by A. Bennett Hennessey and Lawrence Rubey
The Hotel Flora and Fauna offers peaceful cabins edged by the forest,
with a do-it-yourself attitude. The
forest borders on Robin Clark’s long tropical forest strip, which has one main
trail, but there are also roads that cover open areas and secondary
forest. This area is at the southern
limit of the amazon tropical forest offering a slow, not very diverse forest
with low abundances, in comparison to most amazon basin sites. This is not the site if you want to pick up
antbirds, understory foraging flocks or big canopy flocks (see Alto Madidi).
However, this forest also has a strong southern influence, with some hard
to find birds from deciduous, temperate and hill forests, like Tataupa Tinamou,
White-chinned Sapphire, White-bellied Hummingbird, Green-barred Flicker,
Mottle-cheeked Tyrannulet, Slaty Thrush, Gray-headed Tanager, Orange-bellied
Euphonia, and Golden-crowned Warbler.
There is a Black Hawk-Eagle living in the area and Robin Clark knows a
spot were one can see the Curl-crested Aracari.
One big advantage of this area is that Robin Clark has stomped his
ground well and can give excellent directions, and occasionally guide to
specific bird sites. Be aware that Robin is a British expat who has no problem
expressing his conservative- occasionally offensive- opinion to fellow tourists
after a few beers.
Logistics: The Hotel is