Seven birders from Birders’ Anonymous and the Sonoran Audubon Society (Helayn Aranguena, Ian Jeffrey, Jane McNeill, Ralph & Doris Palmer, George & Maria Wall) joined five others from out-of-state (Judy Craigo, Philip & Nancy Reicher, David & Kiki Norwood) for a birding trip to Peru (5 October – 20 October). The leader and his wife (Roger & Megan McNeill) were met at the Houston Airport where the journey began. A flight to Lima and then one to Iquitos brought the group to the Amazon River where they boarded a boat and ended up traveling a total of 90 miles down the river.

Explorama was an outfit that had several lodges on or near the river. In the next 6 days, the group traveled to 3 different lodges spending 2 nights at each one. The birding was fantastic in the jungles and some of the better birds seen were Speckled Chachalaca, Wattled Jacana, Nocturnal Curassow, Paradise Tanager, Long-billed Woodcreeper and numerous varieties of Parakeets, Parrots, Toucans, and Trogans. Many of them were too colorful to believe. At one of the lodges, a one mile canopy 122 feet above the floor of the jungle was located. What a view from the top.

Besides birding, the group visited and traded with the Jaguar Indian tribe, tested out their blowguns, tried to catch Paranha. On one of the boating trips, everyone got to observe the Pink and Grey River Dolphins in the dark brown Amazon waters. This phase of the trip wasn’t all a bed of roses (especially to the women) as there was no electricity nor hot water, but the food was excellent. There was a little bit of excitement when the group encountered army ants, but running across 3 Fer-de-Lance snakes that were encountered at 3 different times while walking the jungle trails topped everything.

After leaving the Amazon area, the group traveled by air to Cusco almost 12,000 feet in the Andes. A great part of this leg of the journey was cultural as most toured the ancient city of Cusco and then everyone went to the Machu-Picchu Inca ruins high in the mountains. A lot of shopping was done in this area as there were gorgeous Alpaca sweaters to be had for a song.

Birding took a back seat, but a little was done and some of the better birds seen were the Andean Condor, Andean Guan, Azara’s Spinetail, Torrent Tyrannulet, and the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock.

The next place the group traveled to was a small city on the Pacific Ocean. A bus was used to take everyone from Lima to Paracus that was about 4 hours away. During this stay, a boat journey was taken out to the Guanno Islands where Humboldt Penguins, sea lions and thousands of birds were seen. What a treat. Also in this phase of the journey, one of the most unusual birds was closely obeserved by all – the Giant Hummingbird. This is the largest hummingbird in the world at over 7”. You could actually see the wings beating.

All too soon (for some), the trip was over and all that remained was the drive back to Lima and the flight to the states.

All in all, a total of 405 different species of birds were seen in the 16 days. This is not a great amount when you consider that there are over 1800 species, 118 endemic to Peru, but there was also a lot of sight-seeing.