South American Conclusion

I have failed miserably in blogging, I admit it. I've even been home for a few weeks, but just haven't gotten around to it. I have no excuses. My apologies.

Since I last blogged all those months ago, many things have happened. I'll try to keep it as succinct as possible. Caution: these following tales may include reckless stories of birding, building dams, British compatriots, and robbery!

After I last wrote from Northern Peru in Pomacochas, we travelled north through the dry Marañon Valley, picking up many more endemics along the way, and into southern Ecuador. We had two reasons for heading into Ecuador, the main one being to renew our tourist visas, because we expected to be in Peru for a time greater than our 90 day visas allowed, and the second being to see Jocotoco Antpitta! Jocotoco Antpitta is a bird that was discovered in 1997, and since then has been trained to come in and feed on worms every morning at a certain reserve in Southern Ecuador. Luckily we were able to witness this, and quite an amazing experience it was, with at least 2-3 birds within 15 feet, and as close as 6-8 feet sometimes.

During our time in Ecuador at one point our funds were down to 57 cents, just the change I had in the bottom of my backpack!

We made a loop of southern Ecuador through Loja, coming back into Peru via the border down of Macará, down into lowland NW Peru. I really disliked NW Peru while we were there, it was hot, dirty, smelly, overpriced, and overcrowded. The rest of Peru was fantastic, but I was happy to get out of NW Peru as soon as possible. The birding there is good however, and lots of good birds were seen.

After the lowlands we went into the central highlands to the Cajamarca area, a lovely town and area, and from there into the Balsas Valley, at the upper end of the Marañon River Valley. This was quite a stunning place, with drop dead gorgeous scenery, and in one day we went from close to treeline down to hot desert with cactus, quite a change.

From Cajamarca it was time to head to Lima once more, where we had a pelagic scheduled to leave on January 20th. We spent a couple days before the pelagic being lazy in Lima, going to see Avatar, eating at Pizza Hut, etc, and it was fantastic.

The pelagic was quite enjoyable, seeing 6 species of storm-petrel, and our first albatrosses (Waved), penguins (Humboldt), and diving-petrels (Peruvian)! We also met someone who ended up joining our group after the pelagic, a British fellow named Simon Mitchell, who had been working in Bolivia for a few months, and had a couple weeks free before he had any commitments.

With Simon now in tow, we rented a car, quite cheap when split four ways, and headed off into the central highlands to the Huaraz area. Huaraz is backed by the Cordillera Blanca, a mountain range that is considered by many to be the most beautiful in the world. We spent a few days in this area, getting such interesting birds as White-cheeked Cotinga, and we also finished the entire family of Inca-Finches! Inca-Finches are an endemic genus to Peru, with five species being represented, which we saw in the order of: Little; Gray-winged; Buff-bridled; Great; and Rufous-backed. Finishing the Inca-Finches is always one of the primary goals during an extended visit to Peru, and definitely near the top of our list.

From the Huaraz area, our next place to visit was a small town called San Damian, midway between the interior road in Huaraz and the coastal highway. Of course, the main theme down there is north-south roads, and we had to head west. This involved a tiny winding dirt road for hours, which was fun at first, but after a while got tiresome. We also had to stop and ask for directions a few times, because we only had a general idea where we were going. Just as it was starting to get a little dark out, after we'd been on roads like this for 3-4 hours, all of a sudden the road was washed out. There had been lots of rain higher up, and now that we were descending down the western slope of the Andes, the stream right next to the road had burst over its banks and flooded the road. So what choice did we have at that point? We built a dam. It took a little over 30 minutes probably, but after hauling rocks from a nearby slope, we managed to reduce the ~8" deep torrent to a slow moving couple inches of water. We kept going down, through a narrow gorge most of the way that was just stunning while lit up by the setting sun. However, a few miles further down, it being mostly dark now, we saw a single headlight coming in the other direction. A guy riding a dirtbike quickly flagged us down and told us that ahead the road was ENTIRELY washed out in multiple places, and completely impassible. Disheartened, we retraced our steps, having to get out a few times so that the lessened weight allowed the car to get over certain parts of the road with just the driver in it. We ended up spending the night in the little town of Aija, where unbelievably I had cell service, so we had the lovely use of the internet. We stayed at the only hostel in town, which also was a restaurant, so we never really had to leave that building.

The next morning we talked with the proprietress, who assured us that people were going down to work on the washout this morning. Dubious, but wanting to believe it, we went back down the road that we had turned back on the night before, this time going for around an hour one way, where we reached a massive spillway that was all sharp rocks, with about 6 switchbacks leading down it. Quite an impressive sight, the whole area being set between two steep cliffs and with a small lake at the upper end. Here was where it had washed out, and not just in one place, but in three or four. We walked around and pondered for close to an hour whether we would be able to repair the road enough using all the rocks around to be able to allow our pitifully low clearance car to pass. Chris was so firmly set against it that I believe he might have caused us bodily harm had we tried it, and eventually all four of us decided, reluctantly, that rather than risk it, we would have to go the long way around. The long way was over 3 hours back to the main road in Huaraz, then AROUND, an extra 150k+, and 8-9 hours of driving. One of the other problems is that the rental car had a milage limit on it, so we had to pay more to drive around as well.

The next morning from the other side we got to San Damian without incident, got the birds, and headed back towards Lima. We deserved the target birds there, Piura Chat-Tyrant and Russet-bellied Spinetail, perhaps more than anyone ever has, having build a dam, driven for a couple hundred kilometers, and spent 3 full days getting to them.

Back towards Lima we spent the night in Huacho, a pretty seedy town. We kept joking, telling each other to "Huacho-self!" during our time there. Turns out someone should have been watching the car instead.

For parking the car at nights they have places called "cocheras" where you pay someone to watch the car for you in a small enclosed lot for the night. Well, the place that we chose for this night either had a blind and deaf watchman, or he was in on it somehow. During the night our driver-side window was smashed in, but unbelievably, nothing was taken! We had money lying out in plain sight, albeit in small amounts, and our bags were in the trunk even. We just got really really lucky.

The most amazing thing about the whole event is that the guy who watched our car denied any responsibility! He claimed that he was there to keep our things safe, and had any of our things been stolen? No. So therefore he felt perfectly fine about his job. We were simply awestruck at his reaction to all this, and eventually got the cops involved, trying to get him to pay for our broken window. What eventually came out of this was a wasted morning, and we drove to Lima and got the window repaired ourselves, which cost a pittance, something like $30 I believe for the window and all the labor.

Now back in Lima we had planned to head the Machu Picchu and southeastern Peru next, but it turned out to be the rainiest rainy season in recent history, and as some of you may have heard, the train tracks to Machu Picchu were entirely washed out in a few places by mudslides, and people even died. As well as all that, thousands of people were stranded in the town by Machu Picchu, and people were getting evacuated by helicopter, and it was something of a national emergency. In any case, most of southeastern Peru was inaccessible and/or unsafe. At a loss for a brief period of time, we quickly decided what must be done. Another country must be visited. Since Ecuador was old hat, and Bolivia needs a visa, we were left with Chile. Mere victims of fate, we had no choice but to go to Chile. Unfortunately Simon had to head back to the UK, so he was unable to join us.

A couple days later our once again three person party hopped the 20 hour bus to the Peru/Chile border, and then crossed over into the lovely country of Chile. It was amazing how many things were instantly different in the much more first-world country of Chile. Of course, everything costs more. We spent one night in the town of Arica, and then got on a 30 hour bus to Santiago, the capital of Chile.

During this bus ride, about 5-6 hours in, the most unfortunate thing to ever befall me happened.

We were stopped in the town of Iquique, our first stop since leaving Arica, and people were getting off and getting on the bus, per usual. The driver was supposed to be at the door, checking peoples tickets that got on, but he had gone to the back to help get out baggage for the departing people. I noticed one person that had gotten on and was sitting in a seat a few rows up, a guy wearing reflective sunglasses that was looking around, seemingly in idle curiosity. Nothing out of the ordinary, right? Another guy got on and sat to the right of me across the aisle, between me and my friend who was in the opposing window seat. A third person came and sat behind me, and unbeknownst to me at the time, pulled the backpack that was under my legs under my seat and right to him. He proceeded to put it on and walk off the bus, right past me, past my unseeing eyes. A lady a few rows behind me came up and started speaking hurriedly to me in spanish, but I just didn't get what she was saying about my bag. And then I looked down at the vacant spot where my bag was, and realized what she was talking about.

I quickly ran off the bus, because after all I knew what these guys looked like, I had watched them get on the bus. They were of course long gone, and I would never see my backpack again. I lost my camera, two lenses, my binoculars, 1600 pictures, over 2 months worth of field notes, my iPod, and many other small trinkets, totaling over $5,000 worth of stuff. They sure picked the right gringo to rip off.

At least I had my blackberry, wallet, and passport on my person, as I do at all times.

