Peru - Day 35; ExplorNapo Lodge & Allpahuya Mishana Reserve

  Today was my final day at ExplorNapo, and I had until 14:00 to enjoy the forest here before returning to Iquitos for the next stage of my trip. Despite only getting back from failing to find the Nocturnal Curassow at 01:30, we were still having breakfast at 05:30 and hitting the trails not long after.

  The forest was fairly quiet overall during the morning. It started lively with White-shouldered Antbird singing just behind the lodge, followed quickly by Waved Woodpecker which moved quickly around the canopy tops but never came down for a better view. Many of the species we encountered from the previous days were seen, the highlight of these being a pair of White-cheeked Antbirds which showed considerably better than the birds seen the previous day. Rufous-capped Antthrush was a nice bird to see, my first time in Amazonia after several times in the Atlantic Forest.

  Towards the end of the walk the birding really slowed down. We managed to tape in a Brownish Twistwing near the river, which created a phenomenal noise when doing its actual twist-winging. The only other bird during the second half of the morning was a Buckley’s Forest Falcon, which we saw pass over us several times in response to playback, but never perched conspicuously enough for us to find it. Its quick passes also meant I did not manage any photos.

  At 14:00 I piled into the boat with a group for the Ceiba Tops lodge. For some reason we headed upriver towards the small town of Mazan, before taking a mototaxi across the peninsula there to the town of Indiana, where we picked up another boat to Ceiba Tops. Once at Ceiba Tops, the large group departed and I swapped boats AGAIN to be with another group, eventually making it back to Iquitos at 16:30. Fortunately the next phase of my travelling was less stressful that I had imagined. A mototaxi was flagged down, and after a couple of errands I headed down the Naruta highway to kilometer 26.8, and there as promised was the Biological Station of the Allpahuyo Mishana Reserve, where I would spend the next few nights.

  The station was very basic, but I did not have much time to spend settling in before the herpetologist team said they were heading out to search for frogs and I asked if I wanted to join them. And so for my first evening at Mishana, I spent two hours searching for frogs, finding several as well as a small Caiman. A brilliant start to my time in the reserve!