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Seasonal Flooding of the Amazon
A lush world, with immense biodiversity...
© Arley Vargas
When it’s predictable and wildlife is well adapted, natural flooding can create a biological bonanza. In the Amazon River Basin, which holds one-fifth of the world’s fresh water, annual rains can raise water levels 30 to 40 feet in just days. Forests turn into vast lakes, dotted with trees, while a massive push of sediment erects new islands almost overnight. It’s a lush world that’s home to some of the world’s most iconic birds, including toucans, macaws, kingfishers, tiger-herons, and this Russet-backed Oropendola.
BirdNote®
When the Amazon Floods
Written by Bob Sundstrom
This is BirdNote.
[Russet-backed Oropendola song]
To us humans, flooding can often seem like an unmitigated catastrophe. In the right circumstances, though, when it’s predictable and wildlife is well adapted, flooding can create a biological bonanza. In the Amazon River Basin, annual heavy rains can raise water levels 30 to 40 feet in just days. The basin is almost flat, sloping just one inch per mile over its eastward flow to the Atlantic, a journey of some 2,000 miles. So when the rain arrives, forests flood, and a massive push of sediment erects new islands almost overnight.
It’s a lush world that scientists and nature travelers explore by boat, where some of the world’s most iconic birds find fruit in the trees or perch at the water’s edge.
[Chestnut-fronted Macaw call]
Toucans and macaws, tiny pygmy kingfishers, tiger-herons, and massive Ringed Kingfishers.
[Ringed Kingfisher call]
Oropendolas sing a startling refrain.
[Russet-backed Oropendola song]
These birds are part of the richest array of life on earth, an extraordinary mosaic of habitats, all intricately linked. And all dependent on the river system that holds 1/5 of all the world’s fresh water.
[Russet-backed Oropendola song]
For BirdNote, I'm Mary McCann.
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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Russet-backed Oropendola ML 60723 and Chestnut-fronted Macaw ML 68380 recorded by Paul A Schwartz. Ringed Kingfisher ML 211555 recorded by Gregory F Budney. BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2016 Tune In to Nature.org October 2016 / 2020 / June 2022 / July 2025
Narrator: Mary McCann
ID# amazon-02-2016-10-04 amazon-02
Bob Sundstrom
Writer