Junín Lake: High-Andean Endemic Birding Tour

Our Junín Lake Endemics & Pampas Cats tour is the most ambitious birding expedition we run from Lima — three days and a full 3,000-metre elevational sweep from the Pacific desert to the high-Andean puna, built around some of the most range-restricted birds on the continent. Day one climbs the Santa Eulalia canyon for its inter-Andean endemics; day two crosses the puna above 4,000 metres, through the Marcapomacocha bogs, to the vast shore of Lake Junín; day three works the lake at dawn before the long descent home. Along the way we also look for the mammals of the high grasslands — the elusive Pampas Cat and Andean Fox — on a night drive out of Junín.

Day one is the Santa Eulalia valley, one of the richest endemic corridors near Lima. From the riparian willow woodland and torrent-fed river of the lower canyon — Torrent Duck, White-capped Dipper, Black-necked Woodpecker — we climb through the cactus slopes at the Autisha bridge, classic country for the endemic Great Inca-Finch and soaring Andean Condor, up to the montane scrub and the first Polylepis (queñua) woodland, where Bronze-tailed Comet, Black Metaltail, Rusty-crowned Tit-Spinetail and the endemic White-cheeked Cotinga wait. We overnight in the valley.

Day two climbs out of the valley and across the puna above 4,000 metres. On the Marcapomacocha bogs and the Ticlio pass we search the cushion bogs for the critically endangered White-bellied Cinclodes and the exquisite Diademed Sandpiper-Plover, with Dark-winged Miner, Junín Canastero, Black-breasted Hillstar and Olivaceous Thornbill on the surrounding puna. By midday we reach Lake Junín (Chinchaycocha), a Ramsar wetland at 4,080 metres and one of South America's great bird lakes, and bird its reedbeds and shore into the evening. After dark we head out to spotlight for Pampas Cat and Andean Fox before a night in the town of Junín.

Day three is an early return to the lake for the two birds it is famous for — the near-flightless Junín Grebe and the secretive Junín Rail, both found nowhere else on Earth — and anything we still need, with huge rafts of Andean waterfowl, Giant Coot and shorebirds as the backdrop. Our five free eBird checklists for this route — the lower and upper Santa Eulalia valley, the Polylepis forest, the Marcapomacocha & Ticlio bogs and the Lake Junín reserve — together cover hundreds of species and most of central Peru's high-Andes endemics. These are long days at altitude with a lot of driving, but few tours anywhere pack in so many ecosystems, endemics and rare wildlife; we have you back in Lima on the evening of day three.