Peru Manu: Part II Aug 12—21, 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 Manu region, as always, is the supreme Neotropical experience. It is as close as twenty-first century humans are likely to get to a truly wild, unaltered Tropical rainforest environment. It is a place where organisms large and small, fierce and timid, exist in something close to a natural, if precarious, ecological balance. We are only temporary visitors, but we cherish the opportunity to view, if for only a week, this grandest, most complex ecosystem on earth. Avian diversity within a few square miles or so of rainforest that we sampled around the lodge is astounding.
Our days began by candlelight well before dawn, with flashlight trips to the dining room for eggs, pancakes, or fruit and cereal. By first light snacks were stowed in backpacks, the forest was bursting with dawn song?mostly from singers still hidden in the shadowy, half-awakened forest, and our two groups were usually already assembled and underway?to observation platforms high in the canopy, or to várzea or terra firme trails, or to trails through bamboo where we found many species that we would see nowhere else.
We spent a morning at the clay lick watching (and waiting) for a spectacular assemblage of Blue-headed Parrots, and smaller numbers of Yellow-crowned and Mealy parrots to come down to eat clay at the bank. Their unusual nervousness that morning was justified when we noticed a Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle in a distant tree. Soon the hawk-eagle flew to a tree directly over the clay bank and, moments later, a few of us witnessed firsthand a dramatic (and surprisingly rare) prey capture when the eagle, in a spectacular burst of speed, quickly overtook a luckless parrot that had flown into the eagle’s tree. Remarkably, one member of our group, Marilyn Crane, captured this rare moment with a perfectly timed photograph of the eagle grasping its prey in mid-air! Up to 60 Red-and-green Macaws gathered over the bank but, after the eagle’s appearance, only a few descended to the clay bank. Like great gaudy clowns they squabbled, warily changed positions frequently, and a few carried away great clods of clay in their beaks as they participated uneasily in this ritual of clay ingestion that continues throughout the long dry season.
After midday rain showers we watched the parade of birds in the clearing around the lodge buildings. Late afternoons were used mostly for cochas, river trips, walks near the river, or for rest and relaxation. There were long tape-recorder sessions as we attempted to lure shy birds into view (some more successful than others), walks in search of primates and trumpeters, and a nighttime excursion up to a canopy platform. Our group assembled in the bar each evening for popcorn, drinks, and checklist sessions that taxed the limits of flashlight batteries even as they brought back memories of the day’s activities.
Everywhere there were birds?brightly colored ones in the clearings and canopy, big ones along the river, and shadowy antbirds lurking in the undergrowth. Some were frustrating glimpses of movement in the foliage and dim light, but eventually many of these and other shy species were seen. The Manu experience also brings together river trips; tranquil catamaran floats with hoatzins, sungrebes, kingfishers, the churring song of an unseen crake, an emergence of Sand-colored Nighthawks at dusk, stoic puffbirds on branches, and the frenzy of mixed species flocks in the forests. It also brings together some brilliant starry nights, a universe of new sounds, new meaning to candlelight meals (and candlelight in rooms), and an awareness of just how dependent we have become on artificial light and electricity in our modern lives. Our week-and-a-half trip ended all too soon, but we will take with us a world of memories and new experiences, and the feeling that, for a few days, we had the opportunity to experience one of the greatest wildernesses on earth.