Carpish

by Gunnar Engblom April 25, 2010 1

In 2010 I will go birding in…..

….a lot of places …and I like you to come with me.

This past year immersing myself into social media, has been amazing getting to know so many birders on line. I would like to meet all of you. Although my year is not completely staked out, I’d like to give you an outline the birding trips and events I have lined up for myself. Maybe our paths shall cross somewhere. Or maybe you want to come along joining me on some of these adventures. I shall write more detailed blogposts presenting each of them. Let me know which you would like to hear more about in the comment section below and I will prioritize.

I have already knocked off a North Peru trip and two Tumbes itineraries with Pelagics in January. In February I was in Colombia with the family and managed to see a couple of nice new birds. (Blog post is practically ready, but need some photos – maybe someone can please lend me photos of Golden-ringed and Black and Gold Tanager?). I am planning to get a Colombia tour together for Januay 2011 if anyone is interested. Here is an old draft of a Colombia Tour, but I certainly will change some as there are now new exciting reserves that can be visited.

Marathon. May 2 and July 18

First on my agenda is Lima Marathon. One may ask what that has to do with birding, but it does. Last year I ran it for the first time and turned it into a fund-raiser for the community on Satipo road. A marathon for conservation. This activity made Rain Forest Partnership interested in starting a small project here. My training has not gone the way I wanted this year, but I am still running the Marathon. I shall be happy if I make it all the way around. So here is a pledge – the same as last year. I will run the Lima Marathon 42.195km on May 2 after sporadic training the last 10 weeks (interrupted by 2 weeks sickness and an injured knee) at 4h13min or less. 4 hours and 13 minutes makes an average speed of 6:00 min per kilometer, which is more or less the speed that I have managed on the long runs I have done so far.

Sign-up in the comment section. And if you have not made the donation from the pledge last year available yet to Rain Forest Partnership, let me know.

My personal goal is to qualify to Boston Marathon. It will not happen at this race, but I have already a new Marathon in my mind where I shall much better trained. Rio de Janeiro Marathon on July 18. That is one week before I turn 50. I have to run in 3:35. I have 14 more weeks to find my top form.

Pelagics

I guess it is the viking in me that always take me to the sea. Contrary to our Peruvian guides, I never get seasick – so I guide practically all of Kolibri Expeditions’ pelagics. Pelagics from Lima are very good with up to 5-6 species of Storm-Petrels seen regularly including the localized Markham’s and Ringed (Hornby’s) Storm-Petrel. The Critically Endangered Waved Albatross is seen on practically every trip. So far the following pelagic tours have clients booked and will thus surely run: May 6, July 19 and 26, Sep 9 and 25, Oct 2, Nov 13 and 26. There are a couple of more dates in the tour calendar but without bookings. Most of these dates have been put there because they are at the beginning or the end of a scheduled trip. Since all trips in Peru begin or end in Lima it is easy to add a pelagic tour – providing we get enough people to run it.

May 17-24 Young Birders Manu community Tour

This is an idea that struck to me recently. Why not offer some tours that needs more assessment to people who would not normally come on birding tours, but are highly motivated birders. When testing new things, there may be things that will not work 100%. Therefore a pre-trip to the community lodges in the Manu area that are promoted this year with the help of bloggers ,will get a jumpstart by young birders on a promotrip.

The gain is on several levels.

Young birders get some guiding in the most difficult habitat to bird. The Amazon rainforest and at a reasonable price.
Our company keeps staff busy and paid, and while the revenue for the company is not great, there will be lots of important pieces of information of what works and what doesn’t on this pilot trip – to be implemented on the coming trips.
The communities get some revenue and the chance to set all right for more comfort demanding clients.

And it will be fun to bird with intense young birders up to 25 years old. I bet we shall make a monster list of birds seen – and that there will be very little sleep! There are 4 vacancies on the trip. Max age 25 years old.
If you don’t qualify age wise, check out all the fixed departures that supports the communities in the Manu area. Still very good value for money and a good cause.

Meet-up / Tweet-up in Lima May 29

@Burdr tweeted a few days ago that it would be wonderful to meet every birder that one has been connected with via Twitter, Facebook or the blog and I could not agree less. When I said so in my tweet-reply, @Burdr said: Let’s all meet in Peru. It clicked as an idea. Dawn Fine has arranged meeting with birders all over the US arranging meet-ups for birders that blog, tweet or chirp. We could do something similar in Lima.

Both locals and visitors and even clients – can meet up for some birding one morning every month. I am considering Saturday mornings when my wife works. That means that my two daughters (and our maid) would be joining us. Join Gunnar, Luciana and Anahi for the first birding meet-up on May 29. I hope to be able to do a meet up once every month or other month.

The training of a new Peruvian guide.

June 15-23 there is scheduled a trip to North Peru and the land of Marvelous Spatuletail. Santos Montenegro is a local campesino who has become interested in birds and in particular the Marvelous Spatuletail. He was the guy who found the displaying Spatultetail that was recently filmed by the BBC on land that was purchased by Santos with funds acquired by Kolibri Expeditions. I recently interview Santos to feature a blog about him and how he got interested in birds. Through help from our clients we have provided Santos with birdbook, binoculars and birdcalls so that he has learnt all the birds in the area so well that local conservation organization ECOAN employed him full time. In June he has holiday and time to join us on a full tour and in July he has to decide whether or not renew the contract with ECOAN or opt to become a bird guide. June 15-23 will be crucial. If you want to be part of forming a new local guide now you know.

