Top 100 Birding Sites of the World

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SITE RANK

HABITAT Various forest types on east Andean slopes, including humid montane and elfin forest

KEY SPECIES Marvellous Spatuletail, Royal Sunangel, Long-whiskered Owlet, Lulu’s Tody-Flycatcher, dozens of species of tanagers

TIME OF YEAR All year round

A male Marvellous Spatuletail shows off its astonishing tail feathers.

Any birder visiting Abra Patricia is travelling to the frontiers of ornithological knowledge. More new bird species have been discovered in this corner of northern Peru in the last three decades than anywhere else on earth. The area is also home to what must be the world’s most spectacular hummingbird, the Marvellous Spatuletail, and it is the sort of place where such incredible species as Andean Cock-of-the-rock and Amazonian Umbrellabird simply make up the supporting cast. The bromeliad-laden cloud-forests teem with an array of colourful tanagers and smart furnariids, and the area itself, with its undulating pattern of plunging ravines and densely forested slopes, makes for a stunning backdrop to some of the world’s most exciting and challenging birding.

Birders planning to work the road that travels over Abra Patricia inevitably begin in the area around Pomacocha (Florida) and it is here, on the hills nearby, that the Marvellous Spatuletail occurs. This species is as rare as it is astonishing to look at, more or less confined to just a 100-km stretch along the valley of the Rio Utcubamba. It is a medium-sized hummingbird and is unique in its family in having just four tail feathers, instead of the usual ten. In the adult male, two of these – which are as long as the bird itself – stick straight out, while the other two, which are mainly bare shaft, angle out and then across each other beyond the end of the straight part of the tail, eventually ending in rackets, or spatules. When the bird flies, these rackets move independently in all directions, and it is thought that their odd movements serve to confuse predators – it certainly works with birdwatchers. The main food plant of this hummingbird appears to be a red-flowered lily, which grows among thickets between 2,100 and 2,900 m.

From Pomacocha a newly-paved highway winds up towards the pass of Abra Patricia (2,400 m) and then plunges down the slope, zigzagging wildly, until it eventually heads to the distant lowland forests of Amazonia. The most famous stretch for birds is by Alta Nieve, a few km beyond the pass and at about 2,000 m altitude, where the moist elfin forest becomes stunted and the bushes are richly covered by lichen, moss and other epiphytes, with patches of bamboo, palms and tree ferns. It was here, in 1976, that the remarkable Long-whiskered Owlet was discovered one wet morning, caught in a researcher’s mist-net. This tiny owl, with its dark hair-like whiskers reaching from the base of the bill to beyond the side of the head, is still completely unknown in the wild state, although five specimens have been captured. The nature of the captures has set off a strong rumour that it might even be flightless which, if it were true, would be truly remarkable in an owl. As yet, the race to be the first to observe this enigma in the field has not yet been won, so no one can confirm or deny how it gets around, catches food or reproduces.

The owlet is not the only enigma here. Barely better known is the Ochre-fronted Antpitta, another bird discovered here in 1976 and only recently seen wild for the first time. It lives in the dense understorey of these forests, and is no more confiding than most other terrestrial antpittas, so the details of its life history are completely unknown. Birders here should, however, have a better chance to see some of the other recently described species for themselves. The delightful Royal Sunangel (described in 1979) appears to prefer areas where the stunted forest is juxtaposed with taller forest. The male, which is royal blue all over, is highly territorial and reluctant to leave stands of its favourite bush, the red tubular-flowered Brachyotum quinquenerve, while females seem to occur lower downhill and feed on different plants. The Bar-winged Wood Wren (1979), looking remarkably like a small antbird, can usually be found by careful searching of the stunted forest undergrowth, while the Cinnamon-breasted Tody-Tyrant (1979) draws attention to itself by making short aerial forays after insects. The gorgeous Lulu’s Tody-Flycatcher (2001) has a broader distribution in the bamboo thickets of the cloud-forest proper, and it is a wonder that it escaped detection until after the more cryptic discoveries. With its bright orange-red head, brilliant yellow underparts and grey nape, this little bird is now known to be quite common in the area as a whole.

These headline-grabbers are but a tiny fraction of the bird community in the cloud-forest and elfin forest of Abra Patricia. Unless you have been to such a habitat it is almost impossible to convey its sumptuous richness, both in the density of vegetation and the thrilling multi-coloured pageantry of its birds. The typical currency of dawn in a cloud-forest is a mixed flock of outrageously vivid tanagers, with names to match the visual feast: White-capped, Yellow-scarfed, Beryl-spangled, Grass-green and Blue-winged Mountain Tanagers. Buzzing to and fro there will also be hummingbirds, conveying the same sense of exuberant wonder in their names: Rainbow Starfrontlet, Emerald-bellied Puffleg and Blue-fronted Lancebill. Almost all of these birds have specific altitudinal preferences, so that a mixed feeding flock at 2,100 m will be quite different from a flock found at 1,500 m above sea level.

Indeed, a whole new set of birds appears once you have reached the village of Afluentes. Here the forest is taller, and humid montane forest species, such as the Andean Cock-of-the-rock, are common. Although only about 20 km from the pass, you almost have to start working all over again if you are to identify the components of the mixed flocks that bustle through the canopy here.

Despite its wonders, the forest on the hills here is under threat. Local people have been moving into the forests and clearing them at an alarming rate, and until recently all the richest parts, including the localities for Marvellous Spatuletail had no official protection at all. However, since 2004 1,820 sq km of forest east of the pass have been given protection, and the Abra Patricia Bird Reserve created. Hopefully, this will be just the beginning, and significant tracts of these teeming forests will be saved for future generations to enjoy.

Cloud-forest near Abra Patricia; the epiphyteladen canopy is typical of the habitat.

The year 1979 was memorable because both Bar-winged Wood Wren (above) and Royal Sunangel (right) were discovered at Abra Patricia and described for the first time as species new to science.