Buenas
Dias!
The
last day in Peru this year. I will be back. I adore the country and
it's people.
I
look forward to returning and that will hopefully be next year
sometime with the intention of buying some land in The Manu. I have a
few ideas for a project there.
When I do get home I have so many people to thank I am going to be very busy. I have been so lucky in having such amazing friends in Peru and in having met so many fabulous, friendly people.
Vamos Peru!
The most important thing though when I get home is to see my two children, Joshua and Rebecca.
Joshua has been excelling at university where he is training to become a nurse.
Rebecca has just completed her PhD studies.
So proud of them both!
Anyway,
. . .
For
those who may be new to my blog I know that today is October the
seventh but due to a number of factors, mostly a lack of internet
within The Manu national Park, I could not keep up the daily blog
describing my adventures.
To
those who read yesterday's blog and the blog from the day before etc,
I once more humbly apologise for starting in the same vein!
You
know I survived the six month Biking Birder Peruvian adventure over
The Andes by bicycle and along the Madre de Dios river by packraft!
What
follows over the next 72 days, well to Christmas anyway, will be a
daily update as though we are back together in July of this year. Day
by day I will post my diary as though it is still happening. Together
we will share the thrills, the splendour of nature and the terrors.
Oh yes, there were days of terror but those few moments were outshone
by days of such magnificence that dark clouds were obliterated by
nature's beauty.
So
please read and imagine . . . .
Oh,
and please, PLEASE if you could make a donation to Birdlife
International as you read I would be more over the Moon than I
already am! Neil, I am coming to see you.
Thank you Annick and Jean Francois. Vous etes tres gentil!
And of course . . .
Thank
you and love to you all,
Be
Green.
Gary
xxx
4th
July, 2018
Very
sunny morning, cloud forest cloud develops during the day- seems to
be a pattern here!
Awake
in my luxurious room, I look out of the window and can only see a
misty carpet of clouds over which there are a thousand stars. Sunrise
is still two hours away but the comfort of this large bed, the stars
and the sound of a toddler, one year old, next door is keeping me
from sleeping. He cries and pleads. Many years ago my youngest
step-daughter, Sarah, did the same, night after night. The piercing
dry cry of “juice” would permeate my dreaming hours and
automaton-like I would rise, go downstairs and fill a bottle with
blackcurrant juice. Two or three times a night for a couple of years
this went on for and now a child in the adjacent bungalow was
extorting his parents to do the same.
Maybe
it was the noise from next door but more likely it was the strange
dream that I had been having that had awoken me. Chris Packham had
been questioning me on the BBC TV programme, Springwatch, showing me
photograph after photograph of rabbits! A procession of rabbits
coming at me from all directions!
I
look out of the window and watch the stars. Back in 2010, in the
month of August, I slept upon the roof of a RSPB (Royal Society for
the Protection of Birds) visitor's centre at Insh Marshes in
Scotland. The small wooden building had a viewpoint terrace on the
roof and sleeping there afforded me views of a similar nature; stars
and mist. Being positioned on a ridge overlooking the extensive
marshes I remember the feeling of floating on a magic carpet as the
stars shone brightly in a sky lacking any form of light pollution.
Different stars here in the Southern Hemisphere but same effect.
Magical.
Out
for a walk two hours later, a Great Thrush is on the path and a
couple of Black-faced Brush-finches are in the nearby flower bed; the
recently split from Rufous-naped. The Collared Inca and Amethyst
Sunangel are joined by a Tyrian Metaltail hummingbird at the feeders
and Hooded Mountain Tanagers are in the canopy of the trees.
After
breakfast I walk with the three girls from England to the canopy
walkway, seeing but hearing more Mountain
Wrens
on the way. Scaly-naped Parrots, four of them flying in two pairs,
call as they pass over heading down the valley. The weather is
beautiful and the trail to the walkway passes through densely
vegetated areas yet occasionally affording views down to the river
far below.
The
canopy walkway is an amazing structure with solid aluminium girders
and bars supporting a net-like, narrow and difficult to walk on
pathway that sways as one proceeds. It goes over a deep valley
through which a small brook descends through ferns and palms with
trees nearby covered in epiphites and bromeliads. It is wonderful and
great fun. Large Glasswing butterflies flutter around one as you stop
to watch.