More than a little disheartened, we continued on the long bus to Santiago, making a police report when we arrived. I'm still dealing with insurance people now, but it looks like I'll at least get a couple thousand back, if I'm lucky.

Other than that MINOR hiccup, Chile was absolutely wonderful. We spent about 2.5 weeks there, seeing all sorts of wonderful birds and gorgeous places. My favorite location in Chile was Chiloé Island, a place as far south of the Equator as Boston is north. Some of the coolest places that we visited included a penguin colony on Chiloé called Puñihuil, where there were hundreds of Magellanic Penguins, with a few Humboldt mixed in, as well as other fantastic sea life like Marine Otter, and a constant stream of Sooty Shearwaters going by that totaled close to 100,000 individuals during our time there.

We also visited volcanic slopes up in the Andes, where the only rocks are pumice and obsidian, and the forests are Monkey Puzzle Trees and Nothofagus forest, the latter a relative of the redwoods.

The individual highlight of me would have been the pelagic trip that we took out of Valparaiso, where we got to share a boat with a Field Guides trip led by Peter Burke, a great guy and a co-author of the Birds of Chile guide. The pelagic was simply unbelievable, with 3 Southern Royal Albatrosses, 19 Northern Royals, 75+ Salvin's Albatrosses, and tons of other amazing tubenoses. If only I had a camera! I ended up borrowing Andrew's bins for most of the trip (thanks Andrew), and I took pictures with my phone through his scope as well, as much as I could.

We concluded the trip in Santiago, Chris flying out a few days before Andrew and I did. When we left we flew together to Lima, and then spent a day there before leaving on different flights back to the states.

I met my parents in southern California at LAX, and we spent a couple weeks there before coming back to Mass. I've been back in MA since March 5th, and have seen some good birds since then! Unbelievably, I managed to see every state bird that I missed this winter except one, them all having stuck around. Some of the better birds in the past month have included Common Chaffinch, Tufted Duck, Red-headed Woodpecker, and Sage Thrasher.

This spring I will be working at Manomet Bird Observatory again, banding per usual, and as of the moment I'm not sure where my next travel plans will be. Perhaps the Desert SW this summer, and then somewhere in South America this winter. Time will tell.

Below are my personal species lists for Peru and Chile, and pictures from Peru can be seen at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uropsalis/sets/72157623304351991/

Good birding,

Ian Davies

Manomet, MA

From Quebradas to Quetzals

Up at five the next morning, our goal for the morning was to hire a car to take us to Quebrada Upaquihua, a name that had evolved in our minds to Quebrada Oompa-Loompa, but we luckily never slipped up and called it that to the locals, not that they could find us any crazier than they already do.
Upaquihua is in the dry Huallaga River Valley, and has some very special birds with some spectacular range extensions, along with some subspecies that are almost surely separate species. Some of the target birds there that occur only there in Peru are Ashy-headed Greenlet and Planalto Hermit, both birds that occur over a thousand miles away at their closest other populations. There are also resident Rufous Casiornis here, a flycatcher that is just an austral migrant to southeastern Peru, except for this population.
Arriving at the coopertivo area, we tried one group of people for hiring a car, and they wanted 250 soles for a half day! One of the more ridiculous rip-off attempts thus far in Peru, while Andrew talked to them I walked across the street to another couple people, asked these guys, and immediately got quoted 120 soles, the price we wanted. Without even bargaining we accepted and were off.
The drive there takes you by the Rio Huallaga, which is supposed to have sandbars on it where you can see Comb Duck regularly, a large and spectacular species of waterfowl. Of course when we were there the water levels were too high and it was simply a huge ocean of chocolate water running down from the highlands, with no sandbars above water.
Driving along the road to Upaquihua, a dirt side road off of the main highway near the small town of Buenos Aires, we had a Planalto Hermit fly in front of the car showing its distinctive rufous rump patch, a good omen. At the trail head there were many birds singing, including some “Huallaga” Slaty-Antshrikes, a subspecies endemic to this area and a possible future split.
Walking down the path we rapidly picked up more birds, with a Mishana Tyrannulet performing wonderfully, the first time that species had done that for us, another pair of Rufous-capped Nunlets, making this the third pair of nunlets we’ve had this trip, normally a very tough group to get even one sighting of. Andrew had only seen any species of nunlet once before this trip, in over 10 trips to the neotropics.
Near the nunlets we picked up a Rufous Casiornis, and found a fruiting tree that had Band-tailed Manakin, of a special Huallaga subspecies, and some Sulphur-bellied Tyrant-Manakins in the same area as well. Further down the path there was a stream crossing where we had a Flammulated Bamboo-Tyrant, also a bird with a disjunct range from southeastern Peru, and a large raptor that Andrew thinks was an adult Ornate Hawk-Eagle, but I didn’t see it well enough to be sure for myself.
Picking up a few more interesting birds in the form of Ashy-headed Greenlet, a female Chestnut-tailed Antbird with a flock, and a couple Reddish Hermits as well as some more Planalto Hermits, we made our way back to the road, birding separately on a couple different trails. Andrew had a Rusty-backed Antwren, a gorgeous member of the antwren family, and some Chestnut-vented Conebills on his own, while Chris and I had nothing new for the trip.
Song was quieting down by now for sure, in this hot dry habitat reminiscent of southeastern Arizona more than anything else. We walked the road for a bit and found a trail leading into another small forested patch where we miraculously flushed an OCELLATED POORWILL onto a nearby branch. Such an amazing view of a gorgeous nightjar, and in such strange habitat for a bird that normally never leaves Amazonian humid primary forest. Stoked after that sighting we went a little bit farther up the hill to try to call in some Rusty-backed Antwrens in a little scrubby area. Lo and behold, a pair of birds responded wonderfully, circling us for at least 15 minutes. Great looks were had, and less than great photos were taken.
More than happy with our morning we headed back to our long-suffering driver, who was basically just sitting on the side of the road for 4-5 hours, and went back to Tarapoto, stopping briefly to buy some cold drinks. We got a drink for our driver, and he asked for some coke, which they only had large bottles of. When we came out with that large bottle of coke his face lit up and he giggled with glee, there is no other way to describe it. I have rarely seen someone so overjoyed at the sight of Coca-Cola.
Back in Tarapoto we hopped a bus to Nueva Cajamarca, a small town with nothing going for it except that it was close to a birding spot. It was a small dirty town with not many amenities, but it somehow had a fancy hotel in the form of the Hotel Alto Mayo, where we paid 50 soles a night for a double with tv, wifi, and nice rooms. One of the better lodging deals of the trip thus far no doubt.
Our target birding location here is near a town called Afluente, and is more roadside birding, in foothill forest that supposedly holds many large flocks. We had two days planned here, but our first night in Nueva Cajamarca was New Years Eve, which was not conducive to sleep. We ended up taking that day off as well, much as we did on Christmas. This time we celebrated with wifi, some Chinese food, and lots of mangos. Chris and I each ate 7 mangos that day I believe. When its 5 for 33 cents, how can you not?
The next day we were off to Afluente, which involved taking a car to a town halfway there and then another car the rest of the way, which delayed us getting there a bit, until about 7am. When we were dropped off, a guy in a taxi almost immediately accosted us and insisted that the forest around the road was his property, and that we had to pay him to be able to bird there. Well we had read many trip reports on this location, and nobody had mentioned the crazy local. He wanted 15 soles/person, just for us to walk along the road. No trails, nothing like that, and we didn’t even believe that it was his land! He supposedly needs the money to conserve the forest, which would be a great cause, if that is really what he does with it. After refusing to pay he started to threaten us, yelling things like “Do you guys want problems!?”
He followed us up the road as we birded, honking continuously every time we stopped to look at a bird, and if we stopped to try to bird a flock, he would stop the car, get out, and keep demanding that we paid him. It crossed all our minds that he is using quite a bit of gas following us in his car, kind of an amusing thought.
At one point when he was following us I conspicuously took down his license plate number, which enraged him so much that he pretty much tried to run me down. Luckily, I had thought that he might do that, and had situated myself near a ditch that I was able to hop over and thus avoid death.
Just after the attempted ramming he went and parked at his house, which was right there and the only house in that stretch of road with the forest, perhaps lending credibility to his story, but by this time we were all so pissed that we didn’t want to give him five cents.
We were out of “his forest” on the other side of his house, but of course we were out of all the forest then. Right as we were turning around he came back, and said that if we just gave him 25 soles he would leave us alone. We said screw it, gave him the money, and never saw him again.
The birding was good there, and the undoubted highlight of the morning was having a pair of Scaled Fruiteaters less than 20 feet away feeding on arboreal snails out in the open just above eye level. Absolutely stunning birds and such cool behavior. They would sit around sluggishly for a little while, and then sally out and “flycatch” a snail from a branch, and proceed to artfully bang it against a branch until they had cracked it enough to be able to get the creature out of its shell. We got to see both the male and the female do this multiple times, in addition to getting to see the male feed the female some tasty snail treats.
Other good birds seen by me included Orange-eared Tanager, Ecuadorian Tyrannulet, Booted Racket-tail, Gray-mantled Wren, and finding a nest of a Golden-eared Tanager was very cool as well. Andrew and Chris went down a trail while I stayed to bird some flocks along the road, and they had Ecuadorian Piedtail and Marble-faced Bristle-Tyrant.
We headed back to Nueva Cajamarca for our last night in that lackluster town, and celebrated Andrew’s birthday by.. eating out? Sure, that sounds as good as anything. Another afternoon of laziness and mangos, and we arranged a taxi that night to come pick us up at our hotel the next morning, at 3am. Only 100 soles for a 3am taxi ride about 50km. Not that bad.
Our destination was the Garcia Trail once more up near Abra Patricia, this time with our goal being owling. We had mixed success, getting the Cinnamon Screech-Owls, and hearing a very frustrating call a couple times that very well may have been Long-whiskered Owlet.. Can’t get them all.
An Ochre-fronted Antpitta started calling right next to us at dawn, and we actually got looks at this one, always nice to see an antpitta. Some other highlights of the morning included a couple each of Crested and Golden-headed Quetzals, the former a new trip bird, and great looks at Royal Sunangel, Bar-winged Wood-Wren, Uniform Antshrike, and Greenish Puffleg. We only got 4 species I think that we didn’t get last time, with the best being the screech-owls and a pair of White-chinned Swifts doing a courtship flight over our heads.
Andrew started feeling sick partway through the morning, so we cut our birding a bit short and headed up the the pass, hoping to be able to stay at the lodge up there. Well, there was nobody up there, and the lodge was seemingly deserted. I guess they don’t have anyone staffing it unless there are reservations in advance. After eating lunch at a roadside restaurant we headed back into the Utcubamba Valley and to La Florida once more, where I am typing this right now.
Tomorrow morning we will go and give the owlet another shot at Abra Patricia, hopefully get a couple other birds, and then head into the Maranon Valley to start getting more new endemics, such as inca-finches and other goodies.
Not sure when my next update will be, but hopefully I’ll be able to get them our more frequently than I have been.