British Bird Fair

August 20-22 it is time for the British Birdwatching Fair. Kolibri Expeditions have participated here every year since 2002 together with PromPeru, so we are sad to learn that PromPeru will not be putting up the stand this year. There may be stand for us anyway. I am waiting in anticipation for the decision by the organizers. In any case, I think I will go. It is a unique chance to meet up with clients and business partners. Especially after the Social Media boom, this event has the potential to become a giant meet-up, where you put person to a Facebook profile. Are you going to be at the BirdFair? Shall we meet up?

The biggest day!

September 1-13 . When I write this it is spring in the northern hemisphere and teams are forming to do Birdathons and big days all over for grand causes of bird conservation. Lots of fun, lots of coffee, adrenalin and speed birding.
How about transforming the idea to a business model in the bird richest area of the world? Is it at all possible? The Biggest Day tour!
Ted Parker and Scott Robinson set the world record of 331 species from Manu in 1982 – without motorized vehicle. The idea is to try to beat it or at least get very close to it at Amigos research Center between Manu and Tambopata. The trip will work as birding workshop where the participants will learn to seperate the Amazonian birds by sight and especially call the first 8 days. Day 9 is dress rehearsal, we form teams with the leaders who include guides Antonio Coral, Alex Durand and myself. All the teams should get over 300 species . The results are collected and analyzed before the gran finale on day 12. An attempt on the world record. Now the guides form a team together with one of the participants (a raffle will be made to select the person), while the rest form one or two teams to compete against the guides. Day 13 will be dedicated for the highlights once again and to see some of the elusive vocal species. Day 14 it is back to Puerto Maldonado and flight on to Lima or Cusco. Sound like fun?

Birding in Manu with Rick Wright

Rick Wright former editor of Winging-It and director and guide for Wings, hosts the Community Manu program in September 17-24 – together with me. Rick blogs at Aimophila Adventure. This shall be a fantastic trip with the possibility to add a pelagic in Lima on September 25 and Satipo road/Carpish Community on Sep 26-Oct 3 hosted by Chris West.

Photographic project with Hadoram Shirihai.

All through October to November Hadoram Shirihai and David Beadle will travel in Peru with us on a private photographic expedition. I shall be guiding the first part in Puno, while Alex Durand does all the Manu area. At the end of the period, I shall be guiding again in Central Peru (Carpish and Satipo road).

Scarlet-banded Barbet in Sira Mountains

I have a request for a Scarlet-banded Barbet expedtion from David Matson and Dave Sargeant around Oct 22. There is a new Barbet from southern Sira mountains yet to be described – whether species or subspecies status remains to be seen. Our expedition goes from Puerto Inca further North, where there is access to the highest peaks and from where Kolibri Expeditions already has a good set-up with local contacts. Obviously we don’t know that there will be a Barbet here but since it is the same mountain range as the southern population and our site is right between that and the original site of Scarlet-banded Barbet, there is a very good chance. We get a good gradient of habitats as we reach the highest peaks of over 2000m. Other species that can be seen on this trip include the endemic Sira Tanager, (Peruvian) Horned Curassow (good species based on voice and genetic isolation soon to be split), Sharpbill, Rufous-brown Solitaire, Rufous-webbed Briliant, Creamy-bellied Antwren, White-plumed Antbird, Blue-headed Macaw, Curl-crested Aracari, Chestnut-crowned Gnateater, Wing-banded Wren and many more.

15 Antpittas – and hopefully Banded Ground Cuckoo.

In December I have set up a program that runs from Tarapoto in Peru to Quito in Ecuador and is aiming to pick up 15 species of Antpitta on the way (actually there are 17 species, of Antpittas possible I don’t want to press my luck). We already have three bookings on this trip, which include well known bird book author Klaus Malling Olsen. This will be an epic trip, with lots of endemics. It is especially suitable for those that birded Ecuador in the 90s and want to fill in the gaps as more and more sites for then elusive species have emerged. It is a completely different Ecuador for birding today. Many places have Antpittas feeders – following the success of Angel Paz and his by now world famous Giant Antpitta Maria. The tour runs Nov 28 to Dec 17, with the option to add an eastern Amazonian lowland program of 3-4 days.

That is it. Well not really… because I am also spending a week in May with the family at the beach in Piura as well as a likely holiday somewhere abroad with the family in July or August to be determined.

If you can’t join me, but still want to be birding in Peru during 2010, I suggest you take a look at our tour Calendar, where there are loads of different bird tours scheduled that you can choose from.

by Gunnar Engblom January 13, 2010 10

Young birder trips to Peru 8 days $699

Young birders - Photo: Chris West of https://swallowtailedkite.blogspot.com/.

Here is a spinn-off from our recent Peru-trip give away, in which many young birders participated, although most did not make it all the way to win a free trip. I did reserve several slots for young birders, but I had also to see what possibility the participants would have to be able to raise interest among fully paying participants. Although the social media skills were great, I felt many would have difficulty in getting friends to pay full price. I felt very sorry, considering all the hard work they put in.

