[username]

Tom.....i too am feeling like a bag of s*** due to a severe case of 'sandhill-flu'....
...[it is actually one bad-ass cold]....hope you feel better soon....whatever your symptoms!

ps.....as i think i told you in a pm.....i've been to Ecuador....but looong time ago...so my info would be about as much use as a bus timetable printed in Sanskrit....

[username]

Any recent confirmed sightings of the rare 'McKinney' poster?...he seems to be as elusive as an Eleanora's falcon at the moment. Is he still ill does anyone know...?...or has he left the country perhaps...?...or just got bored....? Surely he's not Christmas shopping...??!

[tom mckinney]

It's Sarah's twin sister's wedding on Saturday (not that I really have anything to do other than turn up). But after this weekend the updates will just fly out ... ahem ...

To keep you going, here's as bit more wildlife:

[username]

He lives..!!
Nice fruit-eater pic Tom...not so sure about the tiny black n white horse...[was that the 'horse' you are claiming threw up all over you]...?

ps....enjoy..[endure]..the wedding....hope all goes well....[you do realize that on saturday there will be one 'monster' rare bird turn up don't you]?! Sods law n all that.....

[tom mckinney]

So where was I...

Aguas Calientes

Earlier this year I went to see a Glaucous-winged Gull in Cleveland near Cowpen Bewley, a place widely regarded as one of the worst places in the world. Even though I was only 30 miles away when the was bird found (and it then stayed around for another week or so) I didn’t see it because, despite being one of the first non-locals to get there, I fell in a ditch and got completely soaked up to my waist. When I pulled myself out, the group of birders watching me were laughing so hard that I decided I couldn’t take any more and went back to my sister-in-law’s in Newcastle and never went back, despite driving past again a day later. I was convinced that it was the worst place in the whole wide world and beyond.

I was wrong. For there exists a place far beyond the Hithaiglin Mountains, through the vast sylvan forests of Fangorn, a place where no conscious creature should ever visit, a place fit for neither man nor beast. And when the wise sages of the Avorian and Nandorian Elven clans gathered many dawns ago, they decided that this place shall be known as Aguas Calientes or Machu Picchu Pueblo.

Here are my top five reasons (there are many more) why this place is so terrible:

1) money. Everything costs 500 times more here than anywhere else in Peru. Actually, I think it may be 500 times more expensive than just anywhere.

2) the people. Vermin who exist only to get you into their restaurants and hotels or to sell you things that cost 500 times more than they do anywhere else.

3) insects. I don’t know what they are, but when they bite they leave a blood blister with a stinging itch so deep under your skin that it feels more like a tumour.

4) children. I have no problem with children, so long as they are kept far away from me at all times. In Aguas Calientes there are millions of children everywhere, all of them nurtured in tanks where Aldous Huxley’s vision of the future is made real: a soft voice is piped through to the infants’ brainwashing tanks repeatedly chanting “Give me a dollar.”

5) the buildings. Buildings are going up all over the place, many without planning permission. When the local government discover these new unplanned projects they simply halt the building, but - and this is my favourite bit - they don’t prevent the owners from still using them for their business. Brilliant! And so, you’ll be overjoyed to know, you can stay in a half built hotel and sleep soundly in the knowledge that should the town be wrecked by an earthquake or landslide (a very real prospect) then at least you’ll die very quickly when an unsupported wall caves in on your skull.

The best thing about Aguas Calientes is that you can get out of there very quickly and find yourself in some great places for birding.

Walking along the train tracks heading towards Machu Picchu soon gets you into some fantastic habitat at around 2,000m altitude. The best thing is that the train tracks are along the side of the cliff face, and so the tree tops are at head height - so it’s like having miles of canopy walkway. Marvellous!

