars, and performed evening chores by kerosene lamps. Open windows provided fresh air, and for even more oneness with nature you could leave your door open at night. All of nature, indeed the entire living, breathing forest in this greatest, most diverse mega-flora and mega-fauna on earth was little more than an arm’s-length away. We were constantly surrounded by the sounds of birds, insects, and amphibians, and nothing more. By the end of the week this new world of ours had come to seem normal. And, maybe it was.