Jack Reinoehl

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The entire trip was spent in the Amazon lowlands. We stayed in a fancy hotel in Iquitos for 3 nights and then spent the next 9 nights in three different camps that were all operated by the same outfit (See website above.) All had small rooms with no electricity and shared bathrooms and showers (cold).

They were open to the outside air, and several species of birds were seen in the rafters above the rooms. All had mess halls where dinner was served buffet style and where you could get cold drinks and lots of drinkable water. The best part of the dinner was often fried catfish freshly caught. I mean this was GOOD after a day in the field. As for the desserts . . . the catfish was better. All camps had great forest right on the doorstep. All were frequented by regular tourists as well as us devoted birders – one large group was visiting from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.

After we left Iquitos, all travel was by boat. From Iquitos, we headed down the Amazon (my first time to see the Amazon River) by a fast boat to the first camp. To reach the other two camps, which were close together, we continued down the Amazon until we reached the Napo -- where we headed upstream an hour or so.

There are some slightly uncomfortable aspects of visiting the Amazon Basin, but these should not be exaggerated. I got plenty of bites, including chiggers, until I started to wear my rubber boots all the time. Then I did not get any more chiggers. Malaria is very rare in this area and other tropical diseases and discomforts are also pretty rare, though definitely not unknown. One thing that is not rare is stomach disorders, which you can pretty much count on in a trip such as this. Of the 13 people on the tour, most experienced some degree of discomfort and several were quite sick for 2 or 3 days. I even had one day when people thought I was more quiet that usual, but I did not require a remedy any more extreme than 2 Pepto-Bismol tablets.

The weather for the trip was a little unexpected. Two days before the tour started a cold front moved into the area from the south. Our first morning in the field was cloudy with temperatures as low as 68 degrees (I took a little thermometer with me) though it cleared up later. One week into the tour, we must have been right on the edge of another front -- it was cloudy all day, the temperature did not exceed 76 degrees and the barometric pressure was dropping, though it soon recovered. Thus we had some breaks from the legendary heat and humidity of the Amazon Basin. We had rain two or three days, and it rained somewhere nearby most days. It also rained a couple times during the night; the steady drip of water from the leaves made it impossible to tell when the rain had stopped.

One aspect of the trip that made it particularly enjoyable for me was the participants, though I’ll restrict my attention to only two of them. I’ll mention first the leader Bret Whitney. Through previous trips and mutual acquaintances, I knew Bret pretty well before the trip started. His knowledge of birds in the Amazon Basin is second to none and many of the most exciting birds of the trip -- birds either not known to science or not previously known from Peru, were his recent discoveries. Moreover, his determination to find us a large number of species was very impressive, and our time was efficiently spent. It is a genuine privilege to go birding with him. One of the paying customers on this trip was Josep del Hoyo, an editor of the Handbook of the Birds of the World series. This is a very expensive but very impressive series, which in its first 5 volumes covers all the birds through the hummingbirds. If you haven’t seen it, I’d recommend a trip to a library to examine Volume 5, which has all the hummingbirds and all the owls in the world, with wonderful collections of photographs as well as paintings of all species. A visit to the HBW website (linked from BirdLinks) is another option to see what this series is like. I got to know Josep very well, and, as you might imagine, someone involved in a project such as this has plenty of good stories.

TAXONOMIC COMMENT

When you go on a trip with Bret Whitney, you learn a great deal about the state of knowledge of Amazonian birds. One thing you learn is that in the Amazon Basin there are any number of cryptic species-pairs. What I mean by that is best exemplified by our Willow and Alder Flycatchers. Everyone now takes it for granted that these are distinct species, but it is certainly understandable that when judgement was based on museum skins alone and vocalizations were not carefully considered, they were thought to be the same species. In the Amazon Basin the above situation recurs ad infinitum.

