An early start on February 21st for my journey to Peru with
a cab arriving on time at 05:30. Half an hour later I was at Heathrow Terminal
4 and quickly checked in and passed through all the formalities before it was
time to relax and have breakfast. The Air France flight took off on time and we
headed West over Staines, King George VI and Queen Mother Reservoirs before
turning and flying East to Paris. I had a couple of hours wait at CDG then
boarded the 14:00 flight to Lima during which time I watched a couple of movies
including The Joker. After a long wait for my luggage I met Neil and our guide,
Jose, then we drove a short distance to our hotel.
The next morning was an even earlier start, 03:40, as we had
an internal flight to catch. There was just time for a quick coffee and to meet
the third member of the trip, Jane, before we were whisked back to the airport
and onto a flight to Chiclayo in the northern part of Peru for the start of our
Partnership for International Birding trip.
We drove south through a desert plain for half an hour
seeing a few common birds en route. As we approached our first stop the sky was
full of hazy smoke, a result of burning of sugar cane. It didn’t affect the
birds as we heard our target bird, Peruvian Plantcutter, as we climbed out of
the van!
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| Peruvian Plantcutter |
It took a few minutes to see one then after more searching we got very
good views and photos of the first endemic of the tour. At least five birds
were present at this site and we also saw the first of many hummers with a
Peruvian Sheartail visiting flowers in this fairly arid region.
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| Peruvian Sheartail |
Also seen was another endemic – a Blue-headed Whiptail
Lizard basking amongst the piles of litter.
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| Blue-headed Whiptail Lizard |
Driving on we stopped briefly for
an obliging Burrowing Owl before rejoining the Pan American Highway.
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| Burrowing Owl |
Our next
stop was a marsh where we had our first waders: Greater Yellowlegs, Spotted
Sandpiper and a small flock of Least Sandpipers. In the tall reedy vegetation
we could hear several Wren-like Rushbirds but they refused to show themselves.
A huge flock of Barn Swallows hawked over the swamp and our first Vermillion
Flycatcher glowed like a light in the Reeperbahn.
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| Jane & Jose looking at gulls while Horacio checks out his phone in the restaurant |
We carried onto the coast and stopped at a restaurant
overlooking the seafront. It was hard to tear ourselves away from the windows
with hundreds of Franklin’s Gulls and other seabirds (Elegant Terns, Brown Pelicans
and Peruvian Boobies) constantly flying past but the food was good too! On the
beach were lots of traditional fishing boats made out of reeds.
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| Traditional reed fishing boats |
After lunch our first stop was an abandoned village where
our local guide found us a pair of Peruvian Thick-knees. Their cryptic plumage blended in so well with the rubble that every time you looked away from them it was almost impossible to find them again until they moved.
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| Peruvian Thick-knee |
We then visited a
large lake where there was a distant flock of Black-faced Ibis so we decided to
get closer to them. Unfortunately we got stuck and despite many attempts at
digging the van out we still couldn’t get free.
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| Digging out our stuck van |
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| Storm clouds closing in |
With the skies darkening we
decided to walk back to the village so we could summon help and seek shelter in
case the storm broke.
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| Pacific Hornero |
Luckily there were some helping hands and while we found
some new birds including Pacific Hornero and Snowy-throated Kingbird, they
managed to free the van and we drove on to Chaparri Lodge, stopping along the
entrance track for a pair of Aplomado Falcons and a sunset view.
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| Aplomado Falcon |
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