Friday, 11 July 2025

Peru - Day 24; Los Amigos Biological Station & Puerto Maldonado

   Sadly the final day of the visit to Los Amigos had come. The hope had been that the boat to collect us would arrive mid or late morning to allow one final explore of the trails, but sadly we were informed it would be necessary to be ready for eight. That meant that only some exploration of the field station grounds, as well as possibly one of the close trails would be possible before departure.

  Around the field station there were a few nice birds, including two White-throated Jacamars right outside the room. Given it took three days before encountering them yesterday afternoon, this was a bit of a surprise. Additionally there were trip ticks of a few common species such as Swallow Tanager and Buff-fronted Foliage-Gleaner, but nothing particularly spectacular.

  We managed to find half an hour after breakfast to walk on trail 1, in the hope that we might encounter the Emperor Tamarin, which was the last realistic species we needed for this site. Sadly it did not happen, but after four days of trying it was great to finally find the localized Black-faced Cotinga. After using speculative playback for the past few days, I was thrilled to finally get a response, and even better that the bird actually came. The views were not exceptional, but having missed most of the handful or really localized species at this site, I was very pleased to see this one.

  At eight we took our bags down to the ‘dock’ and after half an hour wait the boat finally appeared. There was not much wildlife to keep the spirits high during this wait, but a pair of Drab Water Tyrants kept the spirits high! The boat trip took almost three hours due to the various stops it made at the communities along the river, and there was nothing different to see on the journey. We arrived at our hotel in Puerto Maldonado, the same Wasi Ecolodge, at 11:45.

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