The characteristic families of the Amazon Basin are the non-oscine passerines: particularly the flycatchers, funariids, woodcreepers and antbirds. From Bret, you learn that the other three families are like the flycatchers in that closely related species tend to look very much alike though they can sound quite different. If you think about it, there are several genera of flycatchers in North America that show this trend. Aside from Empidonax, there are the crested flycatchers (Myiarchis) and the pewees (Contopus). To convince yourself that this same trait is found in the other families mentioned above, a brief glance at some of the plates in a book such as Hilty’s Birds of Colombia is all that is necessary. How many unrecognized species are there? It could be a whole lot.

To give one example from the trip, one of the birds we saw in the white sand forest looked like the "Chestnut-tailed Antbird" as pictured in Hilty, and we used that name for it. The Chestnut-tailed Antbird, we were told, is a common species south of the Amazon but where we were does not occur except in the white sand forest. There, although it looks essentially the same it sounds completely different (the difference in the songs of the two forms is much greater than between Willow and Alder Flycatchers or the Eastern and Western Wood-pewees). I do not know how the ones we saw compare to other populations north of the Amazon. So is there one Chestnut-tailed Antbird or two (or more) species involved? Bret will generally argue that more than one species is involved in these cases, based as much as anything on the nature of speciation for the non-oscine passerine families.

So who is going to sort out all these different forms? To make what is a very big mess even bigger, to describe new species such as these properly according to the rules of biological nomenclature it is necessary (lets say) to locate the original specimen of "Chestnut-tailed Antbird" to find out which of the new forms keeps the old name. Bret is working on this; an example is his 1997 article that splits the Slaty Antshrike (which occurs around the periphery of the Amazon basin in dry forest) into -- 7 species!

One result of a trip to the Amazon with Bret is that you lose a little of your complacency about sticking a name on a bird.

THE BIRDS -- BY HABITAT

On this trip, I saw or heard close to 400 species, in spite of the fact that we were visiting a small geographic area with no variation in elevation. To give a full idea of how this happens, I’ll describe the birds seen two different ways. One is by habitat and habit; the other will be by family.

1. Open country -- Here this means areas with scattered trees, grass, brush and some cultivation. We were little interested in such areas, but at a single such site on the first afternoon we recorded about 40 species in a couple hours. Included among these were very widespread species such as Black Vulture, Smooth-billed Ani, Great Kiskadee and Blue-gray tanager and some more exotic-sounding ones: Fork-tailed Palm Swift, Barred Antbird, Black-capped Donacobius and Magpie Tanager.

2. Islands -- Many bird species in the Amazon Basin are found only on islands. I was aware of this, but I did not realize that islands occur throughout the entire length of the river; at least that is the case where we were. During our time on the Amazon we could NEVER see both banks. The different ages of islands host quite different selections of birds.

2A. Very young islands. Just a few minutes out of Iquitos Bret spotted an island that was hardly more than a large sandbar, with no trees but a dense stand of cane in one area. This led to a very productive unscheduled stop.

Sandy areas had Pied Lapwing (very beautiful when seen up close) and Collared Plover. The vegetated part of the island hosted a number of species that simply are not seen except on these young islands: Lesser Hornero, White-bellied and Parker’s Spinetail, Black-and-white Antbird, several flycatchers including Lesser Wagtail-Tyrant and Yellow-hooded Blackbird. Most would have been very difficult to see had they not been called in with a tape.

2B. Medium-aged islands. After a few years, grass and cane give way to fast-growing Cecropia trees. Such islands get a whole new collection of species. Examples we saw were Olive-spotted Hummingbird, Dark-breasted Spinetail, Pale-billed Hornero, Red-eyed Vireo (these were migrants from the south) and Pearly-breasted Conebill. The island that produced all of these species for us had real quicksand -- the soil literally turned gelatinous right under our feet and one of our number could not free himself and had to be pulled out of the stuff!