Hope this finds everyone well in this new year,
Ian

To Iquitos And Back

After arriving in Tarapoto we found ourselves a nice hotel with wifi and air conditioning, living in the lap of luxury for us, and settled in to what would become the hotel we spent the most time sitting around so far this trip.
Early the next morning we headed out to our main birding destination from this town, the Tunnel as it is called, which is just a tunnel on the road to Yurimaguas. The Tunnel has some interesting birds that only occur there and one other place in all of Peru, and their closest other known ranges are in Venezuela and northern Brazil. Those birds are Plumbeous Euphonia and Dotted Tanager, and along with a few other key species, were our main targets at this location. The Plumbeous Euphonia also occurs at the Allpahuayo-Mishana Reserve, and the Dotted Tanager also occurs in the Cordillera Azul.
We had two days set aside to bird this location, and for the first day we hopped a mototaxi just before dawn to take us to collectivo “station”, per usual, and got to the tunnel with high expectations. Unfortunately the only way that we knew how to bird the area the first day was from the road, and there is quite a bit of traffic there. We spent most of the morning walking along hot asphalt in the fumes of passing cars, buses and trucks. The birding was fairly good though, with Wattled Guan, White Hawk, Koepcke’s Hermit, Napo Sabrewing, high numbers of Cliff Flycatchers (17), and our long overdue first Andean Cock-of-the-Rocks for the trip.
Toward the end of the morning we discovered a great trail that crested a ridge and led into wonderful forest, with no exhaust, cars, or human activity of any sort. Well, except the teenager that walked by carrying a car battery, heading away from the road, but who really knows what that was all about. Probably carrying the power for some small village.
The next morning we headed straight to the trail first thing, birding a flock en route to the ridge crest, and once we got there I split off from the others to walk the ridge trail, while Andrew and Chris went down the backside of the small mountain as we had the day before. They of course had some birds that would have been lifers for me, but I am personally happy with what I had. Some of the highlights of birding the ridge trail included a confiding flock of 12 Ivory-billed Aracaris that came in to check me out for a while, many White-winged Tanagers, two Gould’s Jewelfronts, quite a fancy hummingbird, and the crowning pair, Dotted Tanager and Plumbeous Euphonia!
The euphonia was loosely associating with a mixed feeding flock, and the tanager was loosely associating with some Yellow-bellied Tanagers in another mixed flock. Andrew had a Dotted Tanager downslope, but Chris sadly never managed to see one. We eventually met up a few hours later, and had some other good birds, including a pair of Blue-naped Chlorophonias and a White-throated Woodpecker to round out the morning, and the day for that matter, as we happily lazed the rest of it away in our air conditioned room, as opposed to roasting in the 95+ degree heat.

