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South Peru, July-August 2006 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter mountain man
- Start date
ESTEBANNIC
Well-known member
Great trip report! another tick on my "must go" list
mountain man
Guest
Part 57
San Pedro
“There are a few taxis in Pilcopata. But you might want to have a look around and see which ones are safe to travel in,” we were told by someone in Cusco. Actually, compared to the death traps in Cusco, the Pilcopata taxis were okay. But instead of performing safety checks on the taxis we decided to find out who would take us to San Pedro for the lowest price and then went with him.
On the Manu Road there is supposed to be a one way system in operation which works thus: Monday, Wednesday, Friday the traffic goes from Cusco to Pilcopata; Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday the traffic goes the other way from Pilcopata to Cusco; Sunday is a free for all. However, like most things official in Peru, we were to discover that nobody really bothered about it! Even the Gallito de las Rocas public bus doesn’t bother. Whether it’s a recent development I’m not sure, but despite what the guide books and trip reports told us we could see little, if any, evidence that the drivers were obeying the one way rule. There was nobody around to enforce it anyway.
So it seems as though you can travel up and down the Manu Road as you please. Which is good. And also bad. Because sometimes you come frighteningly too close to an out of control truck storming around the tight bends, and full of ‘passengers’ in the back. And then your driver has to reverse back into passing places that are way too close to the 100m vertical drops; it’s best not to look out of the windows at this point and just pretend you’re in Lincolnshire. Thomas Valqui’s guide suggests that the driving time from Pilcopata to San Pedro is approximately three hours: our driver did it in one hour and ten minutes. No, I don’t know how he did it, but I do know that I never again want to be in a car without seat belts performing an emergency stop behind a lorry with Che Guevara painted on the mud-flaps.
Somewhere between 1375m-1650m on the Manu Road lies San Pedro, in the cloud forest. (I’ve read different stated altitudes ranging between those two figures - nobody seems to know for certain!) Most birders stay at the Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge, but after being quoted some absurdly high prices we decided that it was not an option. Instead we found another new place nearby called Manu Paradise Lodge (there are also some other lodges in the area, so don’t believe the Lonely Planet when it says otherwise!) which was cheaper and almost next door to CORL. The only benefit of CORL over the other lodges is that their gardens are probably a bit better for hummers, but not better enough to justify the price! Anyway, the best birding is done from the road where you will rarely see any traffic. There is also a small trail system by the river, accessed by a laughably rickety ‘cable car’, but the river is so noisy by the trail that it was pretty much a waste of time. If you can find a quiet spot then this might a good place to get your playback going for Scaled Antpitta.
Only a few years old, Paradise Lodge is pretty luxurious, with sparkling new bathrooms, a beautiful dining room with panoramic glass windows set above the river, and a nice garden for hummers where we had a marvellous male Booted Racket-tail as we walked to our room. After a hot shower (yeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss!) and a walk down to see a pair of White-capped Dippers on the river, we hit the road, immediately being set upon by a dog from the shack next door.
“This is rubbish!” I said, after an hour of seeing virtually nothing. At mid morning it was absolutely dead, although we did manage a Speckled Hummingbird and a few Yungas Manakins. At least the food was good back at the lodge. We trudged back out after watching the Racket-tail and started to wish we’d just stayed in the lowlands. At one point it took us about 20 minutes to eventually see what was making a short raspy call, but it was worth it in the end when we found a Scale-crested Pygmy-Tyrant, although after registering the call we started picking them up all over the place - isn’t it crap when that happens!
An all-dark monkey ran across the track that stopped and turned around to look at us and suddenly became a dog, and then slinked off down the track where it became an otter. We later found out that it was a Tayra, which looks something like a monkey x dog x otter. Weird. A small flock of sheep were also weird, but then again sheep always are weird.
Three-striped Warblers were common, but other than that we were still pretty stumped as to where all the birds had got to. Maybe we had just got used to so many down in the lowlands? So we turned around and walked back down the road below San Pedro and then things started to improve. It began when Miss Cole found a Highland Motmot, whos head colour is just like the striking electric blue on many of the butterflies in the area, and with the rest of it being green all you could see was the blue. So explain this: what’s the evolutionary function of having a head that looks like a butterfly? Eh? Mad! Nevermind, it was a beauty of a bird. A Brown Tinamou was calling far down in the valley below and a Black Antbird was invisible just metres away to our side. Now it was getting good, and then suddenly got a whole lot better.
