Birding Peru
Well-known member
Hi Everyone,
It has been a while since I logged onto Bird Forum, which is a quite a shame as the content here always rocks. Anyway, my birdwatching outfitter company in Peru turns 20 years this year so I thought I do something I had never done before. A BIG MONTH. There are many reasons for this, but mainly I wanted to do something different. Although the concept was sold as a trip punters could join, I was fast determined to do it regardless. In a way to see Peru one bird at the time over the 31 days of October 2018.
It is a crazy thing to do, the sure you could say that it does no good for the environment and the global warming. However, it is my belief that many areas in Peru suffer from rates of deforestation so fast, that a single birder travelling around with a carbon emitting fossil fuel engine, could actually highlight so many cool birding options for the general public, that many more areas could be saved, if only there was a few more eco-dollars flowing in.
So in spite of not doing a fundraiser, simply for the human limits of time constraint, I hope these posts will inspire more people to visit Peru and liaise with the local communities who are trying to save some remaining habitat.
20 years in Peru has given me quite unique knowledge in what is needed, and as I have done in the past, there may be some ideas for fundraisers for conservation when I am done with these posts.
Since the result of the whole shabang is already out there, I shall tell you.
1006 species on 31 days. Less, than I had expected but still a number I am extremely proud of. Shit happens when you are birding for so long.
Please forgive my faulty English as I will write here directly and no editing. English is not my native language, so I am sure there will be some things that could be said in another way. My good friend and Kolibri Expeditions co-worker Warren Latham shall edit these posts eventually, and also put out more information dense posts on my website blog where there will be some plugs. You are welcome to visit my blog for more info.
Big Month.
20 years ago, In 1998 I made Peru my home, and started Kolibri Expeditions. It would have beeen great to be able beat some record. We could perhaps have attempted to do a Big Day and get the record back to Peru, but after the jaw dropping number some dedicated birders got in Ecuador two years ago (431 species), it did not feel it would even be possible to get close.
So what about a Peru Big Year? I had the privilege to set up the Peru birding part of Noah Strycker’s record breaking Big Year around the globe in 2015 in which he got 6042 species. Quite a few birders have now done Big Years covering the whole world, countries, states or counties, birding intensely for a whole calendar year. In Peru it would be quite possible to do a Big Year reaching 1500 species. In fact Kolibri Expeditions's legendary bird guide - Alex Durand - is actually pursuing this for 2018. But for me, this would be far too time consuming and also a constraint on work and social life. So I figured a month would be something I could get away with and also something that I could perhaps get paying customers to join, at least for parts or for the whole thing, to celebrate Peru’s biodiversity with me.
Iain Campbell and Nick Athanas of Tropical Birding got 1674 species in a month visiting 9 countries. Surely this could be beat with a wide ranging trip including several continents, but costs would be extremely high and we’d unlikely get anyone to sign up for such a tour. So instead I concentrated on just one country - Peru.
How many species are possible to record by an individual or a party in one country for one month? In the 90s, before eBird and Facebook-friends, Paul Salaman organized a tour to Colombia for a month and got just over 1000 species. The biggest list for a tour over a calendar month was made by Rockjumper in Colombia in 2014 with Forrest Rowland leading and 1044 species. Could Peru beat Colombia for a big month?
Noah and I got 784 species in 21 days during the rainy season in Peru (not ideal) during Noah’s Big Year. Arjan Dwarshuis and Miguel Lezama got 1001 species in 24 days (not rainy season) the year after during Arjan’s new record breaking Big Year with 6848 species. Optimizing time of year, and keeping it within a 31 day month, I was setting my mind to crush the Big Month record for a tour to one country and get the record to where it belongs - Peru!
Here are some main thoughts how one should try to pull this off.
I was personally guiding throughout, and in many ways it was like running a marathon. There were sections when one just wanted to quit and enter the closest bar to get drunk, and curse the whole silly project as useless and pointless. At times it was not that much fun. I destroyed birding equipment and gadgets worth several thousands of dollars during the trip and I probably missed a few clients when not being connected to internet. Luckily, since this year the South African Warren Latham mentioned above does a lot of email correspondence for me and keeps in touch with the clients. Without him, and my trusty Kolibri Expeditions staff in Lima working logistics and bookings for clients such as BirdQuest when I was away, this would not have been possible at all.
