Belluda & Dorado Caños
Today we started our activities with a pre-breakfast outing, our mission was to look for macaws along the Ucayali River, and this is one of the best areas to look for these beautiful and colorful birds. Just minutes later we saw a few individuals feeding on palm trees, but our big surprise was to spot a Scarlet macaw as well, because it is uncommon to see both species at the same time, and to make our morning even more special we spotted the largest toucan species in the Amazon, known as Whited-throated Toucan. The morning could not have been better after those amazing sightings in the same location.
It was time to go into Belluda Caño to continue with our exploration, and our good karma continued because we had a chance to approach two species of birds of prey, a Roadside hawk and Black-collared hawk. Those sightings were accompanied with kingfishers, swallows, flycatchers, tanagers, and a few other interesting bird species as well. Everybody was very happy with our morning activity, and when we were returning to the ship we had a chance to see two species of monkeys in the same tree: Squirrel and Saddleback tamarin monkeys. It was just a perfect pre-breakfast morning activity with nice weather and great opportunities for wildlife photography at the same time.
For the afternoon we went out in a new adventure in a different location. We had an excellent start because as soon as we boarded our skiffs, we had lots of Horned Screamers eating floating vegetation, some of them were nesting as well, we also enjoyed the company of a few Hoatzins, which are prehistoric-looking creatures and very poor fliers.
As we were looking for the right position to take pictures of a Three-toed Sloth, we had in front of us hundreds of Sand-colored Nighthawks perching in a leafless tree. This time of the year the water level is very high, so we entered some dense vegetation with our skiffs to look for wildlife, which was plentiful. One of the most exciting moments was when we had a chance to approach a Green kingfisher, Fork-tailed flycatchers, and Neotropical cormorants as well.
During the afternoon adventure we also had a great moment with Squirrel and Brown Capuchin monkeys feeding at the same time on the same fruits. We also had one of the most beautiful sunsets of the whole week, after this amazing afternoon we started to make our way back to the ship but we stopped a few times because there were a lot of caimans along the main river.
What a marvelous day we had in one of the modern natural wonders of our planet.