Since, then I have been balling a few ideas with Young birders Chris West and Kai Reed. Maybe it would be possible to cater a trip for young birders during our low season at a special discounted price, where some of the costly private transport or expensive hotels are scaled off.
From them I understood that during spring term there would be little chance of going away if the trips were not centered around some holiday. I also understood that price was more important than comfort. This is what I have come up with. The first reactions are very positive among the young birders I have been in contact with, so it is likely that the trips will take off, in spite of the short notice.

We shall offer a birding Carpish/Satipo road program for Young birders SUB25 Feb 14-21 $699 (President’s birthday holiday) and birdwatching in Manu National Park and Amarakaeri communal reserve ~~Feb 25-March 4~~ May 17-24 $699, with possibility to do Manu road or Abra Malaga/Machu Picchu self-guided prior to start of that section. The idea is to provide affordable trips for young birders – and also prepare the communities for when more comfort demanding clients will arrive.

UPDATE: ~~We shall not fill either trip, why we offer both trips also for those birders young at heart, but older than 25 years old. Price is $120/day. An 8 day trip would therefore be only $960. Unbeatable!~~ Satipo road trip set off slightly modified with 3 people on Feb 15. The Manu trip is postponed to May 17. There are still a few vacancies.

Carpish/Satipo would be much less expensive in total than the Manu trip because no internal flight are involved.

What is the catch?

It is rainy season, which traditionally has kept birders away from Peru. However, that should not keep a birder away. The birding is still fantastic – and it beats shoveling snow any day, right!
Some of the Manu lodges are at this point abandoned, but bringing in a large group will allow for the communities to send people there to clear the clearings, which will be a bit overgrown, and making maintenance. It is likely, that not all maintenance shall be ready, but we shall also bring camping equipment to be able to stay wherever we want en route.
No extras are included. That means the flight to Cuzco is not included (we can help with purchase for best price available). Alternatively, a bus can be take to Cuzco (21 hours) from Lima, with the possibility to stop and bird in Abancay. Bus cost is about 50$. The transport to Atalaya from where the Manu trip begins is also not included. This allows for participants to either go down the Manu road with the local bus (Mo, We, Fri) and make stops or travel straight there. The bus is around 20-30 dollars.
One may travel overland back to Cuzco from Maldonado (cost 20-30 dollars) or fly to Lima or Cuzco (we can help for best price). The overland option gives some opportunity to bird around Quincemil and Marcapata.
There are no extras on the Central Peru option.

And what do you get?

Apart from the limitations above, everything else is included. You get an expert English speaking bird guide that knows all calls of the birds to separate antbirds and flycatchers. You have a cook that makes sure you get great food and drinks through-out the trip. A private boat in Manu and private car in Carpish with professional boatmen and driver.

And you should get minimum 300 species of birds with up to over 400 possible.Carpish/Satipo road is potentially more species rich as you pass through many different habitats.

Here are the links again, if you want to read more about the trips.

There will be limited space on the tours. So don’t wait too long to book. Please spread the word through your network of young birders.

Great thanks to Chris West for getting me the excellent picture for this blogpost. Check out Chris West’s blog here.

by Gunnar Engblom December 15, 2009 3

Kolibri News Dec 15, 2009

Golden-backed Tanager - one of the star birds possible during Kolibri Expeditions Give-Away of 15 birding tours during 2010.

I decided to present the full version on the Kolibri News directly on the blog today. However, the give-away of free birding trips is only for the opt-in Newsletter. If you haven’t signed up yet, do so on the right of the blog.

In this issue:

Free birding trip in Peru
Upcoming trips – Fixed departures
Blog posts by Gunnar since the last newsletter
A. Birding in Peru
B. Fascination by Mega twitches, new species to science, re-discovered species and critically threatened species.
C. Social Media for birders
Recommended external links the last month from Gunnar’s Facebook stream

Free birding trip in Peru

Last Saturday, I pulled a PR stunt, giving away 14 birding trips to Manu and Carpish/Satipo road in Peru. The give-away is still active if you follow the directions on my blog. This is not just bold advertising for my company, but more than anything else an attempt to draw attention to birding areas that have communities that can be involved in the conservation of the same and initiate eco-tourism benefiting the same communities.

To be eligible for a free trip, you need to sign-up for our opt-in newsletter – if you have not done so already (there is a form on the blog), and you need to start sharing this link https://bit.ly/8s830C where ever you can (Facebook, Forums, Blog, Twitter, Listservers for birders, Flickr, etc.). The newsletter that will be sent out to you after you have signed up will contain all the additional information and rules that you need to participate.

Fixed departures-upcoming confirmed tours.

The Kolibri Expeditions Birding Tour Calendar for 2009 is beginning to take a more final shape. Our fixed departures have been placed here. There are still a couple of tours that need to be uploaded as fixed departures so do pop in later. I imagine by the end of the week it shall be complete. The give-away hosts will be announced on Christmas Day. The fixed departures shall have both a lower price and an expert leader designated well in advance. Some tours are promotional for new areas and some are an intention to get slightly larger groups so that we can give you a better price. If you don’t find a departure to your favorite destination for your preferred dates, we can still arrange a trip for you. Just let us know your preferences.

