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It was great to be at Sacha Lodge...with its canopy walkway and platforms the perfect place to get eye-level views of so many great species, including this Many-banded Aracari. (Photo by participant Jason Leifester)

When I tell people that we go to Sacha lodge for one week the first reaction is "What are you going to do and see there -- isn't is a long time to be in one place?" But the answer is simple: even one week is not enough when we have so many places to visit! On this tour we proved that this is indeed true. We managed to visit the two towers (metal and wooden), explore the flooded forest, canoe along the creeks, as well as visit river islands and terra firme forest on the south bank of the Napo river to look for every possible of birds in those habitats.

Was It was another successful Sacha tour? Yes, definitely! We got to see and feel a bit of everything on this tour, with a fantastic introduction to the rainforest and why It is so named. Our first boat ride down to Sacha was very wet, but everything got a little drier day after day, and compared to other tours I've done here it was actually generally quite dry. We managed to bird in all the habitats near the lodge and see a huge diversity of unique birds and other wildlife. Here is a little summary of what I see as the highlights:

--that first day disembarking in Pompeya after a torrential rainstorm and seeing a great combination of birds, such as Yellow-tufted and Spot-breasted woodpeckers and Scarlet-crowned Barbet -- it was a great feeling;

--the Spangled and Plum-throated cotingas from the wooden tower for superb views;

--the many species of monkeys that we saw, including the aggressive Capuchin that wanted to have a fight with us, a real spectacle;

--the face-to-face look at the tiny but impressive Lanceolated Monklet from the metal tower -- we'll never forget that;

--Short-billed Leaftosser in its nest...WOW!

--the incredible parrot clay lick, especially when at least 100 Cobalt-winged Parakeets took off at the same time;

--and some of the very colorful antbirds like Yellow-browed and Dot-backed that were a privilege to watch.

I have to say that the Pygmy Marmoset and the incredible 30-minute night walk also deserve a big mention; as we saw there is a huge amount of activity in the rainforest at night. The tarantulas were out, and a Blond-headed Vine Snake was looking for food, but the Garden Boa had already eaten it -- we could see that It was full already.

During our stay, we had the great help of Oscar as our local bird guide and Wilson as his assistant -- both worked hard to find the very well-camouflaged wildlife, and I would like to extend a big thank you to them.

I'd also like to thank all of you who came on this tour. I hope that you had a good trip, and I look forward to seeing you again in the forest! Keep birding,

--Willy

KEYS FOR THIS LIST
One of the following keys may be shown in brackets for individual species as appropriate: * = heard only, I = introduced, E = endemic, N = nesting, a = austral migrant, b = boreal migrant

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Totals for the tour: 316 bird taxa and 15 mammal taxa