The following day was Christmas, and we had decided to take a day off, a present to ourselves one could say. Basically that involved sleeping in, eating copious amounts of junk food, watching copious amounts of sub-par television, and generally enjoying ourselves.. We went out for a fancy dinner, courtesy of my parents, thank them so very much, and after watching the locals celebrating like crazy for a while went to bed.
Christmas is really such a huge deal down here, easily the biggest holiday. Everyone dresses up in their finest clothes, every single store has some decoration of red, green and/or gold, and there are people dressed in santa suits giving rides around and around the main square, in some form of vehicle that has a cardboard shell made to look like a sleigh. I can tell you right now, Latin American Santas are a sight to behold, especially when driving a sleigh-like contraption rapidly in large circles around the plaza.
The square itself gets fancied up, in Tarapoto they put a stage up, had about a 50’ tall fake tree, dressed the light poles as angels, and put as many twinkly objects on the fountain as possible. The church on the main plaza was packed as well, standing room only and spilling out into the street when we were headed back from dinner that night. It likely stayed that way until midnight. The revelry continued all night I’m sure, but we were tired from doing nothing all day, so we had no sleeping troubles at all.
In the morning we were planning to go birding again, but when we woke up we decided to take another day off. Our latest grand plan was to go to Iquitos, a place that we didn’t think we would be able to make it to this trip.
Iquitos is in the deep Amazon, and is the largest city in the world inaccessible by road, quite a claim to be able to make. We were originally planning to fly there from Lima, but when we tried to book our tickets we found out that there is a ridiculous “gringo tax” that amounts to over $200 extra EACH WAY for a flight there. That put it out of our budget and out of our minds, until Andrew out of idle curiosity looked up flights from Tarapoto to there, and found out that they only cost a little over $250 a head, roundtrip.
We decided that that was worth it, and bought tickets for the day after Christmas, departing at 5:45pm for a 1h flight. Of course we had to check out of our hotel by 1, so we spent four hours playing Hearts at the airport in the cafeteria area. Andrew won.
When our plane arrived, a nice small real jet plane, unlike the prop plane we took before, we piled on and took a lovely short flight over the foothills of the Andes into the Amazon as the sun set behind us. There weren’t that many people on the plane, and I had an entire six seat row to myself! This was a lot nicer than the usual crowded buses or coopertivos with people almost sitting on you much of the time.
Arriving in Iquitos after dark, while waiting at the baggage claim we were accosted by a man trying to get us to use his hotel, and after hearing him out, it actually sounded like a good deal. Included taxi to the hotel, and 55 soles a night (less than $20) for three people in two rooms with televisions and fans. The taxi to the hotel turned out to be a nice 8 person Mercedes van, so things were just getting better and better. It turns out it would be the best deal we would get in Iquitos, a city where people mostly expect to give you less for more money. The nighttime view of the fairly dingy city of Iquitos wasn’t much bettered during the daytime, overall it was pretty trashy, hot, and not easy on the eyes.
Our goal here was to bird the Allpahuayo-Mishana Reserve, a very fun place name to say, and a very good birding site as we found out. The special thing about this place is the soil that the forest grows on, being very nutrient-poor “white-sand forest”, where the substrate really is pure white sand. There are many species that only occur in white-sand forest, and there is one bird that only occurs in this one reserve in the entire world, with two other species occurring there being endemic to Peru. As it turns out, they all have the local place names, being Iquitos Gnatcatcher (park endemic), Allpahuayo Antbird, and Mishana Tyrannulet. Funny how that works. There are also many other white-sand specialists that we were targeting here, and we ended up doing quite well.
The daily routine here was to get up at about 430 and walk a little over a mile along the road to the trailhead, hearing such birds as Crested Owl on the walk out, it being still quite dark out, and then walk through the forest using headlamps until we reached our destination for dawn chorus, all the while hoping to avoid the snakes that were certainly lurking just out of sight.
We spent two full days and an afternoon at this reserve, and the birding was good enough to justify at least a few more days, likely at least a week. Some of the more thrilling moments of our time there included, but were not limited to: spotting a pair of Brown Nunlets while taking a break on a log, and eventually calling them within 20 feet of us at eye-level at perfect light; at that same spot having a booming Salvin’s Curassow, a pair of Pompadour Cotingas, and hearing a Brown-banded Puffbird as well; discovering a roosting juvenile Crested Owl RIGHT ABOVE the trail, no more than 15 feet away; having a pair of color-banded Allpahuayo Antbirds come within 15 feet or so to check their own voices out that Andrew was playing back to them; and watching a great canopy flock swirl through one tree repeatedly, and finding such birds in it as Paradise Jacamar, Iquitos Gnatcatcher, Mishana Tyrannulet, and Ancient Antwren.
It is also nice to see our own birds from home down there, the coolest of which was a Gray-cheeked Thrush, which undoubtedly migrated from Canada and will do so for hopefully many more years. It’s interesting to think of how many species of bird one of our migrants have seen, I mean, we saw this Gray-cheeked Thrush right near the Allpahuayo Antbirds, which it surely hears daily. How often do you look at a thrush and think “I wonder how many Peruvian endemics this bird has seen?” The truth may be more than you think.
The only downside to this place, besides it being very hot and not having any fans in the rooms, is the fact that the closest dinner spot is oh, about 12k away, which is slightly prohibitive to having a nice meal without walking almost 15 miles roundtrip.
When we got hungry the first night there we decided to try to try to hitch a ride in the right direction while walking to shorten the distance needed to hitch. We had walked almost five miles, trying to hail down every passing vehicle, when a large semi truck finally stopped. After telling him where we wanted to go, by this point anywhere with food, we all hopped on the truck as we could, with Chris and Andrew riding on top of the trailer part, about 25 feet in the air, and me balancing on a small ledge between the cab and the trailer. It was possibly the most fun I have ever had on a moving vehicle.
Arriving at the town about 6k later, we asked at four restaurants that were just closing before we finally found one that was open. Relieved, we ordered omelettes, and some anonymous meat for Andrew, and ended up talking to a nice guy who was at one of the two tables at this eatery, while we waited on a nearby bench for our food. He was curious about our birding, per usual, and proceeded to tell us of all the venomous snakes that frequented the reserve that we were staying at, and how fierce they were and such. Always nice to hear such things about places where you will be hiking at night. We eventually bade him goodbye, ate our food, and took a mototaxi back to the reserve, where we gladly fell asleep almost instantly. A night of adventure.
The list of good birds seen at the reserve goes on and on, but we managed to get almost all of the specialties, with our only big misses being night birds, where we dipped on White-winged and Rufous Potoos, although we lucked out by seeing a Long-tailed Potoo flying around a pasture at dusk. In addition to the birds mentioned above, we had Collared Puffbird, Saffron-crested Tyrant-Manakin, White-plumed Antbird, Pearly Antshrike, White-browed Purpletuft, and “Chamizal” Flycatcher, currently a subspecies of Fuscous Flycatcher, but a certain future split.
After glutting ourselves with many lifers, photographs, and recordings, sweating our body weight daily, and all in all enjoying ourselves immensely, we made our way back to Iquitos and civilization, where we enjoyed such modern conveniences as air conditioning and ice cream. Good stuff.
With only one more objective in the Iquitos area, we got up early the next morning and asked our mototaxi to take us to a place where we could rent a boat for the morning. We arrived at the waterfront right near a market, and humanity was everywhere, especially for early in the morning. The second the mototaxi stopped we had people trying to get us to use their boat, and eventually we settled on one guy who would rent us his boat until 11am for 80 soles, so about $9 a head. We headed out onto the large sluggish river, where we were within 10 or 20 miles of being at the confluence of the Napo River coming in from Ecuador, and the Ucayali, the river that we were on. When they converge they become the true Amazon River. So close, yet so far, to seeing the real Amazon. Some day soon. In any case, the river was still impressive, multiple miles wide, but our goal was to get out to the middle of it, and bird some of the river islands.
River islands are an interesting habitat, simply separated from land by, in some cases, a matter of hundreds of meters, but they have species on them that are never recorded from the mainland, and just hang around on these mostly seasonally flooded islands for their entire lives. There are multiple sorts of islands, each one with different vegetation heights, different vegetation types, and different endemics. The trick is to find a young second growth island, which were flooded while we were there, and on that island we got such specialties as River Tyrannulet, Lesser Wagtail-Tyrant, Lesser Hornero, Parker’s Spinetail, White-bellied Spinetail, Olive-spotted Hummingbird, and Riverside Tyrant, all river island only birds.
The other river islands that should be visited are ones with actual forest on them, rather than the bushes on the young islands, and you want forest that is dominated by trees in the genus Cecropia, a very good type of tree for birds. En route to the Cecropia-dominated island we had nice large flocks of Yellow-hooded Blackbirds and some Large-billed and Yellow-billed Terns. It was slow going, because with the pitiful motor on our boat we were moving at a fraction of a kilometer of an hour.
When we finally arrived at the island, 45 minutes to travel a mile at most, we disembarked after an incredibly ineffectual landing by our driver, where we got stuck on an easily avoidable log for about five minutes. Immediately we started getting more interesting birds, in the form of a couple Fuscous Flycatchers and some Castelnau’s Antshrikes, one of the more glamorous of the antshrikes. We knocked off the targets here as well, even though it was incredibly hot under the pitiless sun. Bicolored Conebill, Leaden Antwren, and Black-and-white Antbird were the new river island birds, and one of my personal favorites that we had was a nice garden variety Yellow Warbler. A soaring Great Black-Hawk threw us for a loop for a while, and some Brown-chested Martins on the way back in the boat were an overdue trip bird.
This was possibly the only day this trip where Andrew got more lifers that I did, being that I visited a river island in Ecuador, and it was a new habitat for him. Chris got oodles as well, with the same being true for him.
Our business done in Iquitos, we had a last lunch and headed off to the airport for another afternoon of waiting, where we imagined we would be sitting around in an air conditioned lounge eating ice cream, as we have in all the other airports this trip.
Of course, we get there, and it turns out that this is a quite old airport, there are about 15 chairs to sit at, and there are over 100 people waiting, easily. We sat on the ground near the ATMs inside and used the wifi for a few hours in the 95 degree weather without any form of respite except some overly sweetened iced tea. The airport was gringo-land for sure, the most white faces I’ve seen in my time down here, likely a sight that won’t be topped until we get to Cuzco.
After an uneventful flight back to Tarapoto, where I once again got an entire 6 seat row to myself, we checked into a different hotel than we had stayed at previously, just across the street. Bad idea, we spent 20 soles less for a place that had no air conditioning, no internet, and was on the fourth floor, as opposed to 20 more for a luxurious almost suite with wifi, powerful A/C, and a minifridge. If you ever go to Tarapoto, I would recommend the Hotel Altamira.
One dinner with excessive amounts of lemonade later, we were off to sleep with the alarm set for five. The story of our birding the next day and from then on deserves its own post.