Here are a few examples:

Satipo road – short 7 day tour FIXED DEPARTURE Guide: Jose Antonio Padilla. Before: $1085 Now: $868 based on 5 group of five people.. Support the local community at Satipo road. Birding like Manu road and several yet undescribed species. Dec 26, 2009
North Peru 1: Tumbes and pelagic FIXED DEPARTURE: One extra day in Tumbes forest (surcharge 120 US$). With pelagic from Punta Sal. Only 2 vacancies. Jan 4, 2010.
North Peru 2. Piura to Tarapoto. Featuring White-winged Guan, Marvelous Spatuletail, Crescentchest, Royal Sunangel, etc. Departure: Jan 9. More North Peru trips will be scheduled for later in the year.
Amigos SE Peru. The best birding in SE Peru. A place where you have a single base for your birding during the entire stay. 7 or 14 days. At least one departure per month leaving always on a Thursday. Can be arrange also on demand. On Sep 2, 2010 we arrange a lowland amazonian birding workshop. Learn how to separate all the Furnarides, Antbirds, Flycatchers and Woodcreepers by voice. The trip ends with a BIG day for the clients and finally on the last day an attempt for the 24h world record. Everyone should get a personal best.
Guyana, Suriname and Roraima (Guyanan Tepui area in Venezuela) 3 weeks. Start on March 27. Price to be announced. It is possible to make a shorter one or two week trip. I am working on the details and the price for this tour the coming week.
Butterfly-watching. Trip in May in Central Peru is under production. Also a the trip to Manu Communities in December with Corey Finger will include a fair bit of butterflies.

Gunnar’s blog the last three weeks.

A. Birding in Peru.

Anyone seen the Great White Shark or Willy lately. About the uncontrolled Swim-with-the-Sealions activity in front of Palomino island. From the Nov 18 “Pelagic”.
Skua and Tern ID-nuts. From the Nov 18 “Pelagic”
The Pelagic that never happened. As a pelagic the trip on Nov 18 was a bit lame, but I nevertheless managed to get three blog posts out of it, so in that respect it was quite productive! This last one, show some of the additional birds we saw.
I found the world’s most accessible Oilbird cave. Basically, just park your vehicle, walk 50 m along the road to the bridge over the gorge and look down. The oilbirds can be seen during the day, and you don’t need to enter a moldy cave where you risk getting Histoplasmosis (Caused by bat guano fungus).

B. Critically endangered species.

Slender billed Curlew – Extinct birds don’t count. Link to a great series of two posts on 10000 birds and some thoughts on that birders and especially listers ought to do more for birds that are critically endangered.

C. Social Media and Blog Carnivals for Birders

Twitter updates Nov 29, 2009. A mistake auto-created by the Twitter Tools application for the WordPress platform. While this post is a bit boring, it struck me as it could be used for a weekly summary of the Twitter activity. I just had to edit the tweets into different categories (see below for the weekly updates.)
Facebook News Feed and Live Feed. What is the difference? Customize your own News Feed. This was a bit of a revelation to me. How could I hope to engage with over 2000 friends on Facebook. Well, you can’t! But what you can try to do is to follow more intensely the ones that have been kind enough to comment anything you have posted on your wall. I created a customized newsfeed and get this to open first when I open Facebook. This post shows you how.
How to read a blog carnival and leave comments to 23 posts in 59 minutes. I and the Bird #114. This slightly provocative article questioned the value of blog carnivals. It received one of the most interesting stream of comments of all the posts I have posted on my blog.
Weekly Twitter updates Dec 7, 2009. First try of weekly summaries (see above).
Science for Dummies. Scientia Pro Publica Blog Carnival. The best Natural History and Science blogs explained to ordinary people.
Carnival of the Blue. Blog Carnival about the oceans.
Weekly Twitter updates Dec 14, 2009. Second delivery. This definitely looks more and more like a good idea. It stimulates to share even more stuff on Twitter.

by Gunnar Engblom December 12, 2009 41

Do you want to go on a birding trip in Peru for FREE?

Are you joking?

No I am not joking. I am giving away 4 trips to Manu and 10 trips to Carpish/Satipo road in Central Peru. Below the macaw-picture are the departures you can chose from:

Manu 8 days

Manu needs no presentation I think. The lowland amazonian rainforest of SE Peru is world famous. How would you like to come on a totally free birding trip from Lima. You don’t even have to pay for the flights to Cusco and back from Puerto Maldonado. Available departures on the following dates. February 21, April 3, June 27 and July 18.

Carpish/Satipo road 8 days

Central Peru is less known but is great for birding and is also very inexpensive if you want to bring a friend on your free trip. This particular promotions aims to promote the area and create a continuous demand so it will be worthwhile for the communities to set up some basic lodging. At the beginning the conditions will be basic and some camping may be needed, but at the end of the year it is hoped that no camping shall be needed and that the areas should be able to receive visitors throughout the year in the future. Departures as follow: March 17, April 29, June 1, July 6, July 27, August 12, September 25, October 19, Nov 22 and December 12

Why?

I am a tree-hugger at heart. More than a birdwatcher really. There is too much habitat destruction going on. Eco-tourism can be a sustainable way to protect habitat. But true eco-tourism is not possible if the community that lives around or in the area you’d like to conserve is excluded from the master plan. The only way in reality for conservation and true eco-tourism to be successful, is to give local communities true and immediate benefits. The projects I am involved in centre around the communities.

