Beautiful Spotted Puffbirds inhabit the scrubby woodland adjacent to the savannah at Junglaven. Photo: David Fisher
Amazonas, the southernmost state of Venezuela, is a vast wilderness where wildlife flourishes, much of it unaware of man’s presence on the planet. The extensive rainforests here were largely inaccessible to birdwatchers until the opening of Junglaven Jungle Lodge in 1990. Initially operating as a fishing camp, the lodge was built by a retired Venezuelan airline pilot, Captain Lorenzo Rodríguez. who still manages it today. Birdwatchers who visited the lodge quickly discovered that because of the lack of human inhabitants the adjacent forest still holds an intact avifauna with good numbers of the larger species such as curassows, guans and chachalacas, which have disappeared from many other areas due to hunting pressure. Better still, several groups of Gray-winged Trumpeters live in the forest and this is the best place we know in South America to see a member of this distinctive family.
The lodge is located on an oxbow lake that in the wet season forms a tributary of the Ventuari River (itself a tributary of the Orinoco). Waterbirds are numerous, and highlights of our visits usually include Agami Heron, Sunbittern and five species of kingfishers as well as Pink River Dolphin and Giant Otter. There are also extensive white-sand forests nearby with a number of local specialties such as Spotted Puffbird, Blackish-gray Antshrike, Cherrie’s Antwren and Yellow-crested Manakin.
We’ll explore the area on foot, by motorized dugout canoe and in the lodge’s pickup truck. The only road runs from the lodge through five miles of pristine terra firme rainforest, out past an old airstrip and eventually to the main Ventuari River. The track through the forest will be our main focus, but we’ll also investigate the area’s other habitats in search of the many species to be found here.
Accommodations at the lodge are basic but adequate, with private facilities in each room and cold-water showers. The remote location calls for access via private charter flights in small planes from the state capital of Puerto Ayacucho, and owing to the uncertainty of such flights we’ll leave the lodge two days before the end of the tour and spend our final day in the cool, coastal mountain range around Colonia Tovar. Here, in complete contrast to the hot and humid Amazon, we’ll savor the cool mountain air as we walk slowly down a quiet back road through montane rainforest where almost every species will be new for our list.
This tour can be taken in conjunction with our tour Venezuela: The Tepuis and Imataca Forest Reserve and/or our tour Venezuela: The Andes, Llanos and Coast Range
Day 1: The tour begins this evening in Caracas.
Day 2: We’ll catch an early morning flight to Puerto Ayacucho and take a spectacular charter flight across vast tracts of untouched Amazonian rainforest. The landscape below us is far from flat, however, and includes Tepuis-like scenery with sheer escarpments and flat-topped mountains thousands of feet high. It’s an exhilarating ride, to be sure, and a great start to the tour. We should arrive in time for lunch, and for those too excited to rest, initial birding around the lodge should reveal a bustling colony of Yellow-rumped Caciques attended by a Piratic Flycatcher or two, several colorful Yellow-tufted Woodpeckers, perhaps a group of Green Araçaris or a pair of Channel-billed Toucans, noisy Violaceous Jays and diminutive White-lored Euphonias feeding in the fruiting cecropia trees. Once it has cooled down a little we’ll take a boat trip out onto the adjacent “Big Lagoon,” where highlights may include Black Caracara, the very local Crestless Curassow, Sunbittern, Band-tailed Nighthawk, up to five species of kingfishers, Olive Oropendola and the remarkable Amazonian Umbrellabird. Night at Junglaven.
Days 3-6: As all our meals will be taken at the lodge, we’ll follow a daily routine that will start with a pre-dawn breakfast followed by a full morning out birding. We’ll return just after midday for lunch and then we’ll take a break in the heat of the day before venturing out again in mid to late afternoon. We’ll return at dusk and have a break before enjoying dinner and then calling checklist. We’ll have a wide choice of locations to visit.
On several mornings we’ll drive along the track through forest just as day is breaking. This is a good time to look for the Gray-winged Trumpeters, especially in the areas where the lodge staff have placed drinking troughs beside the road. Black Curassows are also often to be found walking along the track in the early morning and we’ll hope for good views of both. We’ll emerge onto a sandy savannah, a great place to view the early morning flights of parrots as they commute from their roost sites to their feeding places. There are up to four species of macaws, including the spectacular Red-and-green and Scarlet, and six or more species of parrots, the fanciest perhaps being the colorful Orange-cheekeds and the fast-flying and noisy Black-headeds. Scanning the distant treetops we’ll quickly spot numerous Swallow-winged Puffbirds, but we’ll need to check each one carefully for a White-browed Purpletuft, a tiny cotinga that perches up high in the early mornings but often disappears into the forest to feed for the rest of the day. Toucans and araçaris are likely to be perched up high too, and who knows what else we might spot: highlights in the past have included Tiny Hawk, Spangled Cotinga, Sulphury Flycatcher and Moriche Oriole.
