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The White Uakari alone is a reason to visit this part of Amazonia. With its striking red face, purple eyeshadow and fluffy white fur, it's gotta be one of the most outlandish of all Neotropical primates. We had an amazing time watching a troop right above us at Mamiraua. Photo by Micah Riegner.

Establishing a new tour in Amazonia where no birders go is always thrilling—you just never know what you’re going to find up the next igarape (creek), what the next feeding flock will bring, or night outing might yield. So, in perpetuating the Field Guides tradition of going to new exciting places, Bret and I visited Reserva Amana and FLONA Tefe back in June. These two enormous swaths of protected forest in the heart of Amazonia had never been visited by a tour group, so we had some ground-truthing to do before the tour. This involved spending hours in a voadeira (open-top metal boat with outboard motor) to reach the isolated communities within the reserves, meeting with the local people and explaining what bird-watching is all about and checking out the trails they had cleared in anticipation of our arrival.

Our scouting was fruitful, and we are pleased to announce a successful first run of the tour! There were numerous highlights, from seeing between 1,500 and 2,000 Sand-colored Nighthawks dusting the treetops like snow at Amana to watching Margays almost getting into a cat fight in the canopy at Mamiraua and the band of White Uakaris with their intimidating red faces. We saw several of the specialty birds of the Western Amazon including Bonaparte’s Parakeet, Orange-fronted Plushcrown, both Plumbeous and Sooty Antbirds, Johannes’s Tody-tyrant, Citron-bellied Attila, and Plum-throated Cotinga. Other noteworthy species were White-throated Tinamou (seen!), Kawall’s Parrot at Amana (an important record north of the Amazon), several Agami Herons, and Scarlet-crowned, Gilded, and Lemon-throated Barbets, all in the same area! Both Tawny-tufted and Golden-collared Toucanets made grand appearances as did Chestnut-belted Gnateater, Amazonian Black-Tyrant, White-bellied Dacnis, and the recently described Varzea Thrush. Oh, and we were probably the first birding group to identify Black Swift on its wintering grounds!

We saw some good mammals, too! Besides the White Uakaris and Margays, which clearly made top of the list, we had several honorable mentions, like the family of Spix’s Night Monkeys in a tree cavity at Amana, the endemic Vanzolini Squirrel Monkey at Mamiraua, Coppery Titis at the FLONA Tefe, and Red Howlers just about everywhere we went. Both Botos and Tucuxis (the two widespread species of river dolphins in the Amazon) were seen regularly and we had brief views of Giant Otters on the Igarape Ubim in Reserva Amana. With Bret’s heat scope (aka “ratscope”) we saw Red-nosed Tree Rat, Rio Negro Brush-tailed Rat, and the noble Amazonian Bamboo Rat.

Day One we lined up at the Manaus airport. Excitement brimmed as our plane left the tarmac and we flew west to Tefe, the old city about halfway between Manaus and the Peru border. After touchdown we transferred from plane to bus and from bus to speed boat, then crossed the mighty Rio Solimoes (= Amazon River) and Rio Japura to reach Uakari Lodge, our floating palace in the middle of Reserva Mamiraua, one of the largest stretches of protected floodplain forest in the world. Our first afternoon we canoed through some of the channels and had our first encounters with the endemic Vanzolini Squirrel Monkey. This primate occurs only in Mamiraua, making it the primate with the smallest distribution in Amazonia.

The Wattled Curassow on the other hand occurs throughout a huge area in the Western Amazon but has been overhunted throughout much of its range, making Mamiraua the best place to see it. That said, it’s still not that easy because it spends much of its time high up in the trees, and the birds are generally quite shy. Our first morning we set out, ears alert to its loud descending “peeew” call. It didn’t take long before we spotted a bird way up in the canopy. We positioned the canoes across the channel and passed the scope around for everyone to get an up-close look at its red-orange fleshy wattle. What a relief to have seen it so soon! Later that day we walked a trail and saw Plumbeous Antbird—another specialty of the Amazon floodplain.