To highlight both to the birding world as well as the communities that there areas are important I have chosen to highlight these areas in “Fixed Departures” that run monthly. Each departure has a host who has been given a free trip. I hope that this marketing, with free trips and the social media platform to get the message across, will be a very effective way to let the world know in very short time about these new birding destinations with extremely diverse wildlife, lush forests and spectacular scenery.
Also, from the perspective of the project itself and to be successful, both areas need groups fast and frequently. Otherwise, it is likely that the communities will not bother about the conservation and the eco-tourism.

What is in it for me? Disclaimer!

Kolibri Expeditions is a small company. This PR-stunt (I don’t think anyone else have tried such a bold trip give-away earlier) should/could become almost viral (at least among birders). I hope this could get our company out of little league. We are doing a good thing. We employe Peruvian guides. We work with communities. We are environmentally concerned. We have compatible prices.

Yet, we still have had problems at the end of the year for the past three years to get it together (although 2009 looks better than many previous years). The main reason for the poor result is low sales between December and May and our fixed cost that are even through-out the year. Our staff is mainly on pay-roll with legal rights to overtime, vacation, social health care and pension. So even in our slow months we have staff to pay. There is really no reason why birders should not come to Peru all year around. You will always find more birds in Peru than in your own country in the northern hemisphere. Costa Rica and Ecuador do not shut down in the rainy season – Why should Peru do so?

To sell more trips through-out the year, Kolibri Expeditions must become better known. The give-away should help!

So what is the catch?

There isn’t much of a catch really. The trips will be totally free from Lima. , Since there are only 14 trips in total given away I shall chose those that provide the biggest value to the company. How you can supply that value to us will be treated in my next opt-in newsletter due Saturday Dec 12 (the newsletter will also be sent to anyone signing up later). This is what you need to do now to be eligable for a free birding trip in Peru.

The first thing you need to do is to sign-up to our new opt-in newletter if you have not already done so. Where? In the center column just below the big picture of a Tanager or Mr Engblom with child, there is a form to fill in. Email and Name, please! Then you will get an email telling you to click the confirmation link. That is it! You are now subscribed to the bi-weekly Kolibri Expeditions newsletter.
Is that it? No! One more thing! The idea is to use Social Media. Social media is all about sharing. Here is the link to this post that you need to share: https://bit.ly/8s830C
In order to be eligable for a free trip you need to share. The more you share, the bigger chance you have for a free trip. I am not saying you have to become a spammer, but I am sure your friends would like to know about this possibility. Even if you don’t win one of the free trips, you will by participating and sharing win a lot of Karma, so that new opportunities will be given to you for substancial discounts or other special offers or promotions.So where and how do you share? Twitter and Facebook are the two most obvious platforms and where you probably heard of this first. However, you may be participating in different forums for birders, listservers for birders, My Space, Hi5, Linked In, FriendFeed, Chatterbirds, Chirptracker, picture sharing platforms such as Flickr, Picasa, etc. Good ol’ email and blogging also works. Write your friends and write about this in your blog. I will promote cross-link on my social media platforms to your blogpost as well as some other post on your blog which should bring you some traffic
Also make sure you use all sorts of link sharing platforms such as Delicious, Digg and Stumble Upon and that you re-tweet this everytime you open this page (check the re-tweet button and digg button above-I’ll see if I can find a SU button somewhere so please come back!).
Finally, let’s mention Facebook again. You should share this link https://bit.ly/8s830C on your wall and become fan of, monitor and participate on, the Kolibri Expeditions Facebook page. Every time you do, there is a little note on your own wall, that you have posted something on Kolibri’s wall.
Do you get the picture? Social Media rocks!

That is all you need to do for now. Easy, huh?

FAQ

Q. I am not a hard core birder, I just like nature in general.Can I still participate.

A. Yes, you can! These indigenous communities can hardly make enough money, if they have to rely only on birders. Nevertheless, there is a reason why we chose to start promoting to birders. Birding is a great way to promote new area if the ornithological value is high.
You should not expect the set-up to be 100% functional when communities, completely new to the challanges of eco-tourism, are involved. However, as a birder, as long as you see a lot of birds, some hardships and things not being perfect can be dealt with. When birders will tell other birders how great an area is for birding, it rarely has to do with what food they ate , or what temperature the shower had, but what birds they have seen. In this sense birders are the cutting edge of eco-tourism – as they can withstand less than perfect comfort as long as they see the birds.
Having said this, I am keen to offer Manu departures with other themes than birding. Anyone being avid in photography, mammals, herps, butterflies or botany would have a great chance of receiving a free trip.
If you merely have a general interest in the rain forest, these trips are not for you. However, if you have a large network of contacts and feel you can generate some interest among others to see the Amazon rain forest, Giant Otter, Tapir, Macaw-lick and up to 10 species of monkeys, I would be happy to discuss the opening of some general natural history departures also during this first promotional year – and if you can recruit members to such a trip and host it – so much better as I could then supply you with a freebie.

Q. Will you repeat this in 2011r?

A. Probably not! At least not in this form directed to birders in general. Some tour operators, birding magazines and prominent bloggers may get an offer, but it is unlikely I will present it to the public in this massive way as now. It is now or never! In any case we hope by next year that we have raised enough money to increase comfort and that it shall be no problem selling the trips for a higher amount.