Take it easy, and Feliz Navidad to all,
Ian

In The Footsteps of Antpittas

After our hummingbird-related adventures in the La Florida area we headed to the Rio Chido Trail in search of Pale-billed Antpitta, one of the coolest members of one of the best families of birds, in my opinion.
We started out as dawn was breaking, walking up a dirt road off of the main road, as many of our days start. The trail map for this area was less than fantastic, and so for most of the hike out we didn’t have any idea where we were going, and it turned out at the end of the day that we had been birding in an entirely different spot than is in the book! After finding the trail we wound our way through farm fields and denuded hillsides before making our way to a lush valley, after taking a side trail that went through someone’s front yard for a while. Oops.
Once in the real forest the birding started to pick up. The best birds at this location need large stands of bamboo of the genus Chusquea, and we were starting to see it patchily distributed in the understory of the forest, a good sign. We came on some small flocks with birds such as Black-capped Hemispingus, Flame-faced Tanager, and assorted flycatchers, but the first highlight of the day came in the form of a pair of responsive Johnson’s Tody-Tyrants, a small gem of a flycatcher that is endemic only to the small area of Northern Peru that we were in. The pair responded to playback so well that they were within the close focus ranges of our optics, and in perfect light too.
After glutting ourselves with full frame photos and great recordings we proceeded on up the valley, eventually coming out into a field where someone lived in a small house, the only marring in the forest, and behind the house, giant flowing stands of bamboo! Life was good.
While walking up the field towards the bamboo we started to hear some bamboo specialty birds, with Plain-tailed Wrens singing all over, and lo and behold, a Pale-billed Antpitta sang a couple times! We went to the largest patch of bamboo and proceeded up an almost vertical dry streambed to get closer to a singing antpitta. All we ever ended up doing was hearing singing antpittas, a few of them, but try our utmost, we could not get a view.
Lunch was had sitting on an area of mossy rocks in the streambed, in intermittent rain and an occasional passing bird. We began to head back down, but partway down the streambed we ran into a small flock. While piecing through the more common stuff, all of a sudden we saw a small rusty bird… a Russet-mantled Softtail!
Russet-mantled Softtail is more than just an evocative name, the bird it belongs to is one of the harder Peruvian endemics to get, and was something that was in the back of our minds for the days birding, not really expected. We followed the flock for a while, climbing up almost vertical mud to get closer at one point, and eventually had FIVE softtails go by us, with at least one juvenile mixed in, a plumage that is not often seen. The flock also had a couple Grass-green Tanagers mixed in, which are impossible not to enjoy.
Overjoyed with our success, we headed back to La Florida in mostly rain, occasionally heavy, and with few other birds to slow us down, the highlights being Plushcap and Slaty-backed Chat-Tyrant.
The next morning we got up before dawn had even thought about cracking and got a car to take us over the nearby pass to the lower eastern slope of the Andes, part of a place called Abra Patricia, more specifically the Garcia Trail. Abra Patricia is an absolutely phenomenal place for birding, with multiple species having been described to science there, including such enigmatic birds as Long-whiskered Owlet, a bird that wasn’t seen for 20 years after its original discovery, when it flew into some nets that people were using for banding! It was never seen out of nets until the past few years, and even since then not that many people are lucky enough to see it. We will have a chance for that later in the trip, albeit a small one.
Our targets for the day were Royal Sunangel and Ochre-fronted Antpitta, with the antpitta being even rarer than the Pale-billed of the day before. Before the morning was out we had seen both of those birds and many more. The best part of the whole morning was standing at a lookout point on a knife ridge, with flowers nearby that a male Royal Sunangel was visiting, and mixed species flocks with many species of tanagers moving through the trees below us. We had Metallic-green, Straw-backed, Yellow-throated, Silver-backed, Beryl-spangled, and Flame-faced Tanagers from that spot alone. Other spectacular birds that rounded out that great morning included Bar-winged Wood-Wren, within 8 feet, Cinnamon-breasted Tody-Tyrant, another very rare and local bird, and Chesnut-crested Cotinga, possible the worst heard-only bird I have.
Come mid-day the rain had set in, so we headed out to the road, figuring we’d catch a bus down to Moyobamba, our goal for the night. If only it were that easy.
Two hours later of waiting under a little roofed construction by the side of the road we started to build dams using sand and the runoff from the road. Things were looking grim.
Another hour later STILL no buses had come, which is practically unheard of on a major road like this. A small van pulled up at one point, which ended up being driven people who worked at the lodge on the Abra where the owlet is seen, and we got foreboding news that nobody has had the owlet for two months. Ah well.
One good tidbit of information that we got out of this exchange is that there was a restaurant a few kilometers down the road, so we gladly walked there and satiated our hunger, while, of course, watching two buses go by in the direction that we wanted. After finishing our meal we tried to get a bus once again. Two went by in the right direction, but wouldn’t stop for us. At this point we were trying to flag down anything with wheels. Five and a half hours after stopping birding some guy in a very shiny new pickup truck stopped for us, and we gratefully piled into the back, and were treated to a spectacular ride down switchbacks through gorgeous forest as the sun set. A truly memorable experience.
We eventually made it to Moyobamba where we wanted to be, after a collectivo and a mototaxi, and settled in at our new digs, Hospedaje Rumipata.
Treating ourselves to a little more sleep we didn’t wake up until after 5am, and when we got out of our nice little five bed cabin we were greeted by our hostess, an incredibly nice woman who ran the place with her husband and possibly some sons. She offered breakfast, and we gladly accepted, going into the main building on the property, which kind of resembled an antique farmhouse with an almost oriental twist. While sitting down at our table right near the kitchen, we saw a most unexpected sight. There was a monkey in the room. As she came over with our tea, the monkey jumped to her shoulder, and then to Andrew! It turns out that his name is Pepito, he is three years old, and after identifying him using the wondrous power of the internet, he is a Black-mantled Tamarin!
He was the best part about a great place to stay, and he kept us company at breakfast and lunch whenever we ate there. The first morning he spent almost all of the time on Andrew, the next breakfast on my lap, and our third meal with him on both Andrew and me. He didn’t seem to like Chris much, giving him a little nip at one point, and taking a very small leak on his leg at one point as well.
Anyways, back to the birds. The place to bird here is called the Quebrada Mishquiyacu, and has some really interesting foothill specialties. Our highlights in the three days that we birded there were numerous, but some of the best included a pair of Rufous-capped Nunlets coming within about 20 feet at times, a male Fiery-throated Fruiteater out in the open with a blazing crimson throat, Buff-tailed Sicklebill singing its head off 15 feet away in the open, a pair of Rufous-crested Coquettes feeding in a tree above our heads, and some more familiar sights, such as numerous Cerulean Warblers, a few Blackpoll Warblers, and countless Swainson’s Thrushes and Canada Warblers.
One of the four days that we spent in this area was used to go to Morro de Calzada, an imposing outcrop of stone in the middle of the dry Rio Mayo Valley, which is supposed to have some very interesting birds around it. We were fairly underwhelmed, but managed to get some of the birds, although we missed our first couple birds for the trip! Highlights here for me included Burnished-buff Tanager, Scale-backed Antbird, and Striolated Puffbird. Andrew got to hear a Spot-tailed Nightjar that both Chris and I missed. Gotta save some for later I guess.
After having our last meal with Pepito we packed up and rolled out, kind of sad to be leaving the great Hospedaje Rumipata, but also relieved to be on our way to somewhere new. Our last stop in this area was en route to Tarapoto, and was simply a bridge that the road went over.
We stopped, looked down, looked around, and all of a sudden we saw them. Oilbirds. One of the stranger birds out there, a nocturnal bird that breeds colonially in caves, or in this case slot canyons, and feeds on fruit which it finds by echolocation. Very cool birds, and they sound prehistoric on top of all that. The others had seen them before, but they were new to me. After that it was smooth sailing to Tarapoto, and then a couple days of birding “The Tunnel.”

But that’s a story for another blog…

Overdue blog – Part 2 (Bosque Unchog and the north)

