Manu National Park

Following on from our 4 days birding on Manu Road we have just gone deeper and spent 6 days in the Manu National Park itself exploring this part of the remote Amazon Rainforest.

We took a six day tour with Manu Wildlife Peru with three nights at the Treehouse Inn and two at Casa Matsigueka. Because of recent sightings and movements of non-contacted tribal groups we had a slightly curtailed itinerary not being able to visit anything west of the Manu River. That said we still had some great sightings including Giant Anteater, Tapir, Capybara, 8 species of Monkey and over 100 species of birds (with 35 lifers).

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On the first day it was mainly a drive from Cusco but we stopped briefly to checkout some male Andean Cock of the Rock birds in the Cloud Forest. This is a bird I have seen before but never had great photos of.

After lunch we switched from land to river taking a boat on the Rio Madre de Dios. This was a fairly short ride of a couple of hours to the Treehouse Inn. We added two new Swallow species (White-Winged and White-Banded) as well as the Purplish Jay and Black Caracara. But perhaps the bird of the day was the Sand-coloured Nighthawk which was spotted on a log during a jungle toilet stop. We did also spot some Jaguar footprints on the same beach and numerous butterflies.

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That night we went for a night walk and in fact on two subsequent nights too. Clearly the light was terrible for photography (it is night after all). But we saw a range of critters on these early night time walks and I share a few iPhone pictures here.

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The next morning we were up early to visit a Parrot Clay Lick. It was very foggy and the action was slow going as a result. However good numbers of Blue-Headed and Yellow-Crowned Parrots turned up. We saw various Macaws flying over too.

On the walk back we added some new birds with the Buff-Fronted Woodcreeper and Black-Fronted Nunbird being lifers. Alas at about this time I managed to accidentally switch off the image stabilisation setting on my camera and the quality of the photos was somewhat shaky from here-on out.

We also encountered a couple of species of monkey during this walk which was exciting as they are always good to watch albeit a challenge to photograph as they move through the foliage. On this walk we saw the Large-Headed Capuchin and the Black-Mantled Tamarin.

On another walk in the rainforest we had great views of a Red-and-Green Macaw which allowed some photos. Briefer views of Manu Antbird, Round-tailed Manakin and Plum-Throated Cotinga were also welcome lifers for me.

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The next morning we began a 12 hour boat trip into the Manu Reserved Zone. Along the way we had plenty of sightings of Cayman (Black and White) but also birds including Great Black Hawk, Black Skimmer, Pied Plover and Horned Screamer. We did see two Sun Bitterns too (a lifer) but I was not quick enough to photograph.

It was two pairs of the Capybara’s, the world’s largest rodent that really had our group excited though.

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The next morning we took a walk from Casa Matsigueka and had three great sightings of new monkey species.

The monkeys were well supported by more Macaws but also a Curl-Crested Aracari and Golden-Green Woodpecker.

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After lunch we headed to the Cocha Salvador lake. The light was approaching the golden hour and there were lots of birds showing well.

In the water Giant River Otters performed well and in the trees Humbolt’s White-Fronted Capuchin were briefly spotted.

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The next morning we were heading out of the reserved zone but were hoping to see more wildlife on the way back to Treehouse. We got off to a great start with a Brazilian Tapir swimming across the Manu River.

We added some more good bird sightings with Wood Stork, King Vulture and even a brief view of a Green-and-Rufous Kingfisher.

Just as we thought the wildlife sightings were over for the day a Giant Anteater was spotted swimming ahead of us and we were able to observe it as it climbed out onto the bank and disappeared from view.

It was a real privilege to be in this amazing rainforest habitat and see these new birds and mammals. We left Peru with 382 species (1,231 for whole trip) of which 245 were lifers.