Given the clear, starry, evening, we decided to embark on a post-dinner canoe trip, and boy did it pay off! We stopped to check out some eyeshine from way up high in the canopy. At first, we were under the impression that it was some kind of opossum based on the quality of the eyeshine and where it was in the tree, but then we realized the animal had a marbled pattern in its fur. Hmmmm. We got closer and sure enough it was a Margay sitting precariously out on a limb! Meu deus! We watched it for several minutes as it sat there peacefully, occasionally getting up to stretch. As we headed back, I picked up the same kind of eyeshine lower down on the tree. It was another Margay and it was heading up the trunk towards the other individual! We positioned the canoes back to our first vantage point and waited until the second animal came out. It eventually walked right out in front of the first one and they had a face-off. They snarled at each other for a while and the second one, presumably the male, eventually backed off down the tree.

For our final day at Mamiraua our focus was finding the White Uakari, namesake of the lodge. We spent the full morning on a loop trail, without any luck. However, one of our local guides spotted a golden Tamandua, which was cool. So, with Uakari pressure mounting, we visited another trail right before lunchtime. We walked merely 100 meters in and there they were, a troop of about 12 Uakaris! They came in right above us, shaking limbs and peering down at us with their intimidating red faces. In the afternoon we found another two troops feeding peacefully in the treetops on both sides of a narrow channel.

From Mamiraua we boarded the Iracema, met the crew, then birded from the top deck. We parked the boat at a peninsula with some Alcornia island scrub, and within an hour we saw Azure Gallinule, Black-and-white Antbird, the soon-to-be-split Island Streaked Flycatcher, the also soon-to-be-split Island Fuscous Flycatcher, Lesser Wagtail-Tyrant, Yellow-chinned, Red-and-white, and Dark-breasted Spinetails. There was even a pair of Black-fronted Nunbirds hanging out in that little patch of vegetation. From there we motored up the various side channels of the Japura to reach Lago Amana, an enormous blackwater lake, gateway to Reserva Amana. We met with the folks the community in Amana and staged for the following morning.

The majority of our time at Amana we spent along a thin blackwater creek that snakes through untouched forest as far as the drone can see (see Bret’s video below). Light rain dampened activity our first morning, but we still made out okay with Kawall’s Parrot, Blue-throated Piping-Guan, Agami Heron, and a family of Spix’s Night Monkeys in their roost tree. We spooked them when we approached and they fled from their cavity, but soon enough they returned, and we watched them for several minutes as they peered nervously from their abode. It was certainly their first time seeing a boatload of gringos, and we were happy to leave the family in peace!

Day Two at Amana gave us favorable weather. We canoed way the heck upstream to a trail that our local guides had set in for us. Along the way we stopped to play for the enigmatic Chestnut-headed Nunlet—a little-known member of the Bucconidae restricted to blackwater flooded forest of the Rio Solimoes-Rio Negro interfluve. After playing the recording, we heard a bird call back at fairly close range—very exciting! We played the recording again and again, then waited for over half an hour for it to move or call back, but no luck. Perhaps the bird was out of its breeding cycle and not in the mood to respond. When we reached the trail, we had nice looks at the Chestnut-belted Gnateater I’d seen while scouting and a cooperative Spot-backed Antbird that sat out and sang right in front of us. A Pavonine Quetzal grabbed our attention and a pair of Tawny-tufted Toucanets were deeply appreciated, too. On our way back down the creek for lunch we crossed paths with a couple Giant Otters working their way downstream. We birded from the top deck of the Iracema as we descended the igarape. As we reached the wider part of the creek we saw a distant flock of birds resembling Yellow-billed Terns. Hmmm. When we reached the area where they were, it was clear they weren’t terns but Sand-colored Nighthawks—somewhere between 1500 and 2000 of them covering the trees! Meu deus! None of us, including Bret, had ever seen such numbers. As our big, white boat glided silently to a stop, the birds took flight and whirled around the boat in a dazzling display of black and white. What a show!

Before leaving Amana, we spent a final morning birding near the community. We stopped at a research station affiliated with Instituto Mamiraua. Within a few minutes we saw Gilded, Scarlet-crowned and Lemon-chested Barbets all in the same area! There aren’t many places in the Amazon where you can see that many barbets in one spot. Maroon-tailed Parakeets were also coming in to feed on the fruits, allowing us to get quite close to them.