Back on a bus in the morning, another 10 hours or so to Huanuco, the city that boasts “The best climate in the world” on the city limits signs when you enter the town. They actually could be right, it always seems to be the perfect temperature there. It’s a nice town, I enjoyed our stay there both times that we were there. Huanuco was our base to get to Bosque Unchog, one of the more famous locations in Peru.
Bosque Unchog, meaning Unchog Forest, is an area with elfin forest right near treeline on the eastern slope of the Andes. It has many very rare and local birds that are only known from a few locations in the entire world, and Bosque Unchog is the easiest place to get to where you have a good chance of seeing Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager, Bay-vented Cotinga, Rufous-browed Hemispingus, and Pardusco. The only way to get there on public transport is to take a collectivo to a small town called Cochabamba, about 90 minutes from Huanuco, and then hike 8k at 3000m (10,000’), while gaining 650m (2,100’) in those 8k (5mi). It was sunny as well. About 4k in we met a guy heading up as well on a motorcycle, and he offered to come back and take our bags up. We gratefully said yes, and he said he would return after dropping off the stuff he was already carrying at his home at the end of the road, which was our destination. We hiked about 1.5k more before he returned, and sadly he was only able to take two backpacks. Chris held on to his and Andrew and I got ours strapped on the back of his motorcycle, fairly sketchily, and he vanished around the corner with our worldly belongings. I took Chris’s camera bag, and now that all of us were carrying less we felt like new people, and the last few k were a piece of cake in comparison. When we arrived at the end of the road our motorcycle-owning friend was there with our bags, and after paying him ten soles we crested the pass and simply reveled in the beauty. Right at the end of the road there is a small valley with marshy grassland at the base, elfin forest coating both slopes, and the glorious Unchog Mountain standing tall on one side. We made camp above the marshy area and just below the forest, and that would be our home for the next couple nights. Goods had been purchased back in Huanuco, namely spaghetti, rice, onions, tuna, Tang, and tomato sauce. That first night we got some birding done before dark, and I got terrible distant backlit looks at a Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager. Little did I know that that would be the only one that I would see during our time there. For dinner we made spaghetti, which we overcooked, but simple pasta with tomato sauce from a packet has rarely tasted so good. We had a small amount left over which would end up being brunch the next morning. After a mediocre nights sleep we saddled up and headed out. There are three main forest patches at Bosque Unchog, #1 is right by the camping area, and is most known for Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager, while #2 is 1.5 valleys away, and has Rufous-browed Hemispingus, and #3 is even more distant, but is best for Bay-vented Cotinga, as well as lots of good flocks. Two and three turned out to be the best areas by far. On the first day Andrew split off from me and Chris early on, and while we birded the first forest patch thoroughly he headed on down to 2 and 3. We spent most of the morning seeing almost nothing, and we somehow picked up a ~12 year old kid who told us that he knew where the mountain-tanager hangs out. Having seen nothing but a few Parduscos, the easiest specialty to get, we decided to head down towards where we suspected Andrew of having headed, and also that was where the kid said the tanagers were. We picked up a few more birds on the walk down, the best being a heard-only Bay-vented Cotinga. We got to a small area of forest where the kid said he sees the Ave de Oro, or “Bird of Gold” regularly. Despite his assurances we spent a long time watching this area and never ended up seeing the tanager. While birding this patch Andrew came back up the path from the other direction, and of course had seen every single target bird except the tanager. Bay-vented Cotinga he had heard only, lots of Parduscos, Golden-collared and Yellow-scarfed Tanagers, both gorgeous and rare tanagers, and Rufous-browed Hemispingus, the supposed rarest of all of the specialties, a bird that most groups that visit here miss. Saddened, Chris and I could not come up with anything at all that Andrew had not had. We blame it on the fact that he had a pygmy-owl tape to call birds in and we didn’t. We spent the rest of the day looking for the mountain-tanager, nobody had seen hide nor hair of it except my brief crappy look, and we got nothing more except some noise that Andrew and I heard that was most likely it. He got a recording and has yet to compare the sonograms on the computer, so I’m not 100% sure yet.
The second night we attempted to make rice. I mean seriously, how hard can it be? After a meal of slightly undercooked rice that tasted like burning, and a packet of four Oreos each, we called it a night for another mediocre night of sleep, at least for me.
Up just before dawn, we headed out as a pack today, Chris and I hoping to recoup our losses. We went to a spot where you can stand on a rock and look out over the canopy of some forest, a great spot, and had THREE Bay-vented Cotingas feeding, calling, and generally being awesome within as close as 30 feet. Spectacular. While there a mixed flock moved through that contained at least three Golden-collared Tanagers. Two down. Back at the spot where the kid said there were mountain-tanagers, there were no tanagers. However, while Andrew was recording a Tschudi’s Tapaculo, he spotted another (!!) Rufous-browed Hemispingus just sitting in the undergrowth! Most groups don’t even see one, and between us we had seen two by now. It wandered around in the semi-open for a while before disappearing as suddenly as it had been spotted. Now all we needed was Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager and Yellow-scarfed Tanager and everyone would be on the same page. We proceeded on down to patch three, and had a couple small flocks with some nice things like Chestnut-bellied Mountain-Tanager in them, but nothing stupendous. We heard some faint calls coming from the underbrush in front of us, and upon close approach, I saw another hemispingus, this one moving around a bit and calling. Chris and I were able to get nice photos of this one, amazingly the third one of our time there. A little ways further down we ran into a couple flocks that held Yellow-scarfed Tanager, so every goal had been met except the holy grail, Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager. We decided to wander back to the rock outcropping near good forest in the hope that some mountain-tanagers would just wander by, and on the way back stopped at a Swallow-tailed Nightjar nest that we had found earlier in the day by flushed the parent off of it. It had one chick, and when we went to photograph the adult on the nest, instead of the female from earlier there was a nice male! A lifer for both Chris and Andrew, it was quite a way to get such a spectacular nightjar. We all spread out near the rocky area in various states of tiredness, and Andrew definitely picked the best spot. After about 30 minutes of waiting a flock came through, and all of a sudden, from about 30m away, Andrew yells “GOLDEN-BELLIED MOUNTAIN-TANAGER!” No such bird exists, but we both knew what he meant. We made our way there as fast as we could, but it was in vain. The bird had made a cameo appearance, and was never seen again. Some Golden-collared Tanagers within 15 feet were nice, but could not console us. The flock was gone in a matter of minutes, and hope left with it. It was about 12:40pm then, and we decided that we wanted to spend that night back in civilization. After a little bit of searching for the flock we headed back to camp in order to pack up and hike back down to Cochabamba. Of course, the only time that it rained during our time at Bosque Unchog was when we had to pack up. Everything to do with a tent got wet, but we just wanted to get back down at that point. After an 8k hike downhill in rubber boots with a full pack, I was feeling a bit the worse for wear. The only nice part about the hike down was a small group of Brown-flanked Tanagers, and back in the land of internet, as far as my Blackberry was concerned. It’s a scary world when you have internet in places such as that.
A few hours later when we got back to Cochabamba, the problem was then to find a car. Little did we know that what was about to follow would be the most memorable taxi hailing ever. We went to the little store in town to ask when cars left for Huanuco, and they just pointed down the road and said that way. We went around the corner and asked again, and the ladies that we asked pointed across the fields downhill. At first we didn’t get it, but then we saw the last car of the day, about ½ mile away, across the valley that we were in. Our hearts sunk with the realization that we would be spending a night camping on the soccer pitch in town, when all of a sudden one of the ladies started whistling. You have never heard a whistle like this, it could shatter glass from a hundred yards, I swear. After a couple whistles, the car unbelievable slowed and then stopped. While driving, half a mile away, across a small valley, the taxi driver had heard this lady whistle through his open window. Absolutely amazing. We started almost jogging in order to get to the car ASAP, after thanking the “whistle-lady” for her help. In retrospect I wish we had given her money, a skill like that should get recognition. When we made it to the car it turned out to be empty, and we gladly got in and collapsed into the seats, and a couple hours later were in a hotel room. Once in the hotel room we strung up lines to hang our wet tent stuff from, which made the room decidedly humid upon our return from eating copious amounts of food, and drinking liters of juice. Life was good.
The following morning we started what ended up being a bus-saga, the first leg of which was to Lima, at least originally. We had been in the bus for about 9 hours and all of a sudden we just came to a halt. Traffic was not moving at all. We were in an outskirt of Lima, called Chosica, and apparently someone had hit a 5 year old kid, and the road was cordoned off or something. In any case, we would have had to wait 3 or more hours until we would have been able to continue. It was 9pm or so, and we got off the bus, got on a little minibus back to Chosica, and spent the night there. The following morning we took a taxi into Lima to get a bus to Trujillo, another 10 hour bus ride, and this one through one of the driest deserts in the world. It was 3 hours of being stuck in cities and 7 hours of feeling like you were in Saharan Africa, except for the occasional paralleling of the Pacific Ocean. However, all ten hours were comfortable, because of the fact that we had gotten a little bit crazy and spent about $3/hour for a VIP bus instead of $1.50/ hour for the economic version. We also got the front seats on the second floor of a double decker bus, so it was a great ride with floor to ceiling windows, frequent refreshment, and copious amounts of bad movies. The first bad movie was Inkheart, which was pretty terrible, but it looked like a marvel of cinematography next to the two that followed it. After Inkheart was something that we think was called Firehouse Dog, which had a terrible plot that was complimented by bad acting, and the terrible trio was rounded off by some movie that doesn’t even deserve to be called a chick flick, if I recall correctly it was called Aquamarine. We don’t speak of that movie. The first two were watched because there was nothing else to look at but sand, but the final televisional travesty was worse than looking at sand. We arrived in Trujillo after dark, per usual, and took a taxi to a pretty crappy hotel which was overpriced, lessening our already low opinion of the city of Trujillo. We went out for dinner at a Chinese place, something Andrew would do every meal if he had his way, and it was fairly good, except for what we think were guinea pig bones in Chris’s noodles and vegetables. No meat, just bones. That is bad enough as it is, but it is worse considering that Chris eats no meat except fish. He also had his shin viciously attacked by the corner of my bed, so it was not his best night ever.
Our plan the following morning was to go to a spot called Sinsicap, but there is only one bus daily going there, and for some reason it wasn’t leaving that day. So it was 6am, we couldn’t go to where we wanted to go, and overall the day wasn’t so good. We decided the only way to make use of the day was to get on another bus. So we did. This time for 16.5 hours. We ended up traveling over 700 miles in two days, and that is not including Huanuco to Lima, which surely puts the total over 1,000 miles in three days. The 16.5h drive took us through some nice habitat, and I managed a few lifers, namely Savannah Hawk and Pearl Kite, two raptors that I very much wanted to see. Our destination was La Florida, a small town that has a small bird nearby, but undoubtedly one of the coolest birds in the world, at least in my opinion. The bird I am speaking of is the Marvelous Spatuletail. The Marvelous Spatuletail is a hummingbird, and arguably the most amazing of the family, which is saying something. It has a small body, only a few inches, smaller than your garden variety hummers in the US, more like a woodstar body size, but its tail is what sets it apart. It has evolved to have only four tail feathers, as opposed to the usual 10-14 of most birds. The central pair of feathers are like long pins, more than twice as long as the body, and extending straight out from the back. The outer two are a whole different story. They are at least 5 times as long as the body, and curve out like a bow in a semi-circle from the tail base. At the tips they have large round “spatulas” feather tips about half the size of the body of the bird itself. This outer pair of feathers moves independently from the rest of the bird, so when it is perched at rest, they kind of wander aimlessly. Such a wonder to watch. We went to the spot for them this morning, after arriving in La Florida last night, and had at least nine individuals, with at least three and probably four adult males in one spot. They were, dare I say, marvelous? We are going to go back this afternoon to watch them again for a while, because this valley is the only place in the world where they occur, and who knows when we will be back here next?
Other good birds at the spatuletail spot included Purple-throated Sunangel, Buff-bellied Tanager, Purple-collared Woodstar, and Rufous-capped Antshrike.
I write this now sitting on the bed in our hostal, with Andrew asleep on the next bed, and Chris out getting money. I will have been here for a month tomorrow, and depending on how well we do birding tomorrow, I may break 500 species in this first month. Tomorrow we are heading to the Rio Chido trail, a place where the target is Pale-billed Antpitta, one of the coolest antpittas in the world, and a spot that also has good birds such as Straw-backed Tanager and Chestnut-crested Cotinga. From here we head farther east to Abra Patricia, then down to the Tarapoto area, and retrace our steps back through Abra Patricia and the Maranon Valley to Lima on January 20th, where we will take a pelagic before doing the final month in the southern part of the country, the Manu Road, Machu Picchu, and the Cuzco area.
Hope everyone is well and that you have a great holiday season.



