Peru Vocals Help

[tom mckinney]

Howdy,

There's quite a few birds in Peru, and trying to learn the vocals of as many possible species that I may come across this Summer is proving to be somewhat tiresome and time consuming. The problem is that I've never been to the Neotropics before, I'm doing it without a guide and I've no idea about the behaviour/habits of some of the families. So, for example, say I spend hours thoroughly learning the calls of Phaethornis Hummingbirds only to discover that they rarely call in the field, and therefore spending all that time was just pointless and should have been spent on Tyrant Flycatchers. Follow me?

Therefore, if anyone with experience of birding in Peru on the "Gringo Trail" birding in Cuzco-Manu Road-Titicaca-Arequipa-Ballestas fancies telling what families or even species are absolutely essental to know by ear and which aren't, I'd be extremely grateful.

There's a metaphorical pint or two in it for anyone that can help me out.

Cheers,

Tom

Also, if anyone viewing this who isn't a Birdforum member has advice, please email me at:

tommckinney1979 AT yahoo.co.uk

[Tim Allwood]

Hi Tom

Birds of Bolivia CD ROM is great.

If you learn the common tinamous, and then just the biggies like Red and White Antpitta, Rufous-fronted Anthrush etc. Piculet and recurvebill 'tapping' are worth listening for as well. Otherwise it will get a bit mental. I went with my mate who worked full time in the forest and even he had trouble with a heck of a lot of birds. As for hummers, forget it. Some dart about past you in the jungle and you just hear the whizz, bit like dodging the bullets in dirty manc land i guess.

Tim

[Rasmus Boegh]

First, there are very few voices you need to know for the barren highlands and the coastal regions you're visiting. I'd mainly suggest you learn a few of the more difficult tyrant's for these areas (and there's not really that many). E.g. learn the Southern Beardless Tyrannulet which looks rather distinctive once learned, but easier to pick out by voice the first time or two. Knowing a species like the White-crested Elaenia is useful, too (it is virtually impossible to ID for certain without; wing-bars are not, contrary to what regularly is stated in books, a certain feature). Likewise, there are few skulkers of the coastal regions and the open highlands, but most of these are not really something you should worry about, as there are so few, that you can listen to the recording before you visit the locality (e.g. listen once or twice to the voices of the Wren-like Rushbird and the Many-coloured Rush-tyrant before a visit to a coastal marsh). Those were the easy regions where there only is a handful or so of species you need to worry about. It becomes far more difficult on the forested eastern slopes and in the lowlands of SE. The main rule is to learn some of the most common species. Basically, for the groups listed further down, I'd suggest you make a fast trip through Clements & Shany's Birds of Peru to see which species are considered common in the forested regions of SE (on the East Andean Slopes and, if you visit them, the lowlands). In addition to learning the common species from below groups, I presume there's also a few less common ones that you might want to learn, just because they're high on your wish-list. Here's the basic list of families and groups:

Tinamous.
Forest-falcons & Laughing Falcon.
Rails & Crakes (if visiting lowland areas).
Trogons & Quetzals.
Motmots.
Barbets.
Puffbirds & Nunbirds (only if you visit lowland areas).
Woodpeckers & Piculets.
Furnariids (e.g. Spinetails, Foliage-gleaners).
Woodcreepers.
Antshrikes, Antbird & Antwrens.
Antpittas.
Tapaculos.
Tyrant-flycatchers (a very large group, incl. Tyrannulets, Elaenias, Flatbills, etc.).
Wrens.
Thrushes & Solitaires.
New World Warblers.
Euphonias.
Brush-finches.

Some of the above mentioned groups are not particularly difficult to see, they're just heard frequently (e.g. Motmots & Barbets). To take an example: If I was beginning from scratch and was trying to learn the most useful voices for e.g. the Forest-falcons I'd take the Barred and perhaps the Collared. Especially the Barred is heard rather commonly in SE Peru. The voices within groups tend to be rather similar (as indeed is the case for the Forest-falcons). Should you be lucky enough to hear e.g. a Buckley's Forest-falcon you would probably be able to ID it as a Forest-falcon, just from knowing the two commoner species. Another thing; when learning voices remember that some widespread "species" have voices that are rather different from region to region, so in general you should try to use recording from the region (e.g. SE Peru, N. Bolivia or SW Brazil). For example, the voice of the Warbling Antbird differ greatly from region to region (it will be split into 6 species in a paper that currently is being prepared) and the same is the case with several other species of (mainly, but not exclusively) Furnariids, Woodcreepers, Antshrikes, Antbird, Antwrens & Tyrant-flycatchers. You're probably already aware of Xeno Canto, but if not, here's the link:

http://www.xeno-canto.org/

Also, if you record don't do like I did on my first few trips. On the recording I noted the species, time & locality. That was fine until I suddenly had 20+ hours of recordings without any notes on the outside. Just imagine how "fun" it is trying find the one minute recording of a Great Spinetail. I now give the mindisk a number and note the recording in a book... far easier when trying to relocate recordings.

[tom mckinney]

Brilliant. Cheers Tim and Rasmus. That's exactly what I wanted.

A million thanks (and metaphorical pints, of course)

Tom

[Rasmus Boegh]

... and yes, before someone mentions it I did of course forget the Screaming Piha (perhaps the single most commonly heard bird throughout a large part of the Amazon; seeing it is a different matter, though) as well as Caciques & Oropendolas (with their frequently heard and highly distinctive voices).