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Cordillera Blanca II

admin — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:55:55 +0000

Continuing our trip, we began the ascent toward Llanganuco lakes. The landscape changes dramatically as we move into a U-shaped valley. Ten thousand years ago this area was covered by glaciers that left a large footprint on the granite walls of the valley.

The Llanganuco lakes are part of the Huascaran National Park and are located at the foot of some of the highest mountains of Peru – Nevados Huascaran, Huandoy and Chopicalqui. This site is also known to have one of the most accessible Polylepis forests throughout the Andes.

Nevado Huascaran

Llanganuco lake

After a two hour drive from the town of Yungay we reach the lakes. The thin air reminds us that we are at 3800 meters above sea level, but we soon forget the altitude when we spot our first Rusty-crowned Tit-Spinetail exploring the branches of a Queñual tree. A few meters ahead a Rufous-eared Brush-finch watches us as a pair of Plain-tailed Warbling-finches passes over us. We see our first three endemics in less than 15 minutes.

Rusty-crowned Tit-spinetail

We decided to explore part of the María Josefa trail that goes into the Polylepis forest. A male Tit-like Dacnis let us see his beautiful blue plumage very close to a Black-throated Flowerpiercer that feeds stealing nectar from a flower.

Black-throated Flowerpiercer

Join us this Friday for the third and final part of our tour.

Peruvian Sierra-Finch

admin — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:14:24 +0000

Peruvian Sierra-Finch | © Jean Paul Perret

Long-whiskered Owlet and first birding workshop in La Esperanza

Jean Paul Perret — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 15:18:54 +0000

As I mentioned in a previous post, Neotropical Birding Tours is supporting the development of ecotourism in the community of La Esperanza in northern Peru. This community was in the headlines a few months ago following the discovery of a spot where you can see the legendary Long-whiskered Owlet, a species described in the 1970′s and until very recently had only been observed by a handful of people. Forests in this community are located in a strategic area, close to the Abra Patricia Lodge and the Huembo area, where many birders flock every year to see the Marvelous Spatuletail.

Landscape at La Esperanza | © Noga Shanee/NPC

Our company has begun offering tours to the forests of La Esperanza (visit our website for details). Part of the proceeds of these tours will be donated to the Neotropical Primate Conservation NGO to support a range of programs including the formation of a conservation area in the community forests, an environmental education program, reforestation, etc.

The endemic and endangered Andean Night-monkey is also present at La Esperanza | © Noga Shanee/NPC

Despite being in the middle of one of the most interesting routes for the observation of birds of Peru, the current conditions for visitors of the forests of La Esperanza are fairly basic. There is still no accommodation for the birders who visit the area, although there is a hut where you can camp. The trail to reach the area where you can see owls is long and hard. And local community members do not yet have the skills to guide foreign tourists through its forests. But the prospect for the future of this community is quite promising and we believe that conditions to visit and stay at the forest will change soon.

We are excited to support this community as they conserve their forests and dedicate them to ecotourism. The first step of this project will be training a group of community residents as birding guides. The workshop will be held from August 23^rd to the 25^th and José (Pepe) Orhiuela, Neotropical Birding Tours’ guide, will be a keynote speaker. Pepe is an expert on birds of northern Peru and has taught similar workshops in the neighboring communities of San Martin Region. The first part of a day’s workshop will include lectures and the second part will involve a two-day visit to the forests of the community to implement the knowledge acquired. We are very excited about this project and we are putting our best effort and experience to train the future birding guides of La Esperanza.

Jose (Pepe) Orihuela

Do you want to be involved?

Do you have an old pair of binoculars? Local birding guides will need binoculars and bird books. After your visit to Peru, please consider donating your old binoculars and bird guides to this project, the people of La Esperanza will be very grateful.
If you are an adventurous birder, consider a visit to La Esperanza. The community needs the international support and practice to continue to fund the conservation of its forests. Check our program to visit this area.
If you want to make a donation to the project please contact directly to our friends in Neotropical Primate Conservation.

Cape Petrel at Pucusana Bay

Jean Paul Perret — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:34:35 +0000

Yesterday, while I was leading a Field Guides/Manu Expeditions group around Pucusana fishing port in Lima, we found a Cape Petrel feeding in a frenzy that included Gray, Belcher’s and Kelp Gulls and fishermen.

According to the local fishermen in recent days a mass of very cold water entered the Pucusana Bay, bringing species not usually seen so close to the shore.