2C. Mature islands. Islands eventually come to host a considerable diversity of trees. Such islands share more species with the mainland than younger islands but a number of species are restricted to them. We visited two such islands, one of which had a navigable channel so we birded it mainly from our boat. Species that we saw on these islands included: Horned Screamer, Crane and Slate-colored Hawks, Black-banded Crake (very seldom seen), Tui Parakeet, Great Potoo, White-bearded Hermit, all 5 South American kingfishers, Plain-breasted Piculet, Zimmer’s Woodcreeper, Pale-legged Hornero, Castlenau’s Antshrike, Leaden Antwren, Greater Schiffornis, Amazonian Umbrellabird and Solitary Cacique. This is a very abbreviated list. The day we visited the island by boat was the "birdiest" day of the trip -- birds were everywhere all the time.

TAXONOMIC COMMENT 2

The island birds of Amazonia provide a good number of examples of species pairs. These pairs consist of one species that is widespread in the Amazon basin and a second that is found only on islands. Examples are Gray and Leaden Antwrens, the two Certhiaxis spinetails, and Zimmer’s and Straight-billed Woodcreepers. The Parker’s Spinetail, which is found only on young islands, is a recent split from the widespread Rusty-backed Spinetail and this is another example.

For the first two examples, at least, if you have Volume 2 of Ridgely’s Handbook of Birds of South America you can compare the range maps of these species to see what I’m talking about. If I allow myself a digression, species pairs that have similar distributions can be found in North America also. An example is the comparison between the two scaup ducks and our two Aegolius owls. The Greater Scaup is more northern and holarctic while the Lesser Scaup is more southern and restricted to the New World. A similar comparison holds between Boreal and Northern Saw-whet Owl.

Aside from the species-pair phenomenon, some groups have diversified substantially just on the islands. For example, I found it pretty remarkable that each of the three ages of islands above has its own type of hornero. There are also three kinds of Synallaxis spinetails on the islands that separate out to some extent by age of islands, though some of these also occur together. So much for islands.

3. Rivers -- On the large river, you don’t see too many different birds. Those seen include: two terns, Yellow-billed (like a Least tern) and Large-billed (unique among the terns); several swallows, the neatest of which is Brown-chested Martin, which is shaped like a Solitary Sandpiper in flight and holds its wings below its body when it glides; and Ringed and Amazon Kingfishers. A memorable sight from a trip down a small river was a great look at a Bat Falcon in perched in plain view high over the river.

4. Lakes -- One morning we took a boat to an oxbow lake. This gave an opportunity to observe aerial species -- mainly raptors and swifts. The selection of raptors was highlighted by Plumbeous (similar to Mississippi Kite) and Swallow-tailed Kites which were feeding on aerial insects in large numbers the morning we were there. My estimate is that there were 20 Swallow-tailed and 80 Plumbeous in the vicinity of the lake, and it was great watching them. There were lots of other raptors soaring in the vicinity: highlights were: King Vulture, Slender-billed Kite, Slate-colored Hawk and (not soaring) Red-throated Caracara. Among the 4 species of swifts that I got on, the best was the Pale-rumped Swift, a migrant from southern South America. There were two more species detected, making a remarkable total of 6 species of swifts in one location.

5. Amazonian forest. Below is some info I got from the internet (from some biologist in Australia; that’s the internet for you!) which sketches the different types of forest we visited:

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There are actually many quite distinct 'types' of forest in Amazonia, each with its own structural appearance, species composition and ecology. These are some of them:

Terra firme: This is the 'classic' rainforest, and the most abundant. Big evergreen trees, with plank buttress roots. A dark forest floor, heavily shaded by the dense canopy above, with an open feel about it. Some vines ('lianas') and plants growing on the tree branches ('epiphytes'). Grows on the 'normal' clayey tropical soils (nutrient poor by temperate-zone standards) which are not flooded by rivers.

Varzea: In this forest, the trees are tolerant of seasonal flooding and often depend on fish swimming between their branches to eat their fruits and disperse their seeds!

White sand forest: Grows on very leached-out soils with almost no nutrients. White sand is almost pure quartz; it looks like white sugar!

