Friday, 6 April 2018

Day 5, Biking Birder IV - Peru 2018. Miraflores, Day 6 LOST!



I do so hope that you will enjoy following my adventures. You can do so via this blog and also by my Biking Birder Facebook page and Twitter feed. Also if you want to see all of the photographs I have taken then please go to the Facebook pages linked below.


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I am trying to raise money for two charities and obviously I would love you to donate to them.

Please!

Birdlife International



Chaskwasi-Manu Children's Project



April 5th

Hot, 28 Celsius, sunny with very little wind. Westerly.

Lima


Breakfast, watching seedeaters, very small plain brown birds, in the garden. I just don't like them as I find them difficult to sort out.





Blue-black Grassquits?

Bicycle packing and checking in the morning is followed by meeting a lovely Peruvian lady in Kennedy Park for a catch up chat. Having passed once more the superb pyramid, Huanca Pulluana, I get to the park. 


Paola I met back in 2014 when we stayed at the same hostel in Miraflores and we have been in touch via Facebook ever since. She is an incredibly brave lady who suffers from a variety of conditions, such as Fybromyalgia.
Despite the fact we hadn't seen each other for over three years we immediately recognise each other at the Blue Bull rendezvous spot. We sit in the shade to help Paola and talk for over an hour before retiring to a cafe for juice. Her courage through such horrific suffering is incredible and as with all one meets who are suffering, one can't help thinking how can I help?
The best news though during all of Paola's talk of illness and job problems occurs when she shyly says that she has a boyfriend! Fantastic. I hope that Roberto will be the sort of loving partner she deserves.


Late in the afternoon I wonder down to the beautiful blue pier of Miraflores Beach once more, more in hope than expectation that Blackish Oystercatchers will be there. All week the sea has been extremely rough, with large waves, so good for the surfers here, crashing the rocks and providing no place for the birds to feed.
The view is better today though for when I arrive I see a much calmer ocean and hopes are raised. Good job too because as I scan the rocks to the north of the entrance to the pier, there they are, two Blackish Oystercatchers! Timing things to perfection, they don't stay long before they ehad off out to sea. Not before I have the evidence though, photographs and a couple of videos.







April 6th

At a birthday party a couple of nights ago, Fernando, the wonderful Peruvian husband of Fabian, a lovely French lady and father of the brilliant eight year old daughter, Malu (!!!xx), told me that birdwatching in the grounds of a university on the eastern edge of the city of Lima. Fernando kindly sent me three extensive papers detailing bird studies carried out in the grounds. I read through them and make a list of the bird species, adding English names from the list of Latin and Spanish names. Some interesting species are possible.


Three hours after leaving the house I am lost. Everything was going fine. The Liman roads, although busy of course, are safe enough as drivers seem to care more about cyclists than each other. For me they make way, wave me through, smile and say “buenos dios.” To each other they are brutal but non responsive and not abusive at all. They may cut each other up, sneak through the tiniest gap and pip there horn at the slightest hold up but to cyclists they are wonderful.

I do find a university and after security guards help me chain my bike to the railings I find that not only am I not allowed into the grounds but that it is the wrong university! I leave here and head to the nearby dusty hills. I am trying to get near to them hoping for new bird species but there is no way to them. Every road has gates and Privado signs. I look at the height of these hills and realise that the actual university is on the other side of them. Having to do some emails to various organisations and phone calls to contact my bank over a slight problem; a cashpoint wouldn't give me any money yesterday despite my account having a healthy balance, I head for home.



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