Peru - Day 34; ExplorNapo Lodge

   Last nights late finish was surprisingly not too much of a problem for my 05:00 start. After a quick breakfast we piled into the boat and headed upriver to the ACTS lodge and the canopy walkway, where we would spend the first few hours of the morning. It was just beginning to get light as we passed by on the boat, but I did not pick out anything in the thermal. 

  Once we got to the canopy walkway the fun really started. We based ourselves on platform six again, and from here we had brilliant views of the birds coming to the tree above us. Among the tanager flocks I managed three lifers with Short-billed Honeycreeper, Golden-bellied Euphonia and Rufous-bellied Euphonia, but the start of the morning were the White-browed Purpletuft, with at least three individuals lingering all morning and occasionally showing fantastically well. In addition to these birds, there was my main target, the Dugand’s Antwren. Although we saw it and could hear it clearly throughout the morning, it never showed well. There were plenty of other nice birds as well, Black-headed Parrot, Duida Woodcreeper, Paradise Jacamar, White-fronted Nunbird, White-necked Puffbird and Ivory-billed Aracari to name a few. As we were leaving we were treated to phenomenal views of a stunning male Spangled Cotinga on platform eight.

  After a couple of hours on the tower we descended back to the forest floor. We immediately bumped into an ant swarm which was being closely attended by a few antbirds. Sadly they were not especially responsive to playback and I had to leave with limited views of the two new species for me, with White-cheeked Antbird and the stunning White-plumed Antbird. The Collared Gnatwren showed much better however, which was another new bird for me. 

  We slowly made our way back to the lodge, picking up a few trip ticks such as Dusky-throated Antshrike and Blue-capped Manakin, but the birding seemed to die off rather quickly and the last section of the walk was deathly quiet. Fortunately this was broken when we encountered a group of Black-backed Tamarin monkeys. They did not show especially well but fortunately it did not matter as a group came to feed at the lodge during lunch, offering an incredibly close encounter. 

  Our plans for after lunch were sadly halted by a sudden rainstorm. It took a while to pass but once it did I got the chance to explore on my own a bit. This worked out well as I was able to check some of the spots from the previous day and had a Purplish Jacamar show nicely. Otherwise it was commoner species again, but helped keep the afternoon exciting before returning to the canopy tower to try for the Nocturnal Curassow. 

  Unfortunately our evening was not productive. It continued to rain on and off, and we never heard any Curassows, meaning I had to leave this key target behind. There were no consolation mammals, with an armadillo scuttling away before we had a chance to see it, other than through the thermal.