Peru Birding Tours: Tambopata Macaw Clay Lick

Nothing in Neotropical birding matches dawn at a Tambopata clay lick: hundreds of Red-and-green, Scarlet and Blue-and-yellow Macaws wheeling against the forest before dropping to the exposed river bank, with a supporting swarm of parrots and parakeets. The Tambopata National Reserve protects the Collpa Chuncho, the largest known macaw clay lick in the Amazon — only a 30-minute flight from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado.

Between lick sessions the reserve delivers classic lowland Amazon birding and wildlife: Hoatzins and Horned Screamers at the oxbow lakes, Sunbittern along quiet channels, King Vulture over the canopy, tinamous and antbirds on the trails, and a resident family of Giant River Otters — a gentler, shorter and more affordable Amazon experience than a full Manu expedition.

The reserve's oxbow lakes — Sandoval, Cocococha and Tres Chimbadas — are a highlight in their own right, worked slowly by catamaran or dugout at dawn: Agami and Rufescent Tiger-Herons stalk the margins, Hoatzins clamber through the flooded vegetation, Sungrebe and Green Ibis cross the still water, and the fortunate find Giant River Otters fishing. On the terra firme trails, army-ant swarms pull in antbirds, woodcreepers and the odd Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo, while the canopy holds toucans, trogons, cotingas and mixed tanager flocks — more than 600 species have been recorded across the reserve, one of the richest bird lists anywhere on Earth.

We run it as a lodge-based 4-day trip (3-day and 5-day options available), guided by a birder who knows the trails and the river, with time built in for both the spectacle and the quieter forest birding.