Trip Reports - Survey Manu lodges

SurveySurvey of some lodges in Manu: Amazonia, Pantiacolla and MWC
(written by Wim ten Have - sept. 2005)

In the birder´s world most of us are fascinated by numbers, longest lists and any other type of record. Perú seems to be the second country in the world (after Columbia) with at least 1850 species of birds.
Personally I am not so interested in records, but I am fascinated by the enormous biodiversity that you encounter if you descend the eastern Andes to the rainforest.
This you can see on a lot of places in South America from Venezuela in the north till Peru in the central part of the continent.. Manu Biosphere Reserve is South Perú is amongst them one of the most famous places, it´s accessible and nearly undisturbed. Such a place in North Peru is Abra Patricia, a place with some very exclusive birds but unhappily also with a lot of traffic and deforestation.

Manu is probably the reserve with the highest biodiversity on earth with more than 1000 species. The three famous lodges for birders are:
Amazonia Lodge, situated in the Andean foothills at 600 m.a.s.l. and covers an altitude range till 1000 m.a.s.l.
Pantiacolla Lodge, outside the Andes at 450 m.a.s.l. but nearby an isolated mountain ridge also till 1000 m.a.s.l.
Manu Wildlife Center, in the real lowlands at 250 m.a.s.l.. No altitude differences.
On their list they count the birds from the surroundings including Boca Manu (BM in the list) and the nearby oxbow lakes, just an area where you may expect some rare vagrants.

The three lodges compared

The lists of each lodge is updated at least till the end of 2004

To explain the table: on the Amazonia list of 603 species, there are 102 species not reported at Pantiacolla and 136 species not reported at MWC and so on.

The differences are rather big, partly caused by the fact that there are still birds to discover at all lodges and especially at Pantiacolla Lodge, the less investigated one. But still after more research there will be differences of 10-15 % , especially as result of the difference in altitude, going from the foothill and higher rainforest in Amazonia Lodge between 1000- 650 m.a.s.l. to the real lowland rainforest in MWC at 250 m.a.s.l.
Besides that there are differences in micro habitat like for instance swamps and oxbow lakes. Amazonia Lodge is probably the first rather limited area that passed the 600 species, an amazing number as it seems.

What is the potential ?

First about the reliability of the numbers. The list holders of all lodges try to keep their lists clean. Sometimes a difficult job for instance if a famous or convinced birder means to have seen a new species and you think that he makes a mistake. As the list holder of Pantiacolla Lodge I know that at least 7 species are not reliable. Looking critical to the other lists I see 2-3 species per lodge that are not very very reliable. One example: a mistake on all lists before was Mouse-coloured Antshrike.
But I am sure that after taking off the mistakes the lists of Amazonia Lodge and Pantiacolla Lodge can grow till at least 620. This seems impossible for MWC, lacking the foothill species completely.

Starting with Pantiacolla Lodge, there is much more to discover. In between the other two lodges and looking if they have the suitable habitat, I think that we will find in the near future at least the following 40 species: Horned Screamer, Orinoco Goose, Muscovy Duck, Boat-billed Heron, Crane Hawk, Black-collared - , Broad-winged - and Zone-tailed Hawks, Peregrine, Ruddy Turnstone, Sanderling, Violaceous Quail-dove, Black-capped Parakeet, Blue-winged Parrotlet, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Violet-headed Hummingbird, Wire-crested Thorntail, Blue-chinned Sapphire, Rufous-webbed Brilliant, Amethyst Woodstar, Yellow-throated Woodpecker, Striped Woodcreeper, Plain Softtail, Streak-necked Flycatcher, Red-billed Tyrannulet, Yellow Tyrannulet, Long-crested Pygmy-Tyrant, Ornate -, Tawny-breasted-, Alder-, Dusky-capped- , Brown-crested and Fork-tailed Fluycatchers, Yellow-browed Tyrant, Cinereous Becard, Spangled Cotinga, Grey-breasted Martin, Veery, Bananaquit, Variable Seedeater.

For Amazonia Lodge you may expect for instance Bolivian Tyrannulet, Sharpbill, Spotted Nightingale-Thrush and Cinnamon Flycatcher, being birds already discovered at Pantiacolla while Amazonia is more close to their main habitat.

And what about the following birds, seen in Manu but not at any of the lodges? Pearl Kite, Scaly-naped Parrot, White-rumped- and Least Sandpipers, Wilson´s Phalarope, Wing-banded Wren, Golden-rumped Euphonia, Grey-headed Tanager, Caqueta-, Lined- and Lesson´s Seedeaters, Shiny Cowbird.

Is the lodge with the highest number also the best one?

In general you can´t say that. With this comparison it´s not my intention at all to tell that one lodge is better than the other. If you have time (and money!) it´s worthwhile to visit all three lodges, because every lodge has his own specialties and every lodge has bird species that you can see easier there than at the other places. If you should visit in one trip all three lodges you will find more difference than the 10-15 % as mentioned before. Of the more than 1000 birds seen in Manu, there are seen 434 at all three lodges. Do you count all the lists together, then there are 722 species. Still missing around 280 species, mostly the birds from puna till upper tropical zone, altitude between 3500 and 1000 m.a.s.l.

Click here to see the bird lists of all three lodges

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