Bolivian Lowlands
By Bennett
Hennessey
 The lowlands of Bolivia
offer three major habitat types for bird communities: The Tropical tall
forest (often called Rain Forest), the Beni Flooded savannas, and the dry
Cerrado. You can find all three in the Selvablue lodge in the department of Beni and within Noel Kempff
Mercado Park.
The best Tropical forest
habitat is found in the Rurrenabaque area, especially the site Alto Madidi (do it yourself
camping). Around Santa Cruz
you will find the furthest southern reaches of Amazonian forest, species poor
with low abundances, but still worth a visit if it is your first time. Best
to visit the foothill habitat like the Southern-Horned
Curassow lodge and Los
Volcanes for more regional specialities. In Santa Cruz
there is also the Chiqatania Dry
forest, only covered here with the Santa Cruz
Botanical Gardens.
The Beni Flooded savannas,
better defined as the Llanos de Moxos habitat, is a spacious mix of
grasslands, marshes, dry forest and tall gallery forest-also generally called pampas. This habitat mostly makes up the department of Beni, but also
in areas of Santa Cruz.
The Department of Beni is cattle country and, fortunately, cattle are very
compatible with this grassland habitat. Some areas of the Beni Flooded
Savannas are even comparable to more famous Brazilian Pantanal.
The best site is the Barba Azul Nature Reserve. A taste of this habitat is found at Lomas de Arena Park, but can be best appreciated North
east of Rurrenebaque (Santa Rose Beni
Savannas), and around Trinidad
(no site guide description as yet). The dry season (May-October) is best time
to visit this habitat as much of the area floods in the rainy season and
becomes all but impassible for vehicles (the Selvablue Ecolodge is an exception to this rule- which
can be visited year round). However, late in the dry season (September
and October), ranchers set fire to the grasslands to induce new growth of
grass and, at times, visibility can be sharply reduced.
The Cerrado habitat is more common in
Brazi. The habitat in
Bolivi exists in fragments along
the northern edge between Beni Flooded Savannas and Tropical forest. Best
sites for visiting intact Cerrado are Selvablue ecolodge and Los Fierros in Noel Kempff
Mercado Park. |
