The Manu Wildlife Center is located in the wild and remote Manu wilderness of Peru.

Manu Travel Peru The Amazon rain forrests contain many mineral deposits. One of the best known is located along the banks of the Manu River in Madre de Dios, Peru.

The natives call it Ccolpa de Guacamayas, “the lick of the macaws.” Ccolpa de Guacamayas is famous in Peru for the congregation of macaws and other parrots it attracts daily. At sunrise every morning, scarlets and other macaws are the first to arrive and eat the minerals.

As soon as they leave, Amazons, Pionus and other medium-size parrots fly in. This continues until the smaller Brotogeris (grey cheeked and canary winged parakeets) and parrotlets get their fill and fly away. This location is indeed one of the most spectacular natural displays of color anywhere. Every native species can be seen at the mineral deposit at one time or another.

Probably the most amazing observation made by scientists who study this deposit is that the parrots eat only certain parts and ignore other parts. Analyses of samples from the different parts have determined which kinds of minerals are present and how much of each mineral is available. In total, nine minerals have been identified in the Manu mineral deposit: calcium, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, sodium, phosphorus, and zinc.

The most interesting finding, however, is that the part eaten by the parrots contains exactly the same minerals as the part not eaten - but the balance of certain minerals is different. How parrots know which part of the mineral deposit to eat is still a mystery.

Nevertheless, we know the part they eat is definitely richer in certain minerals than the part they do not eat. Perhaps someday we will learn how parrots know this: meanwhile, we can only be amazed by this behavior and by nature's way of ensuring that birds get the minerals they need.

I used to think this sense belonged only to “amazing Amazons,” until I learned African greys can also detect the difference. I have a group of about 20 African greys a choice between consuming a mineral block with the nine minerals and one without the minerals (just plaster). The birds ate only the block with the nine minerals and completely ignored the other.

Every time I repeated the experiment, I had the same result. Somehow the parrots knew which block contained the minerals and which one did not, without ever tasting the one without the minerals.
Manu Wildlife Center in Manu Peru. The Manu Wildlife Centre offers wildlife tours for birding or bird watching, the Tapir lick, the Macaw clay lick and observing giant otters swimming in ox bow lakes from floating platforms while at the comfortable Manu Wildlife Center lodge.

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