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5a. White sand forest -- A special aspect of this trip was the chance to visit white sand forest in Peru. White sand forest is widespread well north of the Amazon. For example, the reason that the Rio Negro (which makes the border between Colombia and Venezuela in the extreme south of Venezuela before it flows into the Amazon) is black is because it flows through a lot of white sand forest. However, this type of forest was unknown in Peru until some small areas of it were recently discovered very close to Iquitos – now only a half-hour drive from the center of town.

And, to pick one example of a bird species that prefers white sand forest, the Pompadour Cotinga, a purple bird with all white wings, was not known from Peru in the 1980s but it is not at all rare within the forest we visited. It is certainly remarkable that this cotinga occupies a small patch of forest so far away from its main range, separated by hundreds of miles of unsuitable habitat. Don’t ask me how that happened.

The combination of having not been visited by ornithologists until recently and being highly isolated biologically explains how this area could host several species that were unknown to science until recently -- as well as a number of species previously unknown from Peru. Examples of the latter that we saw, besides the cotinga, are Brown-banded Puffbird and White-winged Potoo, both very seldom seen South American birds. We found the latter by a two hour nighttime hike. Bret located it in the darkness 100’ up in a tree by hearing only a soft call note, one of the more remarkable bird-finding feats I’ve witnessed.

A recently discovered species the Ancient Antwren, is described by Whitney in a 1998 article in the Auk. The Ancient Antwren (genus:Herpsilochmus) is common in this area and seems to be in every flock of small birds. If all that is not enough, we saw several other very nice birds in the white sand forest: Black-bellied Cuckoo, Gould’s Jewelfront, Paradise Jacamar, Pied Puffbird, Saffron-crested Tyrant-Manakin and Pearly Antshrike.

5b. Varzea forest -- This forest and the next look very similar to the casual eye and adjoin each other so it is surprising that a number of species are restricted to each. According to Parker’s 1982 checklist, of 56 lowland forest antbirds in Peru, 16 occur only in varzea (this includes some island species), 17 only in terra firme, and the other 23 in both. Other families assort themselves also but to a lesser degree. At least I think they do, I don’t have time to count them all up because I’m trying to write this thing.

As it happened, water levels were unusually high, so some varzea trails were under water. We thus did much of our varzea birding from a boat, which was fun. Memorably, we located Black-chinned Antbird by drifting along a stream, playing its song until one responded. They then turned out to be all over the place. Other notable species of the flooded forest were: Spotted Puffbird, Cream-colored Woodpecker, Long-billed Woodcreeper, Dull-capped Attila and Band-tailed Oropendola.

5c. Terra firme -- I’ll divide this up into several headings, to discuss the different modes of life of tropical forest birds from a birding point of view.

A. Solitary territorial birds. These are species that as a rule do not join flocks. It is not unusual for such species to sing once or twice at the crack of dawn and remain silent for the rest of the day, though others are quite noisy. To find many of these species, you have to recognize proper habitat within the forest and play a tape of (or imitate) their song. Examples include: Black-banded Woodcreeper, Undulated Antshrike, Rufous-capped Antthrush, Screaming Piha, Musician Wren and Slate-colored Grosbeak. Undulated Antshrike is a rare species that is found within the forest only in specialized habitat: gullies with thick brush, perhaps near a treefall. Bret whistled for one several times each day for the whole trip without success until the last evening in the forest, when we finally found one. It’s a dark bird with a big crest!

B. Understory flocks. These flocks generally contain several types of antwrens, antshrikes, etc. One flock we observed included: Dusky-throated and Cinereous Antshrikes, Plain-throated, Long-winged, Gray and White-flanked Anwrens, a Spot-winged Antbird and perhaps a woodcreeper or two as well.

C. Canopy flocks. Canopy flocks are a major feature of rain forest birding and are often quite frustrating. They can be over 100’ up and include dozens of birds of many different species. These flocks are located by listening for the call of the Dusky-capped Greenlet, which by its constant vocalizing helps the flock to stay together. This is a plain little bird with few field marks, so it is difficult to be sure you are seeing it up there in the flock.

