Tropical Birding Trip Report Northern Peru: Across the Marañon Canyon, August 2017 Northern Peru: Across the Marañon Canyon August 13-29, 2017 TOUR LEADER: Nick Athanas Report and photos by Nick Athanas; all photos are from the tour Peruvian Plantcutter, the first of many endemics we saw on this tour I’ve been guiding trips to Northern Peru since 2005 and still enjoy coming here every year – the birding seems like it only gets better thanks to new lodges and reserves that have opened over the years. Our 2017 trip was really fun; the trip went really smoothly, we enjoyed superb weather, and had great birding with over 500 species and close to 40 Peruvian endemics. Some favorites included the Peruvian Plantcutter shown above, the truly Marvelous Spatuletail, awesome views of Gray-bellied Comet, six antpittas including an amazingly cooperative Pale-billed Antpitta (it was worth the hike!), two crescentchests, and three inca-finches. New feeding stations in the area helped us get some superb sightings of normally tough species including Rusty-tinged Antpitta, Rufous-breasted Wood-Quail, tinamous, and Ecuadorian Piedtail. That’s not to say everything was easy! Several key species only revealed themselves after a significant amount www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110
[email protected] Tropical Birding Trip Report Northern Peru: Across the Marañon Canyon, August 2017 of effort at the “eleventh hour”, chief among these being Long-whiskered Owlet, Little Inca-Finch, Marañon Crescentchest, and Tumbes Hummingbird; persistence is often the best antidote to the occasional intrusion of poor luck... A few nice mammal sightings added excitement to our trip, headlined by two very rare monkeys at Abra Patricia: Yellow-tailed Woolly Monkey and Peruvian Night Monkey.