Dawn at the Macaw Clay Licks

The clay licks of Tambopata lie upriver from Puerto Maldonado in the Peruvian Amazon. At first light, dozens of scarlet and blue and yellow macaws spiral down to the riverbank cliffs to eat clay, joined by hundreds of parrots and parakeets. The birds arrive in waves of color and noise, and the cliff face flickers red, blue and green for an hour. The dry season, roughly May through October, brings the clearest dawns and the most active licks. Other great licks lie along the Napo River in Ecuador and in the Manu region of Peru.