Cuzco Birding Tours: Huacarpay Lake

Our Huacarpay Lake Birding Tour is the essential half-day for birders based in Cusco. Forty-five minutes south-east of the city, the Lucre–Huacarpay wetland system — a Ramsar site since 2006 — spreads its lagoons, reedbeds and wet meadows beneath dry, cactus-studded hillsides at about 3,020 metres. Because the lake sits well below Cusco itself, it doubles as one of the most comfortable ways to spend an acclimatisation day: flat, unhurried birding with two Peruvian endemics as the prize.

The star is the Bearded Mountaineer — one of the largest hummingbirds in the world and a Peruvian endemic, the males flashing an iridescent violet-and-green beard as they defend flowering stands of tree tobacco around the lake edge and village hedgerows. Huacarpay is the classic site for it anywhere in its small range, and on most mornings we find one within the first couple of hours, often sharing the same flower patches with Giant Hummingbird and Black-tailed and Green-tailed Trainbearers.

The wetland itself hums. Wren-like Rushbirds churr from the cattails, Many-colored Rush-Tyrants — six colours of bird in ten grams — work the reed stems, and Plumbeous Rails slip along the muddy margins. The open water holds Puna and Cinnamon Teal, Yellow-billed Pintail, White-tufted Grebe and Puna Ibis, while Cinereous Harriers quarter low over the reeds and Aplomado Falcon and Mountain Caracara patrol the margins. Yellow-winged Blackbirds flare scarlet-and-yellow epaulets from the rushes all morning.

Above the marsh, the dry slopes and the lakeside Inca terraces add the second endemic — Rusty-fronted Canastero — along with Streak-fronted Thornbird, Golden-billed Saltator and a supporting cast of sierra finches. We are back in Cusco by early afternoon, which makes the morning pair beautifully with the South Valley's cultural circuit — Tipón, Piquillacta and the 'Sistine Chapel of the Andes' at Andahuaylillas — or simply with lunch in town.