Peru Birding Tours: Manu National Park

Manu National Park is the crown jewel of Neotropical birding — a UNESCO World Heritage wilderness that tumbles from the Andes at 3,500 metres down through cloud forest to the lowland Amazon, and holds one of the highest bird and mammal counts of any protected area on Earth. Our 7-day Manu birding and photography expedition traverses that entire gradient, from the treeline of the Acjanaco pass to the oxbow lakes and clay licks of the Madre de Dios lowlands. For anyone dreaming of a single trip that samples the full Andes-to-Amazon transect, no route in Peru — or arguably the world — packs in more birds and mammals.

The journey begins on the legendary Manu Road, which drops off the puna at Acjanaco and switchbacks down through mist-drenched cloud forest alive with mixed tanager flocks, quetzals and hummingbirds. At the famous lek near the Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge we watch male Andean Cock-of-the-rock — Peru's national bird — display at dawn, while the flowering roadsides draw a glittering cast of hummingbirds. This upper stretch shares its endemics with the nearby Abra Málaga road: Marcapata Spinetail, Cuzco Brushfinch, Masked Fruiteater and more.

Below the foothills the expedition drops into the lowland rainforest of the Manu and Madre de Dios rivers, where the birding turns to macaws, curassows, trumpeters and antbirds — and where Manu is perhaps most famous of all for its mammals. Few places on Earth offer better chances of Giant River Otters on the oxbow lakes, or of Jaguar, Ocelot, Lowland Tapir, Spider and Howler Monkeys and the tiny Emperor Tamarin along the river and trails. The Blanquillo macaw clay lick is the lowland climax: a riverbank alive at first light with hundreds of Red-and-green Macaws and a swarm of smaller parrots and parakeets.

We run it as a lodge- and refuge-based 7-day expedition (shorter and longer options available), led by a birder who knows every bend of the road and river, with time built in for both the birds and the big mammals. It is a demanding trip — long drives, boat travel and pre-dawn starts — but it is the definitive Peruvian wilderness experience, and the single richest week of birding and wildlife-watching we offer.