Are you ready? Let's jump into it. Continuation follows.
Saludos
Gunnar
It has been a while since I logged onto Bird Forum, which is a quite a shame as the content here always rocks. Anyway, my birdwatching outfitter company in Peru turns 20 years this year so I thought I do something I had never done before. A BIG MONTH. There are many reasons for this, but mainly I wanted to do something different. Although the concept was sold as a trip punters could join, I was fast determined to do it regardless. In a way to see Peru one bird at the time over the 31 days of October 2018.
It is a crazy thing to do, the sure you could say that it does no good for the environment and the global warming. However, it is my belief that many areas in Peru suffer from rates of deforestation so fast, that a single birder travelling around with a carbon emitting fossil fuel engine, could actually highlight so many cool birding options for the general public, that many more areas could be saved, if only there was a few more eco-dollars flowing in.
So in spite of not doing a fundraiser, simply for the human limits of time constraint, I hope these posts will inspire more people to visit Peru and liaise with the local communities who are trying to save some remaining habitat.
20 years in Peru has given me quite unique knowledge in what is needed, and as I have done in the past, there may be some ideas for fundraisers for conservation when I am done with these posts.
Since the result of the whole shabang is already out there, I shall tell you.
1006 species on 31 days. Less, than I had expected but still a number I am extremely proud of. Shit happens when you are birding for so long.
Please forgive my faulty English as I will write here directly and no editing. English is not my native language, so I am sure there will be some things that could be said in another way. My good friend and Kolibri Expeditions co-worker Warren Latham shall edit these posts eventually, and also put out more information dense posts on my website blog where there will be some plugs. You are welcome to visit my blog for more info.
Big Month.
20 years ago, In 1998 I made Peru my home, and started Kolibri Expeditions. It would have beeen great to be able beat some record. We could perhaps have attempted to do a Big Day and get the record back to Peru, but after the jaw dropping number some dedicated birders got in Ecuador two years ago (431 species), it did not feel it would even be possible to get close.
So what about a Peru Big Year? I had the privilege to set up the Peru birding part of Noah Strycker’s record breaking Big Year around the globe in 2015 in which he got 6042 species. Quite a few birders have now done Big Years covering the whole world, countries, states or counties, birding intensely for a whole calendar year. In Peru it would be quite possible to do a Big Year reaching 1500 species. In fact Kolibri Expeditions's legendary bird guide - Alex Durand - is actually pursuing this for 2018. But for me, this would be far too time consuming and also a constraint on work and social life. So I figured a month would be something I could get away with and also something that I could perhaps get paying customers to join, at least for parts or for the whole thing, to celebrate Peru’s biodiversity with me.
Iain Campbell and Nick Athanas of Tropical Birding got 1674 species in a month visiting 9 countries. Surely this could be beat with a wide ranging trip including several continents, but costs would be extremely high and we’d unlikely get anyone to sign up for such a tour. So instead I concentrated on just one country - Peru.
How many species are possible to record by an individual or a party in one country for one month? In the 90s, before eBird and Facebook-friends, Paul Salaman organized a tour to Colombia for a month and got just over 1000 species. The biggest list for a tour over a calendar month was made by Rockjumper in Colombia in 2014 with Forrest Rowland leading and 1044 species. Could Peru beat Colombia for a big month?
Noah and I got 784 species in 21 days during the rainy season in Peru (not ideal) during Noah’s Big Year. Arjan Dwarshuis and Miguel Lezama got 1001 species in 24 days (not rainy season) the year after during Arjan’s new record breaking Big Year with 6848 species. Optimizing time of year, and keeping it within a 31 day month, I was setting my mind to crush the Big Month record for a tour to one country and get the record to where it belongs - Peru!
Here are some main thoughts how one should try to pull this off.