Q. Why don’t you spit it out? What tours are you talking about?

A. Sorry! I was carried away talking about how great the trips are without presenting them. Here they are Manu community lodges 8 days and Satipo road and Carpish. The first is a Amazonian lowland destination and the second is a cloud forest destination. The person winning the free trip would act as host for the trip.

Q. Where can I learn more about the community projects you are involved in?

A. Here are a couple of links. I realize I need soon to write an update on the advances on the Satipo road and Amarakaeri projects, but in any case these old posts give you some background.

Amarakaeri/Manu
Birdwatching in a communal reserve next to Manu
News from Amarakaeri – the communal reserve next to Manu.

Satipo road project
Outline of ideas behind Satipo road project – before trip to Mindo, Ecuador.
A marathon for conservation – A fundraising marathon and some update on the project from 2009.

Q. I want to travel with my partner. Can we both get a free trip?

A. Yes and no! The Manu trips are tied back to back with the Carpish/Satipo road trips. Although you and your friend would not get freebie to same Manu trip, your partner could ask for a freebie to the Carpish trip that follows. This may be a advantage, when it comes down to selecting the hosts. Make sure you let me know if you are a pair.

I suggest you send me lots of other questions to my email kolibriexp@gmail.com so I can deal with them in the next newsletter.

See you on the other side.

Once again this is what you need to do:

Sign-up for the newsletter on the top of the mid column -just below the Tanager photo or the photo of me and Luciana.
Share this link https://bit.ly/8s830C on Facebook and Twitter and any other Social Media platform you can think of. Don’t link directly to the trip pages, please. We don’t need to shove it down their throats.
Please don’t mention the company name in head-lines… don’t want it to appear spammy! Mentioning my name and a link to the blog should be OK, but please don’t link directly to the trip pages. Again, that would appear as too spammy in a message to many people.

Many thanks for taking part in this social media experiment.

The photo depicts 3 species of Macaws from Tambopata. The Blue and Yellow Macaw is not found on the clay lick at Manu, but the species is generarlly seen in the area. Photo Credit: Tim Ryan From the Faraway, Nearby.

by Gunnar Engblom November 21, 2009 3

Pishtacos – Human oil extractors – The Bogeymen of Peru.

Bay-vented Cotinga. One of the special birds in the remote Unchog in Carpish, Huanuco

The news of Peruvian human oil extractors – pishtacos- is now not only a legend of the central highlands of Peru after yesterday’s news release that travelled the world. (See World War 4 Report and BBC)

This quite seriously damages Peru’s reputation and could also have effects when birding.

In the Central highlands of Junin, Pasco and Huanuco the Pishtaco is the Bogeyman. The adults tell the kids that if the don’t eat up or behave, the Pishtaco will take them. The Pishtacos are white mercenaries killing locals, extracting their oil, to sell to Europe and to the US for use of beauty lotions, plastic surgery, grease the railroad and – believe it or not – to run the Space Shuttle.

When I first travelled in Central Peru with a group in 1996, the kids upon seeing us jumped into the ditch as we drove by silently screaming “Pishtacos”. A few years later our car was bombarded with stones as we drove up to Unchog. At the trail just beyond the Carpish Tunnel a man directly accused us of being Pishtacos.

Over the years, the people in the Carpish/Unchog area have become more accustomed to see gringos birdwatching. Also there have been direct benefits with donations to the schools in the area as well as an entrance fee established to visit Unchog for birding and I until recently thought the Pishtaco episode – taking birders for pishtacos – was over and done with.

The myth becomes reality

With the national police showing the evidence yesterday and three suspects have confessed to killing five people for their fat, and two were arrested carrying bottles of liquid fat, the legend suddenly get some substance. It is hard to believe however that there really is a commerce with human body fat going on around the world. As Dr Adam Katz, professor of plastic surgery at the University of Virginia medical school, says:

I can’t see why there would be a black market for fat, It doesn’t make any sense at all, because in most countries we can get fat so readily and in such amounts from people who are willing and ready to donate that I don’t see why there would ever be a black market for fat, of all tissues.

If it is true, and these crimes have been committed, it seems that the gang may have believed the legend so much that they got absorbed in becoming producers of the oil wanted by “beautiful white first world”. Sad when you think of it. Like digging for gold at the end of the rainbow.

In some Peruvian sources, it has been claimed, that this type of news-story – urban legends “proven” true – such as pishtacos or blood-crying madonnas, always pop-up as smoke screens when the reigning authorities are in trouble. Time will tell, but watch carefully what pops up to be officially forgotten within the following days.

Recommendation for birders

Unfortunately, the deep-rooted myth is getting fuel by such news. This may become dangerous to adventurous travellers off the beaten track – as birders often are. Here are some examples for you.

Last year we took some farmers from Central Peru (Carpish and Satipo road) to Mindo so they could experience eco-tourism in practice. We wanted to bring more people from Carpish, but rumours had it, that we were Pishtacos and that the participants would be beheaded, slaughtered and adipose extracted when exposed to foreign buyers in Ecuador. One of the members from Carpish, was suprised to see that none of this was true and that he returned living and well to Carpish.

Earlier this year, in another part of Central Peru, in Pucacocha in the Andamarca valley, Junin, our car was surrounded by villagers accusing the birders inside the vehicle for being Pishtacos. The situation was somewhat uncomfortable, but our guide and driver managed to explain what we really were doing and the group could leave with somewhat of a scare.

