Lima Birding Tours: Pantanos de Villa & Pucusana

Our Pantanos de Villa & Pucusana birding tour is the most complete birding day trip from Lima — three coastal ecosystems in a single day, just south of the city. It pairs Lima's premier Ramsar wetland with the Humboldt-Current seabird cove of Pucusana and the desert scrub of the Azpitia Valley, so one full day samples freshwater marsh, open ocean and dry valley in a single loop. For anyone searching for a Pantanos de Villa birding tour, a Pucusana boat trip, or simply the best full-day birdwatching near Lima, this is the tour that shows you the widest cross-section of the region's birds.

We start early at the Refugio de Vida Silvestre Los Pantanos de Villa, the only protected area inside Lima's city limits and a Ramsar Site of lagoons, reedbeds and coastal marsh. Its reeds hold the coastal Black Rail — a Peruvian endemic — with Plumbeous Rail, the jewel-like Many-colored Rush Tyrant, Wren-like Rushbird and Least Bittern, while the open water adds Great and Pied-billed Grebes, Puna Teal, White-cheeked Pintail, Andean Duck and Chilean Flamingo. Migratory shorebirds, gulls and terns work the coastal lagoons; 207 species have been recorded here on eBird, all in our free downloadable checklist.

From there we drive to Pucusana, a working fishing town whose sheltered bay and island put on the full Humboldt-Current seabird show. On a boat trip around Isla Pucusana we look for Inca Tern, Peruvian Booby, Guanay and Red-legged Cormorants, Peruvian Pelican, Blackish Oystercatcher and the endemic Surf Cinclodes on the rocks, with a chance of Humboldt Penguin, storm-petrels offshore and even the endangered Marine Otter. It is one of the easiest places near Lima to photograph seabirds at close range, and 152 species are on the Pucusana checklist.

After lunch on the coast we finish inland in the Azpitia Valley, a green ribbon of farmland and desert scrub along the Río Mala where a different set of birds rounds out the day — doves, Amazilia and Oasis Hummingbirds, Long-tailed Mockingbird, Scrub Blackbird and dry-country seedeaters. Between the three stops a single day routinely turns up a big Lima list, and each site has its own downloadable checklist so you can tick as you go. We run it as an easy, flat, small-group tour (one to five or more travellers) led by expert local guides — the best way to see the freshwater, marine and desert birds of Lima in one day.