“Well, it kind of looks like a Coot,” was the only thing I could really say about the head of something that was all black with a white bill, “only Coots don’t sit at the top of tall trees.” I was stumped. Then it did the decent thing and hopped up into the open and things became clear. It began to shake its head back and forth, ruffling up the bizarre shaped feathering on its crown, then turned to face us saying, “Hi Tom. Hi Miss Cole. It’s me, Mr Umbrellabird.!” Amazonian Umbrellabird - rock out with the kids! But now there was a big problem, because this Umbrellabird had to be appreciated - it wasn’t one of them bloody Tyrant Flycatcher things - only no sooner had we found it when a massive mixed flock came out of nowhere. Obviously we couldn’t let the flock go, but at the same time we had to pay our respects to the Umbrellabird. So it kind of went like this:
what’s that flycatcher… don’t know… what’s the Umbrellabird doing now… no idea… why’s it shaking its head… don’t know… that Flycatcher’s a Cinnamon-faced Tyrannulet… oh yeah… there’s a Tanager here… which one… Umbrellabird’s doing something weird now… I think this Tanager’s Spotted… really?… not the one I’ve got… where’s yours… up there… oh yeah… that’s Yellow-throated… Umbrellabird’s really gone strange now… Spinetail… I’ve got something else… where… at the back… are sure it’s not the Spinetail… definitely, this is bright red… bright red?… it’s a Versicoloured Barbet... where’s the Umbrellabird gone… where’s your Spinetail now… not sure… oh I’ve got the Umbrellabird… awesome… oh there’s that Spinetail… oh yeah... what is it then… no idea… I think it’s Ash-browed… why?… because it looks like one… oh yeah… oh no, what’s this… where… there… another Tanager… it’s Golden isn’t it?… not the one I’ve got… what’s your then?… it’s speckled blue and black… let’s have a look… Beryl-spangled… oh yeah… Umbrellabird still there?… yer, it’s shaking its umbrella again… why? it’s not raining… that wasn’t very funny… shut up… okay… so where’s your Golden Tanager… there… nice… I know… oh God I’ve got something else… so have I… what’s yours?… I don’t know… neither do I…
…and so on, for about another twenty minutes. The flock was amazing, with so many good birds that I just can't be bothered to type them all out, and a brilliant close to the day. Anyhow, this part has gone on for far too long now, so I’ll leave you with the final new bird of the day: 2 Spotted Barbtails, which my paranormal pishing skills brought to within a few feet of us.
The next part will have graphic descriptions of genitalia in it…
San Pedro
“There are a few taxis in Pilcopata. But you might want to have a look around and see which ones are safe to travel in,” we were told by someone in Cusco. Actually, compared to the death traps in Cusco, the Pilcopata taxis were okay. But instead of performing safety checks on the taxis we decided to find out who would take us to San Pedro for the lowest price and then went with him.
On the Manu Road there is supposed to be a one way system in operation which works thus: Monday, Wednesday, Friday the traffic goes from Cusco to Pilcopata; Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday the traffic goes the other way from Pilcopata to Cusco; Sunday is a free for all. However, like most things official in Peru, we were to discover that nobody really bothered about it! Even the Gallito de las Rocas public bus doesn’t bother. Whether it’s a recent development I’m not sure, but despite what the guide books and trip reports told us we could see little, if any, evidence that the drivers were obeying the one way rule. There was nobody around to enforce it anyway.
So it seems as though you can travel up and down the Manu Road as you please. Which is good. And also bad. Because sometimes you come frighteningly too close to an out of control truck storming around the tight bends, and full of ‘passengers’ in the back. And then your driver has to reverse back into passing places that are way too close to the 100m vertical drops; it’s best not to look out of the windows at this point and just pretend you’re in Lincolnshire. Thomas Valqui’s guide suggests that the driving time from Pilcopata to San Pedro is approximately three hours: our driver did it in one hour and ten minutes. No, I don’t know how he did it, but I do know that I never again want to be in a car without seat belts performing an emergency stop behind a lorry with Che Guevara painted on the mud-flaps.
Somewhere between 1375m-1650m on the Manu Road lies San Pedro, in the cloud forest. (I’ve read different stated altitudes ranging between those two figures - nobody seems to know for certain!) Most birders stay at the Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge, but after being quoted some absurdly high prices we decided that it was not an option. Instead we found another new place nearby called Manu Paradise Lodge (there are also some other lodges in the area, so don’t believe the Lonely Planet when it says otherwise!) which was cheaper and almost next door to CORL. The only benefit of CORL over the other lodges is that their gardens are probably a bit better for hummers, but not better enough to justify the price! Anyway, the best birding is done from the road where you will rarely see any traffic. There is also a small trail system by the river, accessed by a laughably rickety ‘cable car’, but the river is so noisy by the trail that it was pretty much a waste of time. If you can find a quiet spot then this might a good place to get your playback going for Scaled Antpitta.