The good birding starts just after the second tunnel (ignore the signs saying you’ll be prosecuted if you go through the tunnels, all the locals go through). Walking on the tracks is slow going, so if you’re pushed for time then you can walk along the road following the coach route to the sign for the “Jardin Botanico” (about 25 minute walk) and then walk up the ramp to the abandoned Puente Ruinas train station. The best birding starts from Puente Ruinas. It’s also useful to use the ramp back down to the road if you’re hanging about for Lyre-tailed Nightjar at dusk.

Endemic Masked Fruiteater is regularly seen just past Puente Ruinas near where the lamposts stop. I had a pretty p1ss poor quality recording of the Fruiteater on my iPod, and I thought it would be hopeless for playback, but I just had a quick listen to remind myself of the song when suddenly a male sang back immediately and then flew in to just in front of us. Nice! Put in some time for it because it really is a very good looking bird. A definite trip highlight.

Cock-of-the-Rock were hard work sat high up on the cliffs and very difficult to see, but we eventually had 2 males.

Another highlight were the Lyre-tailed Nightjars. We hung around in the area beyond Puente Ruinas until dusk hoping for Stripe-faced Wood-Quail but were instead rewarded with two calling Lyre-tailed Nightjars. They were both calling really close to the tracks - a quick blast of iPod and a male was soon gliding just over our heads for a few minutes, occasionally landing in the trees. We watched it up until near pitch black and then lost it as it headed out into the valley - life is wonderful at times, even in Aguas Calientes.

Around the righthand bend after Puente Ruinas is where the birding becomes quite excellent. We came across some big flocks full of tanagers and all the way along Sclater’s Tyrannulet (one of Valqui’s targets in his where to watch book) were pretty easy. Best tanagers were Blue-winged Mountain-Tanager (is that pretty rare here?), Fawn-breasted Tanager, Slaty Tanager (couldn’t blag one as a Cusco Brush-Finch - bollox!) and a very nice ‘inca’ Golden-naped Tanager. Also a Golden-olive Woodpecker and at least 3 Streaked Xenops in the mixed flocks. Endemic Green+white Hummingbirds are common.

Aguas Calientes is definitely worth visiting. Anyway, you've got no choice if you want to go to Matthew Picchu.

***

Torrent Duck - common
Andean Guan - 4
Fasciated Tiger-Heron - 1 on river
Puna Ibis -common from train
Mountain Caracara - 3 on way to Ollantaytambo
Roadside Hawk -1
American Kestrel - 1
Andean Gull - common
Speckle-faced Parrot - 3+
Mitred Parakeet - common
Lyre-tailed Nightjar - 2. Just about the best thing in life. Mad for playback.
Green-and-white Hummingbird - common. Probably had Many-spotted Hummingbird as well, but never checked them too hard.
Speckled Hummingbird - 1
Sparkling Violetear - common
Golden-olive Woodpecker - 1 in a mixed species flock
Azara’s Spinetail - common
Streaked Xenops - 3 in a mixed species flock
Variable Antshrike - 2 males
Sclater’s Tyrannulet - common
Streak-necked Flycatcher - 3
Cinnamon Flycatcher - 2
Smoke-coloured Pewee - 4+
Golden-crowned Flycatcher - 1
Tropical Kingbird - common
Barred Becard - 1 male in a mixed species flock
MASKED FRUITEATER - 1 male. 10/10 - a very, very, very nice bird.
Andean Cock-of-the-Rock - 2 males. Bloody hard work seeing them!
Red-eyed Vireo - 2
Brown-capped Vireo - 2+
Blue+white Swallow - common
Grey-breasted Wood-Wren - common
House Wren - common
Andean Solitaire - commonly heard, but seeing them can be a different matter altogether though!
White-eared Solitaire - 1
Glossy-black Thrush - 1 fem
Silver-beaked Tanager - pair. Is this at the very top of their altitude?
Slaty Tanager - 2. Sadly couldn’t string them into Cusco Brush-Finch.
Oleaginous Hemispingus - 2
Fawn-breasted Tanager - 1 fem
Blue-capped Tanager - 1+
Blue+yellow Tanager - 2+
Blue+grey Tanager - common, including many white shouldered birds.
Silver-backed Tanager - 4+
Beryl-spangled Tanager - 2
Golden-naped Tanager - 1 ssp ‘inca’
Blue-necked Tanager - common
Hepatic Tanager - 1 fem. Call identical to a Chaffinch ‘chup’
Common Bush-Tanager - 1
Blue-winged Mountain-Tanager - 1. Is this pretty rare here?
Saffron-crowned Tanager - common
Masked Flowerpiercer - 1
seedeater sp. - loads, but all fzzking females!
Tropical Parula - 2
Rufous-collared Sparrow - 2
Slate-throated Redstart - common
Spectacled Redstart - 1
Dusky-green Oropendola - common
Hooded Siskin - common

