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.
or
via my personal Facebook page :
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
2nd
to 4th,
2018
Lima
Early
morning cloud burnt off by eleven, then hot, 28 Celsius, sunny with
very little wind. Westerly. Thick sea fog along beach at Miraflores
on the 4th until 2:00 p.m. Then the sun!
April
2nd
A
long walk to get my leg muscles better before the long cycle climb to
Junin, I left my hotel at around 7:30 a.m. And started the long walk
back to Lima. No use of any fossil fuelled transport, I watch people
catching the bus, climbing aboard Tuc Tucs (motortaxis) and I watch
people driving their cars or jumping into taxis. I plod and whistle.
Life is good!
The
main road through Chorillos is interminable. After a short incline
there is a two miles stretch that ends with an elevated view of the
sea and along the spectacular promenade and beaches to Miraflores and
way beyond. I descend down to sea level and enter a small harbour
where motorised boats aren't used for fishing but small self-oared
boats with nets piled high inside and a passenger bird, such as a
Snowy, Egret, a Kelp or Belcher's Gull or more usually a Peruvian
Pelican that sits sleeping whilst the fisherman rows out to sea.
I
am searching for one species, an endemic to Peru called a Surf
Cincloides Cinclodes
taczanowskii.
I don't expect to find one so imagine my thrill when one alights on
some rocks just two metres away. Brilliant bird to get for the Green
Birding list.
The
bird securely photographed and listed, I head for the harbour wall
and watch as a group of burly fishermen drag a large dinghy-like
fishing boat, tug of war up the beach.
I also collect plastic in
deference to having seen the Cincloides and leave to walk along the
beach. A group of three ladies ask me whether I am a photographer and
ask me to take their photograph. I politely oblige.
Flocks
of gulls on the beach are mostly Belcher's Gulls with a few Kelp and
Gray Gulls. I continue to pick up plastic and am thrilled to see at
least twenty council workers doing the same with rakes and bin
liners. There is a lot of plastic and ever small piece can't be
collected. Good to see the effort being made here though.
Five
miles later I have walked the beaches and explored the occasional
rocky breakwater for Blackish Oystercatchers with no luck. I head
inland, up the steep road to Parque Kennedy in Miraflores. I know
that a new bird for the year list is waiting for me there.
I
can hear them as soon as I enter the park, parakeets, Red-masked
Parakeets Psittacara
erythrogenys and
they are noisily eating figs on a low branch of a tree overhanging a
pathway. There are people using their smartphones to photograph them.
There are other new birds to list and watch; Pacific
Parrotlets Forpus
coelesti, the
diminutive blue and green birds seem to be more common this time than
on previous visits, Blue-gray
Tanager Thraupis
episcopus, the
sub-species that lacks a bright white wingbar to the ones seen in
Amazonia, Rufous-collared
Sparrow Zonotrichia
capensis, a
common but beautifully marked little bird and Southern
Beardless Tyrannulet Camptostoma
obsoletum, a
very small, dull-coloured bird with a slight crest.
Cats!
The park has many of them, in fact it is noted for their presence. A
cat that leaps to try to catch a passing Monarch butterfly is not my
friend.
April
3rd
Birds
in the garden of my dear friends, Katia and Mani, include favourites
such as Croaking Ground Dove. I love these tiny doves with there
fart-like thrup. Eared Doves, Long-tailed Mockingbirds, Amazilia Hummingbirds, Shiny Cowbirds and Southern
Beardless Tyrannulets are joined by a few West Peruvian Doves. A new
bird for the Green list is a Blue-black Grassquit Volatinia
jacarina.
I
walk to Parque el Olivar which is close by and see Saffron
Finches
Sicalis
flaveola almost
immediately. Red-masked Parakeets are on the grass and as I approach
one all the water sprinklers start up and I get soaked! LOL!
The
reason for being in the park is to meet a friend I met in The Manu
last year, whilst staying at Chaskawasi-Manu, Eduardo. He arrives
with his girlfrind, a lovely Scottish lass named Tabitha, Tabby for
short. Eduardo has a Frank Zappa t-shirt on. Good lad . . . a musical
obsession of mine. Both are incredible people and it is a pleasure
chatting for over an hour about this and that, mostly that. That is
environmental concerns and the Manu. Tabby had met Eduardo when she
was working in The Manu, the suave Peruvian chatting up a naive
young Scottish lass!
April
4th
Plans
and itineraries change as today's route was to have been to start the
real cycling tour and head inland. Instead I am sitting in the
waiting room of The Good Hope Clinic's dentistry department awaiting
a dentist's appointment. A pre-molar in the lower jaw has had a crown
fall off and I am here to have the damaged assessed. I hope it can be
replaced.
It
can't. In fact an x-ray shows that what remains of the tooth is
broken in two. Now forty two years ago I was kicked in the face by a
group of lads who, just for fun, decided that a long-haired hippy
deserves to be beaten up. I lost five teeth that day and it looks
like this one had escaped detection and had been in it's broken state
ever since. Out it has to come.
Guess who needs the tooth mouse? In Peru, children who have a milk tooth come out, get money for their tooth from the tooth mouse! How cool is that?
One
of the best dentist experiences ever, if you can ever say that about
having a tooth removed, the hole is stitched up and wadding applied.
Instructions over care are google translated for me and I am told to
go back home to rest. I go birding!
Slowly,
gently, carefully I walk along the Miraflores beach hoping to find
Blackish Oystercatcher. There is no chance of any new seabirds as
there is thick sea fog preventing seeing any. A rubbish van has men
loading the rubbish from some skips and taking edible pieces out of
the stuff to feed gulls. I stand and photograph the different ages of
Belcher's and Kelp Gulls.
People
want their photograph taken. I am stopped by a family of Incan
looking people from Chinchero, north of Cusco who ask me to do just
that. They talk to me for around twenty minutes as I rest my legs and
tooth, or lack there of. A family group of beach lovers ask the same
. . . please take our photographs. They call over two young girls who
proceed to take their clothes off, luckily only down to their swim
costumes. I may be sixty one but in my head I am still only nineteen!
I
reach the marina and ask politely (Privado!), humourously (Privado!!)
beggingly (PRIVADO!!!) if I can go in to search for the oystercatcher
species. No chance. The security guard girl doesn't crack a smile at
my antics.
I
reach the fishing port and watch as a group of around forty men, all
seemingly the same size and similarly costumed, repeatedly run into
the sea, dive in and run back out again. All this is done with whoops
and shouts. Military? Sports team bonding? I have no idea.
The
Surf Cincloides is still here, as are hundreds of Franklin's,
Belcher's and Kelp Gulls together with a lot of Peruvian Pelicans and
Inca Terns.
I
walk slowly back to Mirafloes and am thrilled to see a school of
three Bottle-nosed Dolphins out at sea. The fog has now dissipated
and the day is beautiful, warm and sunny. I spend sometime photographing the many Rainbow Crabs on the rocks hoping that Blackish Oystercatchers will turn up.
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