Day 7 Tanager city & the Owlet

Owlet Lodge was probably the nicest place we stayed at with spacious cabins, plenty of feeders and large grounds. Overnight lights had attracted a large collection of moths to the walls so we were slightly delayed in arriving down to breakfast.

Atlas Moth

Hawk-moth sp

We drove down the road, making frequent stops to look for bird parties in the cloud forest. The first stop produced the mournful song of an Andean Solitaire plus a pair of Torrent Ducks on the river. We walked down one stretch of road with birds constantly around us including a good selection of tanagers with their helpful descriptive names: Flame-faced, Beryl-spangled, Saffron-crowned, Yellow-throated, Metallic-green, Blue-capped and Silver-backed. Other birds seen in the ever-moving flocks were Barred Becard, Deep-blue Flowerpiercer, Russet-crowned and Three-striped Warblers.

Flame-faced Tanager

Saffron-crowned Tanager

Working our way further down the road we saw a single Magpie Tanager, Squirrel Cuckoo plus two species of Oropendola – Russet-backed and Crested plus a couple of over-wintering North American Wood-Warblers: Blackburnian and Canada.

Magpie Tanager

Blackburnian Warbler

We next stopped at a private family-owned reserve with a good-hummingbird feeding station and plenty of adjacent flowering plants which hosted a dozen species of Hummer plus several migrant Swainson’s Thrushes. 

It was well set up with a raised covered platform plus coffee and cookies! The best hummingbird on show here was Rufous-crested Coquette.

Rufous-crested Coquette

In the afternoon we went to another private lodge and headed straight up to an antpitta feeding station. Such things didn’t exist on my last visit to Peru in 2004 but the phenomena has caught on across South and Central America and is by far the easiest (and often only) way to see these shy and retiring birds. Within ten minutes a Rusty-tinged Antpitta bounded out of the forest and into a clearing to grab a beakful of wriggling worms while cameras snapped into action. A few minutes later with the feast being consumed it disappeared back into the forest. 

Rusty-tinged Antpitta

With the show over we walked back down to some more hummer feeders and spent a pleasant hour sitting and watching these busy little birds feed and spar with each other. New species for the trip included Booted Racket-tail, Rufous-vented White-tip, Speckled Hummingbird and Greenish Puffleg. Also a couple of Black-winged Parrots flew over.

Booted Racket-tail

Andean Emerald

Golden-tailed Sapphire

Long-tailed Sylph

Many-spotted Hummingbird

Then it was time to try for the owlet. This was a much easier walk than back at Owlet Lodge and more reliable at this time of year. We got ourselves into position and just before dusk the Long-whiskered Owlet started calling. This is another special bird of the area, known only from a few spots in NW Peru and discovered as recently as 1977. The local owlet expert give it a short-bit of playback and we saw the bird fly in and land in a nearby tree, however we couldn’t locate it with a torch before it flew off again so the views weren’t as good as we’d have liked. We waited a while longer but didn’t hear it again and it didn’t come back so we had to leave to get back to the lodge for a late dinner.