[tom mckinney]

And, because I'm so nice, here's a map of the place which I did whilst hoping that Hotel (ha!) Mosoq-Inti wasn't going to fall down with us in it. It's not quite to scale, but hopefully it should help you to get out as fast as possible:

[jedigrant]

Originally Posted by tom mckinney

Schulenberg and co decribe the song phonetically as hit the foul pole, no idea what that means.

That's a baseball reference.

Love the report! Funniest trip report I've read since....well, probably ever!

[tom mckinney]

Originally Posted by jedigrant

That's a baseball reference.

Ah, now it makes sense. Cheers, Grant.

There's two versions of Schulenberg and co, the American Princeton hard back and the British Helm soft back, so perhaps the British version should have had a translation? Instead of "hit the foul pole", maybe Britain's increasingly far-right scum political tendencies could give us "send the Poles home". And then when we pull out of Europe and suddenly our entire economy collapses, we could change the 2nd edition to "bring the Poles back".

Oooooh, controversial. Do you think I should email Schulenberg with my suggestions?

Some (poor) photos:

*2 of the male Masked Fruiteater
*1 of 2 very tame Cinnamon Flycatchers
*male Torrent Duck
*mountains. Machu Picchu is just left of the picture.

[tom mckinney]

Only had a few photos of birds, but (surprise surprise) I have gigabytes of stupid photos:

*beautiful Aguas Calientes. The Torremolinos of the cloud forest.
*5 star luxury accomodation
*health and safety nightmare (is that why no/few tour companies come down here?)
*hardcore dawn-dusk birding
*very hardcore dawn-dusk birding

[username]

Good to be getting more reports from your trip Tom...keep them coming!

Regards your 'health n safety' issue....
Yeah...i guess that most/all tour companies would be reluctant to take risks with they're punters along a railway line..[any insurance would surely be invalidated if anyone came a 'cropper']?
Good job that you are not the dimensions of Bernard Manning when that train went by...

ps...is that your 'good lady' walking the 'line'?.....[not quite 'man on a wire' material..but i guess you gotta start somewhere].....

[tom mckinney]

User, 'tis the good lady herself dicing with death. We thought that if one of us did get killed by a train then we should have a good final picture for the papers to publish -

"IDIOT COUPLE KILLED IN RETARDED TRAIN TRACK BIRDSPOTTING BLUNDER"

Btw (by the way), just read my last post back and realised I got a bit side-tracked about cretinous far-right politics. I'm totally sick of reading and hearing about the scum BNP all over the place. If I see that fat w@nker Nick Griffin's fat fzzking face one more time today I swear I'll start vomiting blood.

Anyway, no more politics, back to hardcore mega serious birdspotting adventures...

[username]

Originally Posted by tom mckinney

User, 'tis the good lady herself dicing with death. We thought that if one of us did get killed by a train then we should have a good final picture for the papers to publish -

"IDIOT COUPLE KILLED IN RETARDED TRAIN TRACK BIRDSPOTTING BLUNDER"

Btw (by the way), just read my last post back and realised I got a bit side-tracked about cretinous far-right politics. I'm totally sick of reading and hearing about the scum BNP all over the place. If I see that fat w@nker Nick Griffin's fat fzzking face one more time today I swear I'll start vomiting blood.