In light of the hysteria and psychosis that follows news like this I recommend that independant birders visiting the departments of Huanuco, Pasco and Junin to be very careful. You should speak good Spanish if you want to visit these areas now or go with a Peruvian guide. Birders travelling with tour companies should have no worries, as these companies make pre-arrangements with the local communities.

Also, I don’t expect any complications whatsoever along the normal tourist circuit Lima-Paracas-Nazca-Colca-Titicaca-Cusco-Machu Picchu-Manu – or other parts of Peru for that matter.

by Gunnar Engblom April 24, 2009 4

Endemic Little Brown Jobs in Central Peru

LBJ:s in Peru are pretty

With a Carpish trip just finished as and a Central Peru trip, featuring Carpish and Satipo road starting on May 17, I’d thought I’d tease you with some pics of some of my favorite birds in the region. In spite of not being exactly colorful, they are great birds – just to give you an idea.

Bay-vented Cotinga

Bay-vented Cotinga can usually be seen at Bosque Unchog, where it will sit on the tree-tops.

Taczanowski’s Brush-Finch

Taczanowski’s Brush-Finch, soon to be split from Slaty Brush-Finch of Ecuador, is endemic to Central Peru.

Eye-ringed Thistletail

This is a Thistletail with personallity. A fantastically cool bird found in the bamboo in the upper part of the Satipo road. This is practically the only place where it can be seen.

Obscure Antpitta (Grallaria rufula obscura)

I call him Obcure Antpitta due to its scientific name. It is absolutely clear that this subspecies Grallaria rufula obscura should be split out from Rufous Antpittas. Just listen to these recordings! Obscure Antpitta vs Rufous Antpitta ssp rufula.

The problem is what to do with the other subspecies and define exactly where the limits are. Rufous Antpitta most likely contain up to 7 or 8 species!!

Diademed Sandpiper Plover

Not exactly an endemic (it occurs also in Chile), and a bit too particular to be called a Little Brown Job. This is one of the most wanted birds by the birders that come to Peru. Why? I think the fact that it is something in between a plover and sandpiper, and lives at 4600m above sealevel. How is that for a Shorebird (sic!).

Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager

It can’t be acccused of being a little brown job, but I include it anyway, because it is the most wanted bird on the route. It can be seen at Bosque Unchog. If you are looking for some last minute travelling, the trip starts on May 17. And is offered with a 20% discount.

All photos by Gunnar Engblom under creative commons license. You may use the photos as long as you link to this source. Recordings by Willem-Pier Velinga and Nick Athenas under creative commons license at https://Xeno-canto.org

by Gunnar Engblom April 22, 2009 4

Carpish jewel. What a pecker!

Crimson-mantled Woodpecker

Here is a photo from yesterday in Carpish, taken by our bird guide Juan Jose Chalco digiscoping. What a bird!

Crimson-mantled Woodpecker. Photo: Juan Jose Chalco.

This bird was voted best bird of the day yesterday by the partipants of the Carpish-trip. It is a beauty!

by Gunnar Engblom March 6, 2009 1

Carpish trip confirmed April 18-26

Birding Carpish

I am very pleased to announce yet another trip to Carpish mountains in April. Yesterday, I got a new booking right after Easter April 18-26. I have recently blogged about my last speed birding 4 day trip to Carpish with Scott Robinson and his friends. See the following posts.
Day 1. Lima-Huanuco.
Day 2. Birding the Carpish Tunnel.
Day 3. Birding Unchog and Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager.
Day 4. Birding Junin.

This time will do a full 9 day tour described on our web-page, but it is possible to shorten it to 7 days.

I thought I’d wet your appetite with some pictures below. They birds are all waiting for you.

Junin Lake. Great for migrating waders, ducks and critically threatened Junin Grebe.

Bay-vented Cotinga. Another threatened endemic of Bosque Unchog, Huanuco, Peru

Andean Goose in flight. Can be seen at Junin Lake for instance.

Ash-breasted Tit-tyrant. Endemic to Peru. Readily found at Carpish. Tied to bamboo.

Rufous Antpitta. ssp obscura – which has a completely different song.

Diademed Sandpiper Plover. DSP. Isn’t this one of the most spectacular wader there is?. Readily found on the Marcapomacocha road and near Ticlio which we visit on the last day of the trip.

Had to show this mega bird again, when talking about Bosque Unchog.
Endangered Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager.
The maing target bird on the trip.

by Gunnar Engblom January 12, 2009 3

Birding Unchog. Express birding in Peru Day 3. On English bird names.

One morning Unchog clean-up with Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager

Wednesday Jan 7, 2009.
Its not every birding day on our itinerary that has a 2.30 AM start, but to visit Unchog in just one day and have decent go at the Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager and the Rufous-browed Hemispingus in the rainy season and not to have to camp, does require extreme measures.