Only a few years old, Paradise Lodge is pretty luxurious, with sparkling new bathrooms, a beautiful dining room with panoramic glass windows set above the river, and a nice garden for hummers where we had a marvellous male Booted Racket-tail as we walked to our room. After a hot shower (yeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss!) and a walk down to see a pair of White-capped Dippers on the river, we hit the road, immediately being set upon by a dog from the shack next door.
“This is rubbish!” I said, after an hour of seeing virtually nothing. At mid morning it was absolutely dead, although we did manage a Speckled Hummingbird and a few Yungas Manakins. At least the food was good back at the lodge. We trudged back out after watching the Racket-tail and started to wish we’d just stayed in the lowlands. At one point it took us about 20 minutes to eventually see what was making a short raspy call, but it was worth it in the end when we found a Scale-crested Pygmy-Tyrant, although after registering the call we started picking them up all over the place - isn’t it crap when that happens!
An all-dark monkey ran across the track that stopped and turned around to look at us and suddenly became a dog, and then slinked off down the track where it became an otter. We later found out that it was a Tayra, which looks something like a monkey x dog x otter. Weird. A small flock of sheep were also weird, but then again sheep always are weird.
Three-striped Warblers were common, but other than that we were still pretty stumped as to where all the birds had got to. Maybe we had just got used to so many down in the lowlands? So we turned around and walked back down the road below San Pedro and then things started to improve. It began when Miss Cole found a Highland Motmot, whos head colour is just like the striking electric blue on many of the butterflies in the area, and with the rest of it being green all you could see was the blue. So explain this: what’s the evolutionary function of having a head that looks like a butterfly? Eh? Mad! Nevermind, it was a beauty of a bird. A Brown Tinamou was calling far down in the valley below and a Black Antbird was invisible just metres away to our side. Now it was getting good, and then suddenly got a whole lot better.
“Well, it kind of looks like a Coot,” was the only thing I could really say about the head of something that was all black with a white bill, “only Coots don’t sit at the top of tall trees.” I was stumped. Then it did the decent thing and hopped up into the open and things became clear. It began to shake its head back and forth, ruffling up the bizarre shaped feathering on its crown, then turned to face us saying, “Hi Tom. Hi Miss Cole. It’s me, Mr Umbrellabird.!” Amazonian Umbrellabird - rock out with the kids! But now there was a big problem, because this Umbrellabird had to be appreciated - it wasn’t one of them bloody Tyrant Flycatcher things - only no sooner had we found it when a massive mixed flock came out of nowhere. Obviously we couldn’t let the flock go, but at the same time we had to pay our respects to the Umbrellabird. So it kind of went like this:
what’s that flycatcher… don’t know… what’s the Umbrellabird doing now… no idea… why’s it shaking its head… don’t know… that Flycatcher’s a Cinnamon-faced Tyrannulet… oh yeah… there’s a Tanager here… which one… Umbrellabird’s doing something weird now… I think this Tanager’s Spotted… really?… not the one I’ve got… where’s yours… up there… oh yeah… that’s Yellow-throated… Umbrellabird’s really gone strange now… Spinetail… I’ve got something else… where… at the back… are sure it’s not the Spinetail… definitely, this is bright red… bright red?… it’s a Versicoloured Barbet... where’s the Umbrellabird gone… where’s your Spinetail now… not sure… oh I’ve got the Umbrellabird… awesome… oh there’s that Spinetail… oh yeah... what is it then… no idea… I think it’s Ash-browed… why?… because it looks like one… oh yeah… oh no, what’s this… where… there… another Tanager… it’s Golden isn’t it?… not the one I’ve got… what’s your then?… it’s speckled blue and black… let’s have a look… Beryl-spangled… oh yeah… Umbrellabird still there?… yer, it’s shaking its umbrella again… why? it’s not raining… that wasn’t very funny… shut up… okay… so where’s your Golden Tanager… there… nice… I know… oh God I’ve got something else… so have I… what’s yours?… I don’t know… neither do I…
…and so on, for about another twenty minutes. The flock was amazing, with so many good birds that I just can't be bothered to type them all out, and a brilliant close to the day. Anyhow, this part has gone on for far too long now, so I’ll leave you with the final new bird of the day: 2 Spotted Barbtails, which my paranormal pishing skills brought to within a few feet of us.
