June
13th,
2018
Warm,
Cloudy morning , sunny intervals in the afternoon
The
son of Maria, the owner of the bed & breakfast I am staying in,
hands me a leaflet over breakfast, one advertising a nearby set of
waterfalls and says that there are lots of birds there. So, changing
my day's plan, I head for it.Passing through Aguas Calientes, past a
large set of football pitches with a stage to one side and past some
rock carvings that depict times in Peruvian history.
I pay the ten
Soles entrance fee, I walk up admittedly a beautiful densely forested
valley and see a small waterfall. That is it. The other two
waterfalls and the rest of the path up the valley is now out of
bounds and massively overgrown. Birds? A couple of Andean Motmots, a
male Booted Racket-tail, a stunningly beautiful hummingbird, tiny and
with a long tail and a Gray-breasted Wren. That's it.
Disappointed
I head off for the Butterfly Farm and Mandor Valley. Walking along
the riverside once I am out of town, I stop a couple of times. First
time is to watch Black Phoebe's chasing insects from off rocks by the
river. The second is to watch and listen to a Dusky Green Oropendula
attending it's pendulous nest.
Down
river to the Mach Picchu Butterfly Farm, an Occelated Piculet was in
a tree right by the steps down to it. Nice start. I paid the ten
Soles entry fee and went down through the garden and around the large
mesh-like butterfly house to the riverside. Torrent Tyrannulets were
on the rocks and a couple more Dusky Green Oropendulas flew over.
Into a courtyard where a counter sold coffee and sundries. I sat with
my fare and watched as a variety of tanagers came down on the two
bananas on a bird table. They included species seen at Inkaterra the
day before but also a few of a new one for the Green Year list,
Silver-beaked Tanagers.
Into
the farm itself, there weren't too many butterflies flying, just a
couple of blue-winged Morpho species. Cabinets with pinned pupae were
interesting though, as was a plastic box containing the caterpillars
of Owl Butterflies.
On leaving I head towards the railway line that goes west around the base of the mountain that is topped by Machu Picchu and am surprised by the number of people walking along it. Dozens of people coming towards me, mostly young people.
Now when I first visited here early
in January 2014, it was forbidden to do so. People still did and I
remember one memorable walk that way when I met a small family , who
lived in a small shack by the train track. I sheltered with them as
torrential rain fell and once it had stopped was shown their orchid
collection in their garden of sorts. Walking past that spot now I was
amazed to see a large new glass windowed cafe.
A
couple of kilometres later, after saying Hi and hello to many people
passing making their sweaty way to Aguas Calientes, I reach the
entrance to Mandor Valley and pay the ten Soles to get in. A gang of
eight Canadian lads are doing in as well and once inside, run past
me to get up the valley as far as they could before dark. I slowly
go along the well-maintained path searching for birds. There aren't many but an obliging Green Jay is colourful and new.
Strange to think the only one that I seen on the trip was the most
likely escaped Green Jay at Los Pantanos de Villa, that favourite
reserve of mine south of Lima, back in April.
I
walk back to Aguas Calientes thinking that I should have gone to
Mandor Valley first thing and not have been distracted from that
intention by a leaflet showing a waterfall!
Green
Year list : 262 birds
average new birds to list per day : 3.54
birds
altitude
: 6,795 feet
No comments:
Post a Comment