Take it easy,
Ian

Overdue blog – Part 1 (Amazonian lowlands)

I really should have written this quite a while ago, but somehow life always ended up intervening. Many things have happened in the past two weeks, some good, some rather bothersome, but overall they have been two joyful weeks to be a part of.
After I last posted, we spent a great night in Lima, eating a delivered pizza from Pizza Hut, a slice of heaven, or eight slices you could say. Chris Nunes, the third member of our intrepid group, arrived at about 1am in the dorm room that we were staying in, and after groggy greetings we all went back to the land of sleep. That following morning we got on another bus, this time headed to Tingo Maria, a 12 hour ride. Our goal was to get to Pucallpa, an Amazonian city in east-central Peru, and from there go to progressively smaller towns until we were in the wilderness. After spending a night in Tingo, being unable to take an overnight bus to Pucallpa as the road is unsafe, we headed east into the true lowlands, out of sight of the Andes for the first time since I have been in the country.
Pucallpa was a fairly nice city, with fleets of mototaxis outnumbering real cars. Mototaxis, for those of you who don’t know, are small three wheeled contraptions that are basically the front half of a motorcycle with a bench seat in the back over two wheels that complement the front wheel of the motorcycle, and a roof. They travel slowly, and you get dirt blown in your eyes, but it is an enjoyable ride nonetheless. Their most redeeming quality is the price, a 10-15 minute ride tends to cost about a buck.
After asking our mototaxi driver for a hotel with internet, we arrived at La Suite de Petita’s Inn, a nice little place with included breakfast, and wifi that worked intermittently in the rooms. The next day we checked out travel options to our next destination, a small down called Contamana, and ended up flying out in a small six seater airplane for $50 each, after indulging in ice cream, wifi, and air conditioning in the surprisingly modern airport. Chris and Andrew did rock-paper-scissors to determine who got to ride up front with the pilot, somehow I failed to be in the game, but ah well, and Chris won. Lucky devil. It was an awesome experience flying in this little plane, and I no longer consider commercial airline flights real flying. It was about a 30m ride across rivers and pristine forest, as opposed to the other way of getting to Contamana, a 6h+ boat ride, and that would be a fast boat!
Once in Contamana we bought supplies for our upcoming trek, the aforementioned barbet hike, and managed to hire a boat to go down the river just as the light was fading, to Pampa Hermosa, the place where one makes arrangements for guides and boats to get to the Cordillera Azul where the Scarlet-banded Barbet makes its home. Going down the river as the sun was setting was spectacular, and birds abounded. Some of the more interesting ones included a large flock of Canary-winged Parakeets, over 75 each of Large-billed and Yellow-billed Terns, Green Oropendolas, and a few Chestnut-fronted Macaws. After 90 minutes in a “peque peque” pronounced peki-peki, which is just a dugout canoe with a small motor on the back, we arrived at the boat landing for Pampa Hermosa, where there were surprisingly two mototaxis, one of which took us through the gathering dusk for about 30 minutes on a rutted logging road to the town. It being a small town, the taxi driver knew the people that we wanted to talk to about guiding, and he took us right to their house. A knock on the door brought out a shirtless man who we had interrupted from watching his soap opera, but after asking about the barbet, we were invited inside their house. What happened after that was kind of a pow-wow, we all stood around and talked prices and logistics and how many people we would need to help clear the trails, and whether we needed porters, etc etc, and after coming to decisions about all that, an unexpected question was broached. “So you have permission from the park people, right?” Apparently, unbeknownst to us, you have to get permission from the organization that regulates entry to the Parque Nacional Cordillera Azul. We said no, and not thinking it a big deal, set up our tents on their floor, and went to sleep.
When we awoke the next morning, our future guides, Carlos and Arnoldo Ruiz, said that we needed to get permission to be able to go, that there is a checkpoint on the river and nobody is allowed in without the right papers. The organization, CIMA, had a representative in town, so after talking to him, we found out that we needed to go back to Contamana to ask. Chris decided to stay and go birding, and Andrew and I went back, in a more primitive peque peque that took three hours, being upstream and with a weaker motor. More good birds on the way back, Pied Lapwing, Muscovy Duck, Red-and-white Spinetail, and Pied Water-Tyrant to name a few.
After getting back in Contamana we went to the CIMA office, where we were told that we would have to officially submit a written proposal, and it needed to be notarized and faxed to the main office. After going to a notary across the street, we managed to get this proposal for entry written, in Spanish, and get it faxed off to the boss in another town. We were told that by 5pm that day we would hear what we needed to do to be able to go. Already getting pretty pissed and fed up with bureaucracy, we got a hotel room in town, knowing that we couldn’t get back to Pampa Hermosa that day. Of course, Chris was still there, and given the fact that he doesn’t speak that much Spanish, I’m sure it was quite an experience. We managed to call and speak with Chris and tell him what was up, and that we would call back again after we knew what was going on with the permits.
Come five o’clock we went back to the office, and were told what we had to do. It was ridiculous. We had to go to LIMA, and give them 22 days notice before we would be in the park, and we had to have something from Colorado College explaining what we would be doing there, because we had decided to put down that we were all from Colorado College to simplify things. Our chances at seeing the barbet before the rainy season began were out the window. We called Chris and gave him the sorry news, and made arrangements for him to come back the next day.
While in Contamana we had heard from the locals about a macaw clay lick, a place where macaws come to line their stomachs with clay to absorb the toxins in the seeds that they eat, and so Andrew and I decided to investigate the following morning while Chris was coming back by boat.
We ended up taking a mototaxi for a few kilometers, walking for a few, and then repeating that, and ended up only getting about 2/3 of the way to the forest that the lick is actually in, but by lucky change we got a ride back to town by the very people that take tourists to the clay lick. So for the following day we arranged to be picked up at 0430 to go see this spectacle. Chris nor Andrew had ever been to a lick before, and I had only seen parrots and parakeets in Ecuador, no real macaws. Chris arrived back safely that afternoon, and after food and sleep, we were up at 0430, and back in a mototaxi. About an hour later we got to the end of the road, and started hiking. At the beginning it was a nice trail, but as we kept going the trail got more primitive, and then became a streambed, which was slightly treacherous. Nobody got hurt, but Andrew fell and got the battery for his recorder wet, which was almost disastrous. After 90 minutes of walking we made it to the small hide across the stream from this clay bank, and started to wait. It was about 7am, and the guide said that they get there at about 8. It was pretty slow just sitting there, so we played some chess on my iPod, one of the best apps I have, and waited some more. The macaws slowly started to trickle into the trees above the lick, and at first we were excited to see about 12 of them, then 30, then 50, and then it was just deafening. Almost exactly at eight the noise maxed out and all of the birds descended on the clay bank. It was a chaotic swirl of red green and blue, as over 100 Red-and-Green Macaws swarmed over the clay, fighting over the best areas, and generally squabbling. We watched in awe for over an hour, taking hundreds of photos, and this was something that you didn’t need a telephoto lens for. Chris has the new Nikon mid-level SLR, and one of its nice features is HD video, and he got some great footage of the birds feeding on the clay.
After feasting our eyes on this colorful phenomenon, we slowly worked our way back towards the road, through an incredibly unbirdy forest, the most dead for birds forest that any of us has ever been in in the Amazon, and Andrew has spent over 4 months in the Amazon. A few nice birds showed themselves, Short-billed Honeycreeper, Slender-footed Tyrannulet, Bluish-fronted Jacamar, and flyover Jabirus and King Vulture, but mainly it was just eerily quiet.
After a long ride back to town we made arrangements to fly back to Pucallpa the following morning, having spent enough time in Contamana already. The following morning when we got to the airline company that we had made “reservations” at on the previous night, we were notified that there was no plane that day. We went to the other company in town, and their morning plane was, of course, full. So we waited until the afternoon, and at about 1:30pm we finally got back in the air to Pucallpa. Andrew beat me in rock-paper-scissors. Maybe someday I will get to ride in the front.
Back in Pucallpa we went to the same hotel, and had some great internet and some not so great Chinese food. Our last place to visit in this part of Peru is a lagoon just 10k from Pucallpa called Yarinacocha, a nice place with some very cool birds. We got up at dawn again, and back in a mototaxi, headed to Yarinacocha. Upon arrival the local boat owners started clamoring for our business, and picking a boat that looked nice, we headed out across the oxbow lake to the good forest on the other side. The main target bird here is called Black-tailed Antbird, a rare and local antbird, and Yarinacocha is one of the best places to get it. We ended up with over a dozen, so much for rare and local. We also found a Red-and-white Spinetail nest with two parents in attendance, over 10 Purus Jacamars, Slender-billed Xenops, Hooded Tanagers, Pied Water-Tyrants, Cinereous Becard, and many more birds as part of a few nice flocks.
We returned to Pucallpa, bought bus tickets to Huanuco, our destination the next day, and had another nice afternoon of internet and rest.

