Macaws, Parrots & Parakeets

Jan 25, 2023
4 min read

We were up with the birds having a 5:45 start. I was up at 5:15 and saw the sun rise. It was fun to see several Small Bats.

Today is a VERY full day and we will be seeing a lot of birds.

We backtracked and had a 60 minute paddling journey back to the landing. I guess it was shorter because we were going downstream and didn’t see as many birds.

We did see:

Creamy heron (no photo)

Largest heron cocoi (no photo)

Limpkin- ibis family Black (no photo)

Slate colored hawk (no photo)

We heard a flycatcher (no photo)

Hoatzin Birds

At the landing we transferred to the speed boat and motored to the First clay lick. A clay lick is where birds go everyday to get certain minerals they need from the soil or watering areas in the soil. This area was an area open to view from the river and was a barren hillside. There you could see a lot of green birds - 3 types:

Mealy Amazon Parrot

Blue headed parrot

Dusky headed parakeet

Here are a million photos from the clay licks

We stayed here about an hour before moving on to the second clay lick. Before disembarking we had to change into our “gum boots” which were awful and hot. We walked about 800 meters to a viewing area. Along the way there was the very pungent oder identified as belonging to wild pigs. We "off-roaded" into the jungle listening for a sound which was like breaking wood, but was actually their stress call made by clicking their teeth. We finally found them briefly and were able to see them for a few moments before they ran away again. There were about 20? in their herd. We made our way back onto the path and arrived at the blind.

There were a number of people sitting in good viewing areas before we arrived, but we managed to get good views as scarlet macaws arrived, then flew off, then arrived again. At one point I think I counted 10 of them. 3 hours later we were finally able to leave when we were told parakeets were in the area so we had to go back and wait another hour for them to show up and then fly away again. It was actually quite a show when they flew away in big groups. We saw Cobalt winged parakeets and orange cheeked parrots. Here are a million photos of

Parrots:

and parakeets:

Yet another activity today, as if we weren’t hot or tired enough, and we had to see a Local village.

OK, parts were actually interesting. We were shown how they create fire which was the same way as in Africa - one has to wonder how this knowledge was shared. Also we saw their knives, cooking implements, stoves, snail shell horns, etc.

We had a dart blowing competition. It was a very heavy, 6 foot, wooden tube. Stephan’s dart went into the hut next door and practically took out a kid. Mine made it into the toucan’s rump and Rob’s made it dead center into the toucan.

We then had to dance.

Finally, the big finish, was trying some of the local “cuisine” which included eating a cooked palm weevil. I ate half of mine, where Rob ate all of his. The local member of the community showed how he likes to eat them, which is live and raw and totally disguising, watch the below video only if you have a strong stomach.

here are the live palm weevils:

Here is the fellow eating them alive and raw

Our next stop was to the mandatory souvenirs shop. This wasn’t so bad as they had some handsome local crafts. I bought a hand made string bag. Bunny took over the bag...

Now it was time for the return journey - motor boat to the landing and swap over to the paddled canoe. On the back to the boat we walked by a big cocoa tree with pods

We were offered lunch at the landing which was some very tough meat stew and some tasteless fish - missing Mindo. It was so hot, I had to have a beer.

It felt like it was 1 million degrees and 120% humidity as we were paddled 2.5 hours back to our lodge.

They paddled....

and they paddled.........

and they paddled, paddled, paddled, paddled.....

We saw some interesting wildlife including:

Rusty wood snake

More Turkeys

Ringed kingfisher

Ankhinga (snake bird- a type of cormorant)

Monkeys

and people coming the other way

But the highlight was running into a big family of giant river otters eating fish- red bellied piranha.

As I mentioned earlier, the lodge is building another pier and walkway for future tours. All of the materials were brought via paddled canoes. Driving in the piles was done manually. Here's a short video.

I felt so sorry for the paddlers and could see how much of a strain it was getting us back to the lodge. I was doing nothing and suffering - they were having to transport 6 heavy foreigners. I wasn’t sure if they (or we) were going to make it. Anyway, I felt it was probably not enjoyable for them, so I bought the paddlers a beer. We finally got back at 4:30 and I couldn’t imagine having to go out for a night hike - I was exhausted.

We had a drink to cool down. The napkins tonight were in the shape of rabbits, so I needed to take many photos. Here is a picture of soup we had this evening.