Cuzco Birding Tours: Abra Málaga

The road climbing out of Ollantaytambo over the Abra Málaga pass is one of the most celebrated birding transects in Peru. In a single day it crosses humid cloud forest, wind-stunted Polylepis woodland, high puna grassland and a drier western slope — four ecosystems, each with its own set of specialities, several found almost nowhere else on Earth.

The pass's treasure is the Polylepis: gnarled, red-barked woodland clinging to the high slopes and among the most threatened forest types anywhere. It shelters the critically endangered Royal Cinclodes, the endemic White-browed Tit-Spinetail, Tawny Tit-Spinetail, Line-fronted Canastero and the dazzling Giant Conebill. On the humid east slope, bamboo and elfin forest hold the endemic Inca Wren, Marcapata Spinetail, Cuzco Brushfinch, Unstreaked Tit-Tyrant and Grass-green Tanager, while the drier descent adds Creamy-crested Spinetail, Rusty-fronted Canastero and White-tufted Sunbeam.

This is a long, rewarding full day, run in a small group with an expert guide who knows exactly where each Polylepis specialist holds territory. We depart from Ollantaytambo in the pre-dawn dark (a Cusco pickup or a night in the Sacred Valley can be arranged), work the slopes as the light comes up, and return in the evening with a day-list that few Andean routes can match.

The road's eBird hotspots have recorded more than 500 species between them, and rather than one unwieldy list we split our free Abra Málaga checklists into three by elevation — the lower cloud forest, the upper forest and treeline, and the high Polylepis, pass and puna — each with the Cuzco-region endemics marked. From the Royal Cinclodes and White-browed Tit-Spinetail among the queñua at the top to the tanagers, hummingbirds and furnariids of the cloud forest below, they are the honest measure of just how rich this transect is, and a fine tool for planning your targets before the day and ticking them off in the field.