To be continued in Part 2 (Bosque Unchog and the north)

Marcapomacocha and Lima

After leaving Huancayo we headed via bus to a fairly small town called San Mateo, at about 3500m (11,500'), right along the main highway from Lima to the highlands. It was to be our base to bird a place called the Milloc bog, a spot that has some very range resticted and habitat specific birds. Upon arriving in the little town we tried to find a taxi diver to hire for the day to take us to the bog, which is also known as Marcapomacocha for a nearby town. We promptly found someone and gave him a downpayment of 20 soles to assure our commitment. After a night in the comfiest beds so far this trip, at 0515 or so we headed onward and upward.
Our main two target birds were Diademed Sandpiper-Plover, a very unique bird with a tantalizing name, and White-bellied Cinclodes, an incredibly range restricted bird, with only 28 individuals known, but the population is extrapolated to 200 or so from likely habitat that has not been seen by birders. One of the things that these birds share is habitat, they need a certain type of bog that only occurs over 15,000' in the Andes. In order to get to the place to see them we crossed a pass that was over 16,000', the highest I have ever been. The scenery on the rutted dirt road to get to these remote valleys was absolutely spectacular, with fog laying like a blanket in the valleys, snow-capped peaks rising over red, green, and gray colored rolling hills and cliffs, as far as the eye can see.
We got to the bog just as the fog was burning off, great timing, and started walking around at about 15,500', something easier said than done. After about 5 minutes of walking around in this strange terrain, we heard something interesting sing, and the second that Andrew yelled "WHITE-BELLIED CINCLODES!" I had just gotten my binoculars on the singing bird. There was a pair of them, and we followed them around for the better part of an hour, getting photographs of the birds doing a song-display, where they wave their wings while singing from atop a rock, and getting recordings of them singing, possibly the best recordings ever gotten of this species. Some other nice birds in that bog included White-winged Diuca-Finch, Gray-breasted Seedsnipe, and three species of ground-tyrant. But that was only the small bog!
We went further on down the road to the top of this talus slope (talus is kind of like shale, but more sketchy to walk on), and down at the bottom, a few hundred feet, there was an expansive bog, taking up an entire valley between a large mountain and some hills, over a mile long.
We made our way down the slope, and told our taxi driver, surely convinced as all others are that we are certifiable, to wait for us at the other end of the bog, where a different road conveniently transects the valley, so that you never have to walk uphill if you have a driver. Right at the bottom of the slope, only a few hundred feet in, all of a sudden there it was. Diademed Sandpiper-Plover. One of the birds I have wanted most in the world for a very long time, almost since I started birding. We ended up having three individuals, two adults and a juvenile, and we continued the tradition of recording and photographing these as well. We spent a few hours at this bog, and the other most interesting thing that happened didn't involve something rare, but something simply aweing.
We were down at the marshier end of the bog, where water was about ankle-calf deep, and since Andrew only had hiking boots he was hopping from hummock to hummock, while I tromped through mindlessly. I had stopped to photograph a Puna Snipe that had been flushed, and while I was looking through the viewfinder, all of a sudden I saw a blur and the snipe was gone. Then the screaming started. Three Aplomado Falcons had appeared out of nowhere, and one had attacked my snipe, and the snipe narrowly escaped with its life. All three falcons were wheeling around within 30 feet of us, screaming their heads off, periodically diving on Andean Lapwings or Andean Gulls, which were also flying around in a panic, and it was just complete chaos. The falcons seemed completely unaware of us, and they were too close to get the whole bird in the frame of a picture most times. One ended up landing on a small hummock about 40 feet away and hung out there for about 5 minutes while we watched it, and then they disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived. Very cool. We thought we had seen the end of it, but about 15 minutes later we heard the calls again, and this time all three of them were way up in the sky, at least 1/2 mile, and all had their talons locked into some bird, and were spiraling down, screaming at eachother, fighting for the bird. One of them broke off a few hundred meters from the ground, but the last two didn't split until they were within a hundred feet of the ground. The victor flew off and landed with his prize, and proceeded to eat it while the other two went hungry.
From there we headed to a nearby lake, saw some of the same stuff, Giant Coots, over 150 Andean Geese, Chilean Flamingos, etc, and then headed back to San Mateo. On the way back, right at the top of the 16,010' pass, we had to stop and pull entirely off of the road for a giant tractor trailer, which happened to be trailing a tractor. Go figure. I tried to use my Blackberry while I was up there, and something happened to it and the screen dimmed and then went blank, and nothing I could do could turn it back on. I thought that I was a goner, until I managed to get it to work again down here in Lima yesterday, not sure what went wrong, nor how I fixed it, but I'll take it. Once the truck and its cargo had passed, we proceeded on our way, stopping at one place for Junin Canastero, a small brown bird that just happens to occur in Peru and only in Peru in the whole world. While searching for this bird, which we found, another car pulled up, and a birder got out, and he happened to be from Colorado! He and Andrew had a great time talking about birding his part of Colorado, a place which apparently has no birders, and marveled at the chance meeting. Unfortunately he was heading in the other direction, so we wished him luck and continued on our way.
When we got back to San Mateo we decided that we didn't want to spend another night, and despite it being after checkout time, the owner let us go, and we got a bus to Lima. They made us take our backpacks on the bus, and I got stuck in the doorway with mine and had to be helped by the salesman on the bus, haha. A few hours later we were securely back in the Lion Backpackers Bed and Breakfast, a decent enough place that has redeeming qualities such as breakfast and wifi. We went out in the local area to eat, and had great trashy American food, I got some pizza from Pizza Hut and Andrew got some monstrous burger from Burger King. It was glorious.
When I woke up this morning, I was sick again. Great. More food poisioning. And I never get sick at home! Hopefully this isn't a trend that will continue. I've been taking some medicine, and am feeling better now, here is hoping that I'll wake up tomorrow all better.
Today, after being lazy all morning and hanging out on the couches on the internet, we took a break from our laziness and headed to a spot in the city limits of Lima, Pantanos de Villa. It's a marshland with a beach next to it, and we had some nice birds. The best bird that you can get there is Peruvian Thick-Knee, a spectacular shorebird that stands about knee-high. We had two pairs of them, and got very close to one pair. We also had Great Grebes, old hat for Andrew but a coveted bird for me. The gull show was also great, with over a thousand Franklin's Gulls and hundreds of Belcher's and Kelp Gulls, and a smattering of Gray-hooded Gulls, a really gorgeous gull.
Now we are back at the hostal, being lazy on couches with internet like we do when we can. Tonight Chris, the third member of our party, comes into town, and he should arrive here by taxi sometime after midnight. Tomorrow we head over the Andes again to spend the night in Tingo Maria, and then travel to road to Pucallpa the day after, a road that is unsafe at night. Pucallpa is a truly Amazonian town, the first time I will have really been in the Amazon so far this trip. Our goal there is to find the right people to set up a trip to the Cordillera Azul, a very remote place. The target bird there is called Scarlet-banded Barbet, and is one of the more remote birds in South America, if not the world. Only three groups of people have EVER seen this bird, and it is one of the focal points of the trip, hopefully. Its world range is 25 sq kilometers, and only on the peak of one mountain, in one mountain range. It is such a special and gorgeous bird that it, out of all the fantastical birds of Peru, graces the cover of the field guide. If we are able to see it, an expedition that involves 1-2 weeks of hiking and camping, we would be only the fourth group in history. The trouble is finding the right people to contact to get the boat to the trailhead, and then getting the local guides and such. That is our main goal in Pucallpa, and hopefully one that we will succeed in. I should be able to post from Pucallpa before we head to the mountains, but we shall see.



Take it easy,
Ian