The next part will have graphic descriptions of genitalia in it…
Last edited:
mountain man
Guest
Part... it's anyone's guess now
San Pedro (Cock of the Rock Lodge)
The first day in San Pedro started poor but ended in pretty thrilling style, and so the next day we were out on the road before dawn. Brown Tinamou and Scaled Antpitta were calling in the bottom of the valley and a male Booted Racket-tail was a nice sunrise starter. But no sooner had the common birds come out to play when crack! and a tiny raptor smacked into a Siskin (presumably Olivaceous) before landing just above our heads, piercing the rigid corpse’s head and neck with its beautifully manicured talons. Tiny it was indeed, being a Tiny Hawk. It sat still just a couple of metres above our heads, presumably shocked at its own good fortune having secured something to eat so early in the day. This was to be the start of a curious plague of avian injuries and deaths throughout the day.
This section of the road was definitely subject to the dawn and dusk rule, with activity being lower between about 10am-4pm, something that didn’t seem quite so marked down in the lowlands. But even in the quiet moments you were still never long in waiting for your next new tick, and throughout the day we managed some superb birds, including Pearled Treerunner, Yellow-breasted Antwren, Streak-necked Flycatcher, Marble-faced Bristle -Tyrant (common), Bananaquit, Yellow-throated Bush-Tanager, Black-eared Hemispingus (no thanks to the field guide!) and regularly stumbling upon mixed Tanager flocks containing up to twelve different species.
Back at the lodge we were sat eating a late breakfast when there was another crack! There was no visible sign of feathered catastrophe, but as we were heading back out we noticed a shiny green thing crumpled on the floor by the big glass windows. Gutted! It was a male Booted Racket-tail, now a smashed up carcass awaiting removal by the local scavengers, the windows proving to be a death trap. I got up close to it, tears welling in my eyes (or maybe not), paying my final respects, when one of those horror film moments happened and the Racket-tail flipped onto its back and began writhing about trying to fly, stunned and not aware of the fact that it was upside down. It eventually flipped back onto its front and began a lethargic attempt at being a hummingbird again, soon managing to get itself back together and zooming off to assess exactly what had happened over the last five minutes. You shouldn’t laugh, but, well, I did.
Ticks had afflicted Miss Cole earlier in the trip, but so far I had thankfully remained a tick free zone. In fact, up until this very day my entire life had been one of tick free bliss. But if you are going to do something you may was well do it properly, so upon getting my first tick I decided to get one attached right on the very end of the bodily part not usually mentioned in polite company. And if that’s too vague then I had a tick on the end of my cock. It wasn’t a particularly great experience - strange that - and it had to be removed safely to avoid getting a todger infection if the head became detached and was left stuck in. Applying antispetic, I grabed the sh1t just by my todge skin with a pair of tweezers and then began to pull gently at the head, and after a few pulls it came free (oo-er!), its vicious, revolting jaws biting the air presumably hoping to clasp onto something else. It was crushed and flushed, and then I began an all over body check just incase anymore had worked their way onto me. No ticks, but there was a curious black mark in the back of my knee joint. The weak of stomach should probably avoid this next paragraph.
It basically looked like a scab, but I asked Miss Cole to check it wasn’t a tick, just in case. However, upon close inspection her face revealed that something was not good, and I mean really not good. “I hope they are your leg hairs,”she said, referring to the thin black strands that seemed to be matted into the scab. So did I. After dribbling on a bit of antispectic a wave of nausea overcame me as watched the strands start to wriggle. Oh f*ck! “Get it off,” I yelped, thrusting the tweezers at Miss Cole and she peeled the spider/mite type thing off my skin. What had happened was totally disgusting: it seems as though something had bitten me and left an open scab, which this spider/mite thing had taken a liking to. It was obviously so keen to gorge itself on the juices that it been completely unaware that a scab was forming over it and eventually became trapped inside the scab. There it continued to feast, eventually attaining quite an impressive size until it was peeled off, crushed and flushed.
Then, just to add one final insane twist to what was already straight out of the mind of William Burroughs, a Slate-throated Redstart plummeted past the window and slapped hard onto the floor outside our window, having hit the upstairs windows at some speed. Unfortunately the Redstart wasn’t as lucky as the Racket-tail.
