[jimforjim]

Hi there,

My wife and I are going to be in northern Peru for the first two weeks in November, but at this point we only have the plane tickets, so there's a bit of a blank slate. We have a copy of "Where to watch birds in Peru" by Thomas Valqui, but that book is about 6 years old, so we're not sure how much we can rely on it. We focus on hummers, so we're definitely hoping to see the Marvellous Spatuletail, Gray-bellied Comet, Purple-backed Sunbeam, etc., as well as whatever other specialties/endemics we can find. We're thinking about hiring a car & driver to take us around locally, and maybe a guide now and then, but use buses to go between areas, e.g. from Trujillo to Chachapoyas. So, I have a lot of questions:

• Have any of you used the Valqui book? If so, did you find it useful and reliable?
• Are there any hummer hotspots you can suggest?
• Are there any guides and/or drivers in that area that you can particularly recommend?
• Any other thoughts??? :)

Thanks very much in advance, Jim

[Birding Peru]

Jim

The Valqui book is still very useful, but there are constantly new sites added in Northern Peru, that we have included into our itineraries. One site that is not mentioned in Valqui is the feeders above Leimebamba Museum. Here, Marvelous Spatuletail is readily seen on the feeder. I also had Sword-billed Hummingbird here.

My first reaction to your post is that using public transport trying to see all those hummers you mention will not work. To get to the Purple-backed Sunbeam is quite a long drive. You may want consider a car with a driver that knows the area - or a guided tour. Contact me off the forum if so.

Saludos

Gunnar

[Irene Dalgleish]

Hi, Hope you had a brilliant trip!! Can you remember where you bought your copy of "Where to watch birds in Peru" by Thomas Valqui? I'm having great problems here in the UK trying to obtain a copy! Did you write any kind of trip report?

[jimforjim]

We did have a great trip, yes. We didn't see the Purple-backed Sunbeam, but we did see quite a few other hummingbirds, as we'd hoped to. We ended up using a number of different transportation options, and met a lot of very interesting people along the way.

As for Valqui, I believe we bought it on Amazon. My wife and I did find the book helpful to some extent, as it gave us a good start on general areas, but most of what I learned came from reading trip reports and emailing various people (including Gunnar). We had a Google map with different waypoints on it that we wanted to see, and programmed those in our GPS prior to leaving. The GPS really helped, by the way. The trouble we had with Valqui, and which I know others have had, is that much of it is out of date. New hotspots have been discovered, and others that he recommends highly are now cow pastures.

BTW, sorry for the delay in responding, but we were trying out the birding in Belize and just got back...

Regards, Jim