At
the far end of the walkway is a huge green sheet, the size of an IMAX
film screen. This is designed to prevent cloud reaching a section of
the forest. Behind the screen there are a large number of different
experimants and data-logging stations set up, collating information
of humidity, temperature, light, leaf fall, soil moisture, wind
direction and speed, solar radiation, rainfall and numerous other
things so that the scientists and geographers can assess the effect
of Climate Change on the area. Models have already shown that there
are inevitable changes on the way and this project is vital for
creating management plans for the future. Cloud
Exclusion Net Project [Aberg]
It
all reminds me of the DVDs that David Attenborough produced in the
early 2,000s on the subject of Climate Change. Two programmes had
David talking about what problems lay ahead and many people were
concerned and it seemed back then that people would unite to fight
the problem. Time went on and people found other things to be
concerned about and Climate Change, thanks to the denial tactics by
certain political figures, is sadly ignored by the powerful.
Scientists know the facts and one can only hope that some of the
direst predictions do turn out to have been overstated. This year,
2018, has seen an increase in the public awareness of the all
pervading problem of plastic, especially thanks to David
Attenborough's BBC series, Blue Planet 2. I hope that the same fall
off of interest in solving the problem of plastic doesn't happen as
it did with David's Climate Change programmes but it will. Plastic
use will increase as ever and the world's oceans will fill.
John,
the manager of Weyqecha has suggested that I walk the longest trail,
named after the one time when a Peruvian Spectacled Bear was seen on
it. It is an eight kilometre trek that initially descends through a
quite open, well canopied forest section. Andean Guans are in the
trees and beautiful White-collared
Jays that noisily fly off through the trees.
Mostly
the path is bird free with occasional butterfly and dragonfly and the
occasional bird squeak, tchek and tsip. Suddenly though a large,
round-winged creature flies low in front of me. I scribble down some
details but feel that the chance has gone to be fully confident in
it's identification. Fortunately as I come around the corner I can
see that less than ten metres away there are a pair of large, dark
eyes staring at me. They belong to an owl that looks like a British
Tawny Owl, a Rufous-banded
Owl.
It doesn't fly away and I take a photograph with a four times zoom
Olympus camera that Alice has kindly lent me on hearing of the demise
of my camera. The bird even sits on it's branch when I duck down
nervously beneath it. I have visions of Eric Hosking's encounter with
a Tawny owl many years ago. The famous late bird photographer was
photographing a Tawny at the nest when the female bird ripped one of
his eyes out! It is sadi that Eric went back to continue the photo
shoot of the same bird a week later.
A
hundred yards or so later after this wonderful encounter, another
superb bird is sitting motionless on a branch, a Masked
Trogon.
A female bird, I have seen a lot of male Trogons on the past but I
think that this might be my first female. Another great bird goes
onto my list.
A
flock and the usual panic as birds fleetingly appear and speedily
move on. Grass-green
Tanagers
are easy to see, large and verdant green. Spectacled Redstarts are
the same, showing themselves as readily as do their cousins, the
Slate-throated
Redstarts.
I am also confident in the identification of a Black-throated
Tody-tyrant. Other birds go into my notebook as brief phrases of key
features but won't be going onto the bird list as I am not sure 100%
of their identity.
The
narrow pathway continues and I am really enjoying my lonely day. The
occasional blocking of the way by a fallen piece of bamboo, a
rockfall or a decaying tree trunk makes it almost feel that I am a
pioneering explorer. When I come to a sign that states that there is
another trail that heads steeply down toeards the valley floor where
I can hear a fast water river flowing, I instead continue on my own
trail and head back up hill, hoping that it will take me to the Manu
Road and eventually back to the Research Station. The way becomes
very overgrown and obstacles become more frequent. It feels that no
one has been down this way for a long time.
Suddenly
I hear and then see a small group of Gray-breasted
Mountain Toucans
moving around in a high tree top. One performs upon a dead branch a
sort of dance as I loves it's brilliantly shaped 'Guinness' bill from
side to side. With their fabulous arrangement of colours from the
blue-grey breast to the red vent and yellow rump, with it's long,
curved bill of red and yellow protruding from their dark faces, they
are impressive birds and their gutteral utterances don't seem to fit
the beauty of the moment.
After
a section where the path has been completely wiped out by a section
of eroded hillside, where water in the recent past has washed away
trees, bushes and taken mud and rocks down a steep hill side, I come
across an abandoned wooden house and from it there is just a short
walk up through thick bamboo to the road.
Three
kilometres later I am back at the Research Station and enjoying the
company of one and all over the evening meal. A young couple from
Texas are new and as they are both very keen birders I sit with them
and listen as they tell me of their own Peruvian adventures.
Green
Year list : 296 birds
average
new birds to list per day : 3.12 birds
altitude
: 9,580
feet