Just after lunch history repeated itself, and another hummer suffered a window strike, and this time it was a great new tick: Green-fronted Lancebill! Thankfully it recovered.
Later that day we walked up to inspect the Cock-of-the-Rock lekking hides, just a short walk above San Pedro. Residents of CORL get to use the hides for free, but anyone can go in for just a couple of dollars. But there really is no need. We were able to watch them lekking above the hides themselves from the road, in fact you wouldn’t have even seen them from inside the hides. Just five or six metres away from us the males were bobbing and shuffling sideways along branches, as females and young males watched on from the sidelines. It was one of those phwoar! experiences, and something I’ll never forget.
On day three at San Pedro something went a bit wrong. Checking through my stuff I found some receipts and realised that we had to be in Cusco the next day to catch a bus to Arequipa. I’d booked the tickets and ballsed up the dates as we were supposed to be going higher up the Manu road tomorrow, but we would now have to catch the overnight Gallito de las Rocas bus back to Cusco. Therefore, this would tragically be our last day in Manu. And it was a fantastic end, with another great haul of birds, today’s new ticks being Golden-olive Woodpecker, Montane Woodcreeper, Monatne Foliage-gleaner, Golden-crowned Flycatcher and Russet-crowned Warbler. We also saw another Highland Motmot about 200m above San Pedro by an obvious rock fall, and we later discovered that this is a regular place.
The day came to a close stood on the roadside watching Chestnut-collared and White-collared Swifts en masse heading off to roost, as the sun set over the sharp ridges of the lower Andes to the sound of Chestnut-backed Antshrikes, Black Antbirds and a Cock-of-the-Rock, which unfortunately can only be described as sounding like someone vomiting whilst being violently beaten about the head with a brick.
They look a lot better than they sound.
San Pedro (Cock of the Rock Lodge)
The first day in San Pedro started poor but ended in pretty thrilling style, and so the next day we were out on the road before dawn. Brown Tinamou and Scaled Antpitta were calling in the bottom of the valley and a male Booted Racket-tail was a nice sunrise starter. But no sooner had the common birds come out to play when crack! and a tiny raptor smacked into a Siskin (presumably Olivaceous) before landing just above our heads, piercing the rigid corpse’s head and neck with its beautifully manicured talons. Tiny it was indeed, being a Tiny Hawk. It sat still just a couple of metres above our heads, presumably shocked at its own good fortune having secured something to eat so early in the day. This was to be the start of a curious plague of avian injuries and deaths throughout the day.
This section of the road was definitely subject to the dawn and dusk rule, with activity being lower between about 10am-4pm, something that didn’t seem quite so marked down in the lowlands. But even in the quiet moments you were still never long in waiting for your next new tick, and throughout the day we managed some superb birds, including Pearled Treerunner, Yellow-breasted Antwren, Streak-necked Flycatcher, Marble-faced Bristle -Tyrant (common), Bananaquit, Yellow-throated Bush-Tanager, Black-eared Hemispingus (no thanks to the field guide!) and regularly stumbling upon mixed Tanager flocks containing up to twelve different species.
Back at the lodge we were sat eating a late breakfast when there was another crack! There was no visible sign of feathered catastrophe, but as we were heading back out we noticed a shiny green thing crumpled on the floor by the big glass windows. Gutted! It was a male Booted Racket-tail, now a smashed up carcass awaiting removal by the local scavengers, the windows proving to be a death trap. I got up close to it, tears welling in my eyes (or maybe not), paying my final respects, when one of those horror film moments happened and the Racket-tail flipped onto its back and began writhing about trying to fly, stunned and not aware of the fact that it was upside down. It eventually flipped back onto its front and began a lethargic attempt at being a hummingbird again, soon managing to get itself back together and zooming off to assess exactly what had happened over the last five minutes. You shouldn’t laugh, but, well, I did.
Ticks had afflicted Miss Cole earlier in the trip, but so far I had thankfully remained a tick free zone. In fact, up until this very day my entire life had been one of tick free bliss. But if you are going to do something you may was well do it properly, so upon getting my first tick I decided to get one attached right on the very end of the bodily part not usually mentioned in polite company. And if that’s too vague then I had a tick on the end of my cock. It wasn’t a particularly great experience - strange that - and it had to be removed safely to avoid getting a todger infection if the head became detached and was left stuck in. Applying antispetic, I grabed the sh1t just by my todge skin with a pair of tweezers and then began to pull gently at the head, and after a few pulls it came free (oo-er!), its vicious, revolting jaws biting the air presumably hoping to clasp onto something else. It was crushed and flushed, and then I began an all over body check just incase anymore had worked their way onto me. No ticks, but there was a curious black mark in the back of my knee joint. The weak of stomach should probably avoid this next paragraph.