On one day we’ll continue across the savannah to the Ventuari River and make a trip in a larger dugout to a side tributary that leads to a large lagoon. En route we’ll check the sandbars for Pied Plovers, Black Skimmers and Large and Yellow-billed Terns, and we may see White-banded and Black-collared Swallows hawking over the water. Along the banks Drab Water-Tyrants should be feeding, and if any of the larger emergent trees are in flower, parties of Common Piping-guans may be visible. At any point a group of Pink River Dolphins may approach the boat, making their presence known by breaking the surface gently and blowing softly. Once we reach the narrow tributary our focus will change to the bushes and the muddy water’s edge as we search for secretive Agami Herons and colorful Green-and-rufous and American Pygmy Kingfishers. If the water levels are high enough we’ll continue through to the lagoon, where hundreds of cormorants, storks and egrets line the banks and where we have a good chance of encountering a group of Giant Otters. These curious creatures often sit up high in the water to look at any intruders and bark in indignation at being disturbed. There is always a chance of something even rarer at this seldom-visited backwater, and previous memorable sightings have even included Jaguar and Harpy Eagle.
On another morning we’ll walk a trail through low-canopy white-sand forest, where a number of local specialties can be found. Perhaps the most colorful of these are Spotted Puffbird and Yellow-crested Manakin, which will be our main targets, but we’ll also search for Blackish-gray Antshrike, Cherrie’s Antwren and Ochre-bellied Flycatcher, several males of which form a loose lek along this trail.
In the main terra firme forest back near the lodge we’ll spend several mornings walking the track looking for solitary species and hoping to bump into flocks of various kinds. Among the former, several groups are well represented with three species of trogons including Black-tailed, four species of jacamars including Great and Paradise, several puffbirds and their allies including Rusty-breasted Nunlet and Black Nunbird, and 10 or more woodpeckers including Cream-colored, Scale-breasted and Red-necked. Other local specialties are Ruddy Spinetail, Amazonian Antshrike and Pink-throated Becard. If we are lucky we might find an ant swarm, and if we do, we’ll spend time watching the birds watching the swarm. They are after the insects disturbed by the ants and should include obligate ant-swarm followers such as Rufous-throated Antbird and Plain-brown Woodcreeper, and if we are very lucky, Rufous-winged Ground-Cuckoo. Mixed-species flocks in the forest are often led by Cinereous Antshrikes and include White-flanked and Gray Antwrens, a variety of woodcreepers, flycatchers including Ruddy-tailed, and various other hangers-on. The forest is also home to several rare raptors and we have twice seen Crested Eagle and Black-faced Hawk here as well as Lined Forest-Falcon, all species that feed within the forest and seldom soar above it.
We’ll be sure not to ignore the birding possibilities around the lodge itself. In the early mornings and evenings the calls of Long-billed Woodcreepers ring out as a pair of this most spectacular of woodcreepers passes through the grounds. In the seasonally flooded varzea forest adjacent to the lodge Black Manakins are regular and we have another chance for the local Cherrie’s Antwren. Amazonian Black Tyrants can be found here, Green-tailed Jacamars nest in arboreal termite mounds and Black-chinned Antbirds feed in the undergrowth. Many species fly over in the early mornings and evenings, and in the past these have included Chestnut-fronted Macaw, Amazonian Umbrellabird and Pompadour Cotinga. To be honest, almost any Amazonian species is possible here and every visit we add one or two new species to lodge’s continually growing list. Nights at Junglaven.
Day 7: After an early breakfast we’ll repeat the fabulous hour-long charter flight over untouched rainforest back to Puerto Ayacucho, where we’ll connect with a scheduled flight back to Caracas. After lunch near the airport we’ll drive west into the coastal mountain range. Our destination is Colonia Tovar, a 19th-century German colony that still retains its distinctive culture and architectural style. We’ll spend the late afternoon birding the grounds of our hotel and surrounding areas, searching for flowering trees that may host several species of hummingbirds and flocks of tanagers. Night in Colonia Tovar.
Day 8: We’ll spend the morning walking a quiet road through beautiful montane rainforest looking for local specialties such as Tyrian Metaltail, the endemic Black-throated Spinetail, Chestnut-crowned and Slate-crowned Antpittas, the endemic Caracas Tapaculo, Yellow-bellied Chat-Tyrant, Mountain Elaenia, Black-crested Warbler, Bluish Flowerpiercer and the unique Plushcap. Brown-throated Three-toed Sloths are common along this road and we usually encounter at least one during our walk. After a late lunch at our hotel we’ll drive back to Caracas.
Day 9: The tour concludes this morning in Caracas.
Updated: 12 June 2007
Prices
- 2008 price about $3,590
- Single Occupancy Supplement $210
- 2009 price about $3,590
- Single Occupancy Supplement $220
Notes
This tour is limited to eight participants with one leader; 14 with two leaders. Single occupancy cannot be guaranteed at Junglaven. This tour is organized by our British company, Sunbird.