Such flocks often contain a good variety of tanagers that are not so difficult to identify. Examples are: Paradise Tanager, Green-and-Gold Tanager, Fulvous-crested Tanager, Yellow-backed Tanager. and Fulvous Shrike-Tanager. Also in nearly every flock were a couple of antbirds: Dugand’s Antwren, and what we tentatively called "Ash-winged Antwren", which belongs to the genus Terenura and which Bret thought might not match any named species. Other species that were in most flocks were: Chestnut-capped Becard, Lineated Woodcreeper, Chestnut-winged Foliage-Gleaner and Yellow-margined Flycatcher. I found that until you firstly have a good grasp on which birds are likely to be in these flocks and secondly know at least a few of the vocalizations of these species, you are going to encounter many birds that you just can’t identify way up there. I did not really reach the "until" point, but I learned a lot.

D. The canopy walkway -- One of our three camps was near a canopy walkway. This consisted of 12 platforms connected by suspended walkways that ranged between 50 feet and 200 yards long. For safety, most of the platforms and all of the walkways were supposed to have only 3 people on them at once. The website given above has some photos of the walkway. On our first visit, our group of 8 encountered a group of 12 going the other way. How we got by each other I’m still not sure. A central platform, however, 115 feet above the forest floor, could accommodate 8 comfortably, and our group hung out there for a couple of hours on two occasions. You could see over treetops for miles and you felt safe enough that looking down was not too bad.

The top highlight of the canopy walkway was when Bret Whitney spotted what is most likely the first known nest of the Dugand’s Antwren -- a tiny little ball of moss suspended below a branch 100 or so feet up. A second highlight was when Bret found a Lanceolated Monklet from the walkway and then relocated it from the ground so everyone had a scope-filling look at it. This generally rare species then turned up at several locations in the area.

We did not get to observe a canopy flock during our visits to the platforms but still saw lots of great birds. Included in these were: Golden-collared Toucanet (at little more than arm’s length), Red-necked Woodpecker, White-browed Purpletuft, Dwarf Tyrant-Manakin, Amazonian Scrub-Flycatcher, Lawrence’s Thrush and Red-rumped Cacique.

E. Antswarms -- A unique highlight of neotropical birding is seeing birds at army ant swarms. These ants overcome any insect, spider, etc. that they can catch as they run by the thousands through the leaf-litter and up trees and shrubs. Birds attracted to the antswarm perch on tree trunks (woodcreepers), vertical saplings or on the ground waiting to catch creatures that are disturbed by the ants. Several species of antbirds are very seldom seen except at antswarms, and we had good fortune in seeing most of these species during the trip. The best birds we saw at these swarms were Hairy-crested Antbird, Reddish-winged Bare-eye and Black-spotted Bare-eye. Other birds seen at the swarms were White-cheeked, White-plumed and Sooty Antbirds and Plain-brown Woodcreeper.

F. Wintering birds from farther south -- These species are most likely to be found in open habitats, including river islands. Numbers of some were thought to have been increased by the recent cold front. Included in this group are several flycatchers, swifts and the Southern Martin.

THE BIRDS -- BY FAMILY

Totals below are for me only, not the full group. Only birds from the Amazon Basin are counted, not the few seen during our brief stops in Lima.

1. Tinamous - 7 species heard but none seen. Forest tinamous are very shy indeed and are especially tough to see with a group.

2. Cormorants - Neotropical Cormorant

3. Anhingas - Anhinga

4. Screamers - Horned Screamer

5. Egrets - 7 species seen including Agami Heron

6. Ibises - Green Ibis

7. New World Vultures - 5 species seen

8. Osprey

9. Raptors - 10 species seen, Slender-billed Kite new for me

10. Falcons and caracaras - 5 species seen; also 5 species of forest falcons heard but none seen; on one of our night hikes, we were hearing 3 species at once at first light!

11 Guans - Speckled Chachalaca seen; the world’s top man at finding Nocturnal Currasow was at one of our camps, but the birds were not cooperating during our visit.