Anyway, no more politics, back to hardcore mega serious birdspotting adventures...

Is very easy to get 'side tracked' Tom....sometimes the 'lines' are worth following tho......[agree with the 'politics' bit]...
Back to birds...[on track]...i'm a tad gripped by the masked fruiteater....all fruiteaters are awesome things!

ps...prepare to have a plastic lined sick-bag by your TV tonight if you are going to watch 'question time'....guess who is on the panel?

[James Lowther]

Originally Posted by tom mckinney

Abra Malaga

You can’t miss the start of the trail. Just before the top of the pass there’s a few big signs saying Royal Cinclodes Reserve and the well marked trail leads up from there. Also, I’d heard stories of how difficult the walk up is - hmmm, well I’m no Usain Bolt, but the slope is so gentle that even at 4,300m it’s a doddle. Just be sensible and take your time. It’s impossible to rush anyway, there’s far too many Ground-Tyrants around to pulp your already oxygen starved brain.

Wow,
i've spent a month in peru, come home and tom still hasn't finished this trip report!!



just a little note here to say that although the start of the royal cinclodes trail is as Tom says impossible to miss, if you are an imbecile it is quite easy to take a wrong turn on the way..

before you get up to the ridge there is a second information board. If you want to get to the (supposedly) cinclodes-containing polylepis grove, carry straight on here along the path demarcated by parallel rows of stones. From this point on it's easy, and if you're reasonably fit there's no reason not to come back this way too.

DO NOT follow the path to the left indicated by an arrow and a little painting of a bird on a rock (you can see how i was fooled), as although it starts out nicely enough eventually it degenerates into a precipitous alpaca trail which brings you out miles down the valley (below the farmstead), necessitating an Edmund Hillary-esque slog back up to the cinclodes spot, by which time they've buggered off!

On the plus side this route does take you through some nice polylepis where i saw ash-breasted tit-tyrant, 2 x tit-spinetails, puna tapaculo, giant conebill, red-rumped bush tanager, blue-mantled thornbill, line-fronted canastero etc., not all of which i saw back in "the right place". This is the forest "at the same level" as described in Valqui, but if you do want to make a side visit here, i'd recommend turning back when you reach a little mirador with a stone bench.

still an amazing site even if you spend the whole time panicking at the prospect of joining the ranks of the ice mummies!

James

p.s. Tom, I managed to string some of those annoying female seedeaters at Aguas Calientes into dull-coloured grassquits (greyish heads, small bicolored bills), and if you read your Schulenberg carefully it seems they could be expected to occur there!

[username]

Ahh...i see Mr.Mckinney is 'online'....lets hope there's an update....!

[tom mckinney]

I will finish this trip report one day. Soon as well. Been busy. Doing stuff.

Shameless self-promotion: just released a CD. It's tough being one fifth of a "dazzling tango quintet dedicated to the authentic performance of the music of Astor Piazzolla." And by tango I mean the real arty stuff for serious people that you don't (can't) dance to, not that cheap crap on BBC1 every Saturday night. Have a listen to a couple of live tracks on our MySpace site, and if you want a copy (who wouldn't?) drop me a line. Special promotional offer for members of Birdforum - buy two copies for the price of two, three copies for the price of four. Tour next year - coming to a town near you soon...

http://www.myspace.com/tangoquintet

Oh, and to get back on topic: birds, Peru, horse, vomit, llamas, alpacas, going to Ecuador next year etc...

[James Lowther]

wow
sounds a bit like the start of 12 monkeys (bet every pleb says that!)
can't hear much guitar though

looking forward to the rest of your report!

[Andrew]

You came back alive Tom, any chance you are too thin to die in Peru?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8369674.stm