October 4-20, 2025 with Dan Lane
It’s been seven (!) years since I last guided this tour, so I can’t deny I was a little tentative about how it would go… but in hindsight, I’d say it was quite a successful tour! And what an impressive part of the country to visit! I think we experienced some amazing scenery on pretty much every day! The High Andes of central Peru are astounding, with the grandeur of snow-capped peaks (including the tallest in Peru: Huascaran itself!), stark puna landscapes and alpine grassland, shrubland, and elfin forests, not to mention the unique Polylepis forests, some of the most spectacular in the country. Perhaps one of the most memorable of these scenes was the winding road that led from the Llanganuco lakes up to the pass by Huascaran; it is steep, but the grandeur of the view from above is unparalleled!
The dry slopes on the Pacific slope were among some of the first things we experienced on our visit to the lower Santa Eulalia road, with a mixture of scrub and human agriculture. Next, we visited the unusual “lomas” vegetation at Lomas de Lachay National Reserve, and saw it at its floral peak! Then we finally drove up into the higher elevations and visited our first puna habitat around Lago Conacocha, with its abundant waterfowl, flamingoes, and other birds of wetlands. Miguel savvily took us up a side road with multiple easily-seen Ornate Tinamous, Streak-backed and Streak-throated Canasteros, and (at the last second) a lovely male Green-headed Hillstar before we headed in to our charming lodging in Carhuaz. The next several days found us amid the splendor of Huascaran National Park, surely one of Peru’s crown jewels with its sky-blue lakes, impressive peaks, grand glacial valley, and Polylepis forests. After leaving here, by way of the section of the park with the otherworldly Puya raimondi grove (not to mention sleet and flurries!), we eventually found our way to the “Amazonian” slope along the walls of the Huallaga valley near Huanuco city. Although dry and scrubby around our lodging, we visited cloudforest and the magical elfin forest of the Carpish mountains, and the legendary Unchog, site of the discovery of several species endemic to the area (Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager and Pardusco, for example)! This was our site of peak diversity, and our several days here were spent with little rest between new species! We even had an opportunity to cross the Huallaga and visit a site of treeline habitat that was home to the newly-described Panao Antpitta! The tour route continued back into the puna around Lago Junin (or Chinchaycocha), where we spent a day with local guide Cesar Donato, the local expert on the birds here, and enjoyed many of the local specialties of the area including Black Rail, Junin Grebe, Black-breasted Hillstar, and more! We spent one last morning in the desolate puna habitats around Marcapomacocha, seeing some much-sought species as Diademed Sandpiper-Plover, White-bellied Cinclodes, Olivaceous Thornbill, and more. An impressive group of Northern Huemal (a rare native deer of these high elevations) was a great bonus. And with that, we were back at sealevel, replete with oxygen once again! Our final day was spent visiting another side of Lomas de Lachay, and then at the coastal lagoon and beach at Paraiso, earning us some shorebirds, and a fun time trying to extract our van from the sand! It doesn’t get much better than all that!
In addition to some of the great birds and places mentioned above, our memories of this trip are many! For one, we had views of a grand selection of antpittas, starting with a wonderful Stripe-headed in Huascaran NP, followed by a very tame Chestnut Antpitta at Carpish Tunnel and then Leymebamba and Bay antpittas on Yau’s trail, and finally the recently-named Panao Antpitta by Montepotrero. In addition, we heard the Chachapoyas and Undulated antpittas at Unchog. Similarly, we had views of three species of tinamou: Andean at Lomas de Lachay, an astonishing 9 Ornate Tinamous near Conacocha, and some brief views of Curve-billed Tinamous on the road up to Unchog. Tapaculos were another often-skulky group of which we enjoyed some fine views! Starting once again at Huascaran NP, we had some smashing views of Ancash Tapaculo. At the Carpish Tunnel, we had an amazing views of the recently-described White-winged Tapaculo, the more widespread Tschudi’s Tapaculo, and the unique Ash-colored Tapaculo. Finally, Matt and I had a fine view of a surprisingly extroverted Neblina Tapaculo on our second visit to Unchog. Speaking of Unchog, the fine views of two of the main stars—Bay-vented Cotinga and Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager—made the visit a success! We also had a lot of birds with "tit" in their names, such as the streaky Black-crested, Pied-crested, Tufted, Yellow-billed, and the lovely Ash-breasted tit-tyrants, the Streaked, Andean, Rusty-crowned, and Tawny tit-spinetails, and the ever-present Tit-like Dacnis in the high woodlands of Huascaran NP. At Lago Junin, Cesar took us out onto the lake for the grebe, and as “bycatch” we enjoyed lots of migrating Wilson’s Phalaropes, many Chilean Flamingos, and a much-anticipated (for Daphne) Puna Snipe! On our day returning to Lima, our lunch was studded with close views of Andean Condors, adding spice to our meal. Of course, we were all thankful to have had our great and multi-talented driver Miguel, who drove well, kept us fed, and did a fine job of lining up the logistics for us. Muchisimas gracias, don Miguel! Some were pleased to end the tour intact (or mostly so!), but the milage accrued was worth it!
Mammals encountered:
Northern Black-eared Opossum (Didelphis marsupialis): dead on road.
European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus)
Montane Guinea Pig (Cavia tschudii)
Common Mountain Viscacha (Lagidium viscacia)
Vicuña (Lama vicugna)
Northern Huemul or Taruka (Hippocamelus antisensis)
Thank you all for joining me on this amazing journey, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Looking forward to the next time we meet with binoculars in hand and adventure in mind!
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/422924
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/cpe25TRIPLIST.pdf
-- Dan (the Barbet)