12. New world quail -- Marbled Wood-Quail flushed two or three times as if near a nest

13. Rails -- Black-banded Crake and Rufous-sided Crake, both new

14. Limpkin

15 Sunbittern -- One on territory at a pond just behind one of the camps; a most wanted bird for me and worth the wait to see it

16. Wattled Jacana

17. Shorebirds -- 5 species seen including Lesser Yellowlegs and Solitary Sandpiper; it doesn’t take them too long to get down there!

18 Terns and skimmers -- 3 species seen

19. Pigeons -- 5 species seen or heard

20 Parrots -- 14 species seen; 4 new

21. Cuckoos and anis -- 6 species seen; Black-bellied Cuckoo new

22. Owls -- 2 species seen and 3 more heard only; Tropical Screech-Owl, which was perched right over me singing at night in one of the camps, was new

23. Potoos -- 4 species seen including Long-tailed and White-winged; only the latter was new for me

24. Nightjars and nighthawks -- 3 species seen or heard

25. Swifts -- 4 species seen by me; 1 new

26. Hummingbirds -- 13 species seen, 5 new; the names of hummingbirds are terrible; who can keep track of Glittering-throated Emerald vs. Sapphire-spangled Emerald?

27. Trogons -- 6 species seen, 2 new including Pavonine Quetzal; trogons were numerous everywhere on this trip, though heard more often than seen

28. Kingfishers -- 5 species all seen well

29. Motmots -- Rufous Motmot seen (new for me); Blue-crowned heard

30. Jacamars -- 5 species seen, 3 new including Paradise Jacamar and Great Jacamar

31. Puffbirds -- 12 species seen, 5 new including Rusty-breasted Nunlet, seen with scope a couple hundred feet up; a great trip for puffbirds

32. Barbets -- 3 species seen

33. Toucans -- 5 species seen

34. Woodpeckers -- 13 species seen; 5 new

Non-oscine passerines; the most typical neotropical families

35. Woodcreepers -- 16 species seen or heard; 5 new

36. Horneros, spinetails, etc. -- 13 species seen; 7 new

37. Antbirds -- 47 species seen, 23 new; this family was perhaps the main theme of the trip

38. Antpittas/antthrushes -- 3 species seen and a few others heard; 2 new, Rufous-capped Antthrush and Striated Antthrush

39. Gnateaters -- Chestnut-belted Gnateater (new)

40. Tapaculos -- Rusty-belted Tapaculo

41. Cotingas -- 9 species seen; 3 new; favorites: Pompadour Cotinga and Purple-throated Cotinga

42. Manakins -- 9 species seen; 5 new

43. Flycatchers and becards -- 63 species seen; 24 new Whew!

Regular passerines; most of these families are more numerous in the Andes and/or Central America than in Amazonia

44. Jays -- Violaceous Jay

45. Vireos and greenlets -- 3 species seen; Dusky-capped Greenlet new

46. Thrushes -- 4 species seen; Lawrence’s Thrush new

47. Wrens -- 7 species seen; 2 new including Musician Wren, a remarkable songster

48. Swallows -- 6 species seen; Southern Martin new

49. Warblers -- Buff-rumped Warbler

50. Emberizids (mostly tanagers, a few finches, grosbeaks, etc.) – 39 species; 5 new

51. Icterids (blackbirds, orioles etc.) -- 12 species; 3 new

NON-BIRDS

We saw 6 kinds of monkeys. The favorite of these was the seldom-seen (in this area) Monk Saki, a monkey that looks large but is actually a somewhat small animal enclosed in a big mass of grizzled black and gray hair. Other monkeys included 2 tamarins and 2 titi monkeys. We saw one each of two-toed and three-toed sloths. During night walks we saw a family of kinkajou taking a stroll about 80 feet above us and also a couple different types of opossums, one in the same genus as our own. A last mammal that was interesting was a dolphin; there are two species of fresh water dolphins that occur along much of the Amazon.

On one boat trip, we encountered a fisherman with a boat full of catfish that he showed us. There were several species represented, judging by their varied dorsal patterns. All had feelers, or whatever you call them, as long as their bodies. They are as handsome as they are tasty.