Cape Petrel | © Jean Paul Perret

The Cape Petrel is common and widespread in the southern hemisphere where is associated to areas of cold water upwelling. It is known to follow vessels over long distances feeding on fish waste, so it’s not really a surprise to see it anywhere, but still it was a nice and unexpected surprise for us.

Other Petrels, in the broad sense of the word, that we usually found very close to the shore in Pucusana includes Sooty Shearwater, White-chinned Petrel, some Storm-petrels and Peruvian Diving-petrel.

Recent splits from the Neotropical Region

Jean Paul Perret — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:45:20 +0000

As was anticipated 5 months ago in another post, the South America Classification Committee (SACC) unanimously approved the proposal 412 splitting the Blue-crowned Motmot (Momotus momota) into five species.

New species:

· Blue-diademed Motmot (Momotus lessonni)

· Highland (Andean) Motmot (Momotus aequatorialis)

· Whooping Motmot (Momotus subrufescens)

· Trinidad Motmot (Momotus bahamensis)

· Amazonia Motmot (Momotus momota)

Another important decision of the SACC has been the recognition of 3 species in Cinclodes fuscus. For this decision, the SACC was based on a mtDNA-based phylogeographic analysis from Sanín et al.

New species:

· Chestnut-winged Cinclodes* (Cinclodes albidiventris)

Chestnut-winged Cinclodes | © John Jackson

· Cream-winged Cinclodes* (Cinclodes albiventris)

Cream-winged Cinclodes | © Carol Foil

*English names proposed by Alvaro Jaramillo

Finally, the recently approved proposal 416, splits the New World Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata) from the Old World Common Moorhen (G. chloropus) based on vocalizations and genetic studies.

New species:

· Common Gallinule* (Gallinula galeata)

*English names proposed by Alvaro Jaramillo

More splits very soon…

First Long-whiskered Owlet video

Jean Paul Perret — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:47:57 +0000

The Long-whiskered Owlet (Xenoglaux loweryi), one of the most elusive birds in the world, was watched and photographed on January 24^th in the town of La Esperanza in Peru. The Owlet was observed by Shachar Alterman, an Israeli birdwatcher who joined a Neotropical Primate Conservation project to carry out birds’ surveys in the region, Noga Shanee, co-founder of the organization, and Edin Fonseca, a local guide who find the bird.

Long-whiskered Owlet was discovered in 1976, when it was caught in the mist nest of a Louisiana State University team. Since it was first sighted, the owlet was found only a very few times. It is endemic to a small area in the Andean mountains in Amazonas and San Martín in northern Peru. It is restricted to cloud forests with dense undergrowth and epiphytes at about 1890-2200 meters (6200-7220 ft) above sea level and is categorized as endangered species by IUCN Red List.

On the same night the owlet was found, the N.P.C group heard no less than five birds which responded to the recorded calls played by the team. No previous record of such dense population exists so far. Two other species of rare and endemic birds; Rusty-Tinged Antpitta and the Johnson’s Tody-Tyrant were identified in Peroles at the same trip.

This is only the fourth time this rare bird is ever seen in the wild – and the first time it is captured on video.

Playing with the new camera

Jean Paul Perret — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:49:59 +0000

Sorry for not posting for such a long time, I’ll do my best to keep posting more frequently. I wanted to share with you all some photos that I took today at Pantanos de Villa, a protected area for birds to the south of Lima, Peru. I recently bought a Canon 50D camera and a 400mm f/5.6 lens to take with me on my birding trips. Last week I went to Pantanos de Villa to try out the camera for the first time with some disappointing results. I had some problems with the autofocus as well as the exposition of the photos. However, after taking photos of unsuspecting pigeons outside my window, I think I have figured out some of the issues. While I still have a great deal to learn and improve in my photography I wanted to show you all some of the shots that I took today.

WELCOME!

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:11:42 +0000

Dear Friends,

Welcome to our new home!

We have changed to a self-hosted domain in order to take advantage of more options for our blog. As you can see, we are still working to have this new location set up, so please bear with us until our migration is completed.

Please don’t forget to update your bookmarks, feed readers and email subscriptions to continue receiving our latest posts, or keep coming back to see the latest news about neotropical birds.

Also, in the following weeks we are going to set up our web site (not the blog) in this same domain www.neotropicbirding.com with useful information for birding in the neotropics.

If you have any suggestions or subjects that you would like to see here, please send us an email at neotropicalbirding [at] gmail DOT com.

Best,

Jean Paul Perret
Neotropical Birding