It basically looked like a scab, but I asked Miss Cole to check it wasn’t a tick, just in case. However, upon close inspection her face revealed that something was not good, and I mean really not good. “I hope they are your leg hairs,”she said, referring to the thin black strands that seemed to be matted into the scab. So did I. After dribbling on a bit of antispectic a wave of nausea overcame me as watched the strands start to wriggle. Oh f*ck! “Get it off,” I yelped, thrusting the tweezers at Miss Cole and she peeled the spider/mite type thing off my skin. What had happened was totally disgusting: it seems as though something had bitten me and left an open scab, which this spider/mite thing had taken a liking to. It was obviously so keen to gorge itself on the juices that it been completely unaware that a scab was forming over it and eventually became trapped inside the scab. There it continued to feast, eventually attaining quite an impressive size until it was peeled off, crushed and flushed.
Then, just to add one final insane twist to what was already straight out of the mind of William Burroughs, a Slate-throated Redstart plummeted past the window and slapped hard onto the floor outside our window, having hit the upstairs windows at some speed. Unfortunately the Redstart wasn’t as lucky as the Racket-tail.
Just after lunch history repeated itself, and another hummer suffered a window strike, and this time it was a great new tick: Green-fronted Lancebill! Thankfully it recovered.
Later that day we walked up to inspect the Cock-of-the-Rock lekking hides, just a short walk above San Pedro. Residents of CORL get to use the hides for free, but anyone can go in for just a couple of dollars. But there really is no need. We were able to watch them lekking above the hides themselves from the road, in fact you wouldn’t have even seen them from inside the hides. Just five or six metres away from us the males were bobbing and shuffling sideways along branches, as females and young males watched on from the sidelines. It was one of those phwoar! experiences, and something I’ll never forget.
On day three at San Pedro something went a bit wrong. Checking through my stuff I found some receipts and realised that we had to be in Cusco the next day to catch a bus to Arequipa. I’d booked the tickets and ballsed up the dates as we were supposed to be going higher up the Manu road tomorrow, but we would now have to catch the overnight Gallito de las Rocas bus back to Cusco. Therefore, this would tragically be our last day in Manu. And it was a fantastic end, with another great haul of birds, today’s new ticks being Golden-olive Woodpecker, Montane Woodcreeper, Monatne Foliage-gleaner, Golden-crowned Flycatcher and Russet-crowned Warbler. We also saw another Highland Motmot about 200m above San Pedro by an obvious rock fall, and we later discovered that this is a regular place.
The day came to a close stood on the roadside watching Chestnut-collared and White-collared Swifts en masse heading off to roost, as the sun set over the sharp ridges of the lower Andes to the sound of Chestnut-backed Antshrikes, Black Antbirds and a Cock-of-the-Rock, which unfortunately can only be described as sounding like someone vomiting whilst being violently beaten about the head with a brick.
They look a lot better than they sound.
Edward woodwood
Member
Hey Tommo
kool stuff again, particularly the spider thingy... maybe it laid eggs... should be hatching soon...
some cracking birds in there too... isn't it just an awesome place? Listening to those weird noises while Mannakins and Racket-tails zip about... all on your own, no one around for miles and miles... just ridge after ridge of forest
hope you enjoyed the night bus up... best time to do it by far, no deadly chasms to fill your pants...
kool stuff again, particularly the spider thingy... maybe it laid eggs... should be hatching soon...
some cracking birds in there too... isn't it just an awesome place? Listening to those weird noises while Mannakins and Racket-tails zip about... all on your own, no one around for miles and miles... just ridge after ridge of forest
hope you enjoyed the night bus up... best time to do it by far, no deadly chasms to fill your pants...
James Lowther
Well-known member
maybe the tick laid eggs?..
seriously, top drawer stuff again Tom
seriously, top drawer stuff again Tom
Edward woodwood
Member
my ex gave birth to a botfly larvae 3-4 weeks after birding in Mexico
horrendous scream from the shower one Sun morn...
watch it Tommo...
horrendous scream from the shower one Sun morn...
watch it Tommo...
Vectis Birder
Itchy feet
Tim Allwood said:
Oooh, lovely. Small price to pay for the wonderful birding...I hope! Or maybe not. :eek!:
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