We had plenty of time on our hands to get to the start of the trail beyond the small village of Cochabamba and it turned out we needed all that time, due to delays in the morning and sliding off the track with one wheel and pushing the van back up again. The road up to Unchog can be very slippery. Fortunately, the locals had done good maintenance and we got to our final destination – the end of the road – around 5.15 and it was still dark. Julio prepared breakfast and we had a good bowl of fruit salad, yogurt and granola, as well as freshly French pressed coffee from Alto Mayo in Northern Peru, before we started walking. We had a gentle 50 meter rise, and then a 300m drop to get into prime habitat. On the way we saw Plenge’s Thistletail, and Many-striped Canastero. Sedge Wrens and Neblina Tapaculo were singing.
We reached “Hemispingus bend” just as a flock was forming with Pearled Treerunner, White-throated Tyrannulet, Citrine Warbler and the endemic Pardusco (one of the Carpish endemics), and almost immediately Andy Kratter stuttered,

“Ttheerre it is. The, the , the Hemispingus” as I was pointing out a beautiful Golden-collared Tanager. “Rufous-browed Hemispingus” he yelled to the others some 20-30 meters behind us. Everyone got brilliant views and Andy even got some pictures. This is a bird many groups often miss. Excellent start!
Reyes had continued down the trail to be on the lookout for GBMT. We soon caught up and stood looking out over a stunning forest and the sun playing with the canopy as the forest was warming up. We had probably not stood there for more than 20 minutes, when I saw some movement in a tree only some 20 meters in front of me. Now it was my time to stutter. Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager. Everyone except Per Lundberg stood close and had great views. Per came rushing in from 50 meters down the trail and eventually also got good views.

It was only 8.15 and we had already seen the two most wanted birds on the trip.

Rufous-browed Hemispingus. Photo: Andy Kratter

The rest of the morning produced relatively few new birds. Some heard included Undulated Antpitta, Obscure Rufous Antpitta (obscura form) and Tchudi’s Tapaculo. One of my best birds was a cooperative White-browed Spinetail. A bird I have seen only in Southern Ecuador and now a Peru tick!

We even managed to get some exercise. The 300m uphill got the heart beating. Julio had already prepared lunch. Spaguetti bolognaise. Uneventful, trip back to Huanuco and we continued to Junin via a stop en route for Brown-backed Inca-Finch, which was seen very well. Additionally, Black-crested Tit-Tyrant was seen briefly by myself.
In Junin at 4100m we stayed at a basic hotel and went out for a meal. In spite of the restaurant looking modest, the food was very tasty. I had trout.

English Birdnames

When birding with prominent North American ornithologists, who mostly use the scientific names as first choice, English bird names soon become a great topic for discussion. If “collecting” get lots of opinions (see the last posting) from birders and ornithologists alike, English birdnames give even more opinions. “Stability” is used as the number one argument in many cases favoring not to change a name, but in other cases “improvements” are necessary because the current name is “no good”. In many cases it gets very subjective. And to whom shall we (the public, the birders and the rest of the ornithologists) give mandate, to select the best set of names. No matter who does the job, there will always be discontent.
In recent years there has been some attempts to synchronize. International Ornithology Congress (IOC) has pointed a commission to standardize English bird names. This lead to the publication of “Birds of the World. Recommended English names” in 2006 by Frank Gil and Minturn Wright. The full list constantly revised and updated as new species are described or split can be found on https://www.worldbirdnames.org/. IOC takes on English birdnames – this got be the right course to take. Not surprisingly, not all want to accept the international standardization. Notably, AOU with the two committees North American Checklist Committee (NACC) and South American Checklist Committee (SACC), has their own set of rules and many is some cases have different English names than those suggested by IOC. NACC took a vote to adopt IOC:s suggested changes of names of North American birds, but since the list also included spelling and hyphenation differences, all the changes were turned down in bulk.

The most eye-catching or (ear-catching) hard to swallow names and to take to tounge are the Myioborus White/Redstarts. SACC insists on Redstart, while IOC favors Whitestart. “Start” is a germanic word meaning tail (also in old English). Anyone can see that the Myioborus have no red in its tail what so ever. It is the Painted Redstart, that occur in almost every North American birdbook with this same name, that makes so difficult for the Americans to accept the logical name-change. This has become a personal rant issue of mine – so beware before you klick on the link to put down your vote for your preference. Whitestart or Redstart?. Don’t take it too serious. It is just for fun! SACC is unjustly picked on. SACC has put forward Neotropical Ornithology light years by putting down a baseline for taxonomy and un-doubted distribution. However, maybe putting English names could be best appointed to the IOC committee especially formed for this purpose.
Andy Kratter is on the North American Checklist committee and was the only one who favored whitestart when NACC took a vote on whitestart/redstart. Andy, you are a hero!

There are a few other interesting cases. Northern Chestnut-tailed Antbird was described as such by the Islers and Whitney and favored by IOC, but SACC changed it to Zimmer’s Antbird. Why? Because a dominant number of the members of SACC do not like compound name with long geographic epitets. But geography can acutally be much more informative than combination of color and body parts of cryptic species with hardly no such difference or naming the bird after a person. In spite of SACCs decission I don’t think anyone has yet wanted to change the names of Northern/Southern Rough-winged Swallow or Northern/Southern Beardless Tyrannulet. Want to vote on this as well?

Another favorite case of mine is Lulu’s/Johnson’s Tody-Tyrant. In spite of normally favoring stability, SACC renamed this cute bird endemic to Peru, that already had a name both in the formal description as well as the published Birds of Peru by Clements and Shany. Surely Lulu is more catchy than Johnson. Vote here!