From the research station we visited a trail that winds through some igapo or blackwater flooded forest. When scouting this area back in June, I marked a point where I’d seen an Amazonian Black-Tyrant. This seldom-seen, shiny black flycatcher prefers igapo with lots of vines. Males do a flight display that involves a couple summersaults followed by a cricket-like chirp. When we reached the spot where I’d seen the birds, I looked down to find the recording on my iPod. Before I could pull up the recording, John Spahr spotted the bird on a vine, and it was doing its flight display! Check out our video footage below. Amazingly we saw another individual after lunch on the other side of Lago Amana. Later on, we passed through the mouth of Lago Amana and spent the afternoon winding through the various side channels of the Japura. From the top deck we saw multiple Purple-throated Cotingas, which are just as blue as can be.

The last leg of our adventure we visited the FLONA Tefe on the south bank of the Solimoes. Our first stop was a community on the far end of the Lago Tefe. Here, we had a rich morning of birding in some campinarana (not caipirinha!) forest. This stunted forest grows on nutrient-deprived soil, and the trees tend to be uniform in height. The highlights of the morning were Citron-bellied Attila, White-bellied Dacnis (a rare bird throughout the Amazon), and Bonaparte’s Parakeets, which turned out to be a lifer for just about everyone! We also came across a decent Eciton burchellii army ant swarm with Sooty Antbird and White-throated Antbirds, and both Black-banded and White-chinned Woodcreepers. We then visited two other communities where we saw several more mixed feeding flocks.

Before returning to Tefe, we birded the massive river island on the Rio Solimoes across from Tefe. Varzea Thrush was the highlight of the morning. This species was only recently described by Dan Lane and others at LSU and turns out it’s fairly common in the flooded forest along the Rio Solimoes and Rio Madeira in Brazil. We returned to the island in the afternoon and walked a muddy road behind a community. Just before we entered the forest, we heard the high, thin “seet” of an Orange-fronted Plush-crown. This miniature ovenbird with a bright orange face spends a fair portion of its life in the canopy of mature floodplain forest. Its closest relative, the Pink-legged Graveteiro, lives in the Atlantic forest of Bahia, and both species build hefty stick nests resembling that of a Verdin. We scanned for several minutes without finding the bird and just before we gave up, it gave a couple more notes. This actually happened three times until we finally located the bird way the heck up a Kapok tree. It was unusually non-responsive to playback and we realized it was because it had a nest! We watched it go in and out multiple times, probably feeding young. Awesome! Farther down the trail we saw a pair of Castelnau’s Antshrikes, some Toco Toucans, and a Long-billed Woodcreeper that preened on a branch for a while. We returned to Tefe, and the crew prepared a delicious churrasco on the top deck. The following day we flew back to Manaus and spent our final afternoon birding near our hotel. Bret called in a pair of Point-tailed Palmcreepers and we were able to look down on them. It’s not often that you see them from above!

There are numerous people who were instrumental in the success of the tour. First, we’d like to thank the outstanding boat crew on the Iracema, the staff at Mamiraua, and our local guides in Amana and the FLONA Tefe. We’d also like to thank Ruth and Isolda and Pedro for working out the logistics and tying the tour together. Lastly, Bret and I would like to thank you all for joining us on yet another Amazon adventure—we had a blast and look forward to our next trip together!

Com grandes abraços,

Micah & Bret

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

Micah photographed this Maroon-tailed Parakeet feeding on fruit at Reserva Amana.

Marshall Dahl captured the moment we found the Orange-fronted Plushcrown!

Marshall Dahl photographed these Spix's Night Monkeys in their roost cavity at Reserva Amana. We'll check to see if they're around on our next tour!

Late afternoon canoe trips are always a delight! Photo by Micah Riegner.

Anybody hungry? This is the standard buffet lunch onboard the Iracema. The fish on the far right is Pirarucu, an Amazon delicacy perfectly prepared by Dona Fran. Photo by Micah Riegner.

It's hard to hold back a smile after a full day of river island birding. Photo by Micah Riegner.

You can see why they call it Rufous-tailed Flatbill. Photo by Micah Riegner.

We were incredibly lucky to see not one, but two Margays up in the treetops at Mamiraua. Photo by Micah Riegner.

Micah's watercolor study the Sand-colored Nighthawks.

Steve Rannels set up a moth sheet every night, photographed what came in and put together this beautiful poster. Way to go Steve!

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Totals for the tour: 363 bird taxa and 23 mammal taxa