- No checked-in luggage. In order to save time, everyone were traveling with just carry on luggage and a personal item on the flights. No time for check-in luggage and less time to stand waiting at the carousel for a bag. High tech clothing for fast laundry, mini telescope and tripod, point and shoot camera, will keep the luggage to a minimum. Furthermore, practically all our vehicles would have a larger spotting scope and tripod.
And if you think it can’t be done - that is travel, with only a carry on for a month, this is what Noah Strycker packed for a full year birding https://www.audubon.org/news/gear-year around the world.
Even without checked in luggage, the regulations on what you can bring on board for many airlines are quite lax. You can actually have two “carry-ons” - one ordinary size cabin bag (height 55 cm) and one, so called, personal item (height 45 cm) and although the larger of the two should not weigh more than 8 kilos, I have rarely had any problems with this when flying well recognised LATAM airlines in Peru.
- Scouting the Amazon. During the Southern section with Tambopata and Manu road, it is especially true for the lowlands that birds can be notoriously difficult to see. So during the Big Month, many Amazonian birds would be heard only. Obviously, this is not fun to someone who pays money to SEE birds. To remedy that, we did 4 full days of Amazon lowland birding before the actual start on Oct 1. So from Sep 27-Sep 30 we checked every birdable corner near Puerto Maldonado to maximize the list and stake out where our targets are for the start on October 1.
- Starting the Big Month with a Big Day on Oct 1.
After 4 days of solid birding most species would have been seen in our surrounding, so we would start with a Big Day covering old Secondary lowland floodplain forest, some primary terra firme forest near Infierno, swamp forest known as aguajal, bamboo thickets, Moriche Palm swamps, lagoons, ponds, forest creeks, river, river island, pastures and savanna like habitat. This mix, will have far more species than just continuous Amazonian forest. The goal was to reach 300 species seen and heard by 1pm and fly to Cuzco at 1.40 pm. Between Cuzco and the top part of Manu road perhaps 40-50 species can be added, and putting the team in the range of a new Peru record.
Oh well, that was the plan, but to no surprise, we failed miserably!
- Night travel: The the most efficient way to move from one birding spot to another with no particular birding in between, and without losing birding time, is by night. It is also of course the most efficient time to get some rest. The truly hard core birders are good at this combo. But it takes some practice.
Naturally because of the reason I just mentioned there are a few night drives scheduled and most flights are in the evening. This means that we need to catch up on sleep as we move. In my experience this does put a lot of stress to the party, but this can be mitigated by knowing up front which sections are to be done at night (this was specified in the day to day program). We recommended to carry an inflatable neck pillow, sleeping mask, headphones with noise elimination, practice napping with the Pzizz app and Headspace for daily meditation.
- Birding celebrities are joining. The first part Sep 27-Oct 7 we got the company of South African top birder Trevor Hardaker for the southern part of the trip. Noah Strycker was with us from Oct 7-24 for all things north. Finally, well known Colombia Birding guide and social media king, Diego Calderon from the Colombia joined for the last Central Peru part Oct 26-Oct 31.
All were very generous sharing stuff as we went along and afterwards on the social media platform.
- Paying clients. It cost money to have fun, so the idea was to have some clients who would pay to join us. In the end we had only a handful paying birders who made the budget somewhat more pinkish red, than flaming deep red proximity to bankruptcy. Huge thanks to Juha Autio, Geraint Langford, and Frank Smith for company in the field. You made a huge difference to be able to pull this off.
I was personally guiding throughout, and in many ways it was like running a marathon. There were sections when one just wanted to quit and enter the closest bar to get drunk, and curse the whole silly project as useless and pointless. At times it was not that much fun. I destroyed birding equipment and gadgets worth several thousands of dollars during the trip and I probably missed a few clients when not being connected to internet. Luckily, since this year the South African Warren Latham mentioned above does a lot of email correspondence for me and keeps in touch with the clients. Without him, and my trusty Kolibri Expeditions staff in Lima working logistics and bookings for clients such as BirdQuest when I was away, this would not have been possible at all.
Are you ready? Let's jump into it. Continuation follows.
Saludos
Gunnar
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