(download)

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guano-birds-and-magellanic-penguin-at-paracas-oct-9-2011-JGcqGiJJsrwixDFjmwbD.zip (2.55 MB)

Blackish Oystercatcher

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This and the next photo of a Guanay Cormortant and a young Peruvian Booby are almost identical, except for the passing of two Peruvian Pelicans. Which one do you like most? I like this series and could not decide which photo to share on the blog, so I decided to share a couple that turned out well.

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[[posterous-content:pid___7]]Some individuals where involved in this courtship behaviour. Other were mating while we past by. 

[[posterous-content:pid___8]]There were a lot of Peruvian Pelicans present in the harbour. 

[[posterous-content:pid___9]]You may think that cormorants are ugly birds. Well not this one. Here is the red-legged Cormorant.

Humboldt Penguins and one Magellanic Penguin. Can you find the Magellanic Penguin? Look for a double breast band and lack of pink on the bill. It is easy to miss. I actually missed this one myself.

[[posterous-content:pid___1]]Luckily on the second outing, I asked to go via the small Penguin group that we first saw to see if the Magellanic Penguin had returned. This is where it was seen a the before I was there. Although hard to see behind a rock, there was the Magellanic Penguin.

When it stood up it more evident that this was indeed the one I wanted. 

 Mystery tubenoses

I am quite sure this is a Salvin's ALbatross, but that dark bill with yellow ridge confuses me and I can't find in the guide books. However, there is a photo in Shirihai's Antartic Wildlife that is ID:d as a Salvins that is quite similar in bill pattern. Although the black leading edge is bit broader than a I am used to for Salvin's, it is stll to narrow for Atlantic Yellow-nosed I presume. Also the thumbmark is very prominent.

I feel certain this is a Parkinson's Petrel although I was wishing for Westland and maybe more exptected with the cold water present. We had around 3-5 birds like this and all my photos conclude Parkinson's.

Tricky IDs. I like to hear your comments.

Update: JP Perret and Ignacio Garcia Godos think the last picture may be a White-chinned Petrel - and indeed there is a trace of white below the bill. Can they really have such dark bill tips?

Update 2. Yes, they can. Comments from a number of people confirm they do. The white chin does give the species.

Additional Procellaria

Here are some more pictures of  the Procellaria we saw. Some are undoubtedly White-chinned Petrels thrown in here for comparison. Of the headless bird I have no further pictures.

Below the pics are comments from Alvaro Jaramillo. Alvaro shared the excellent Procellaria ID article by Steve Howell

http://www.aba.org/birding/v38n6p52.pdf

Thanks for all the help Al!

Fig 1: Westland Petrel.
Big blocky head, fat belly, looks like Westland to me.
Gunnar comment: Same bird as Fig 4 and Fig 7.

Fig 2: White-chinned Petrel.

Fig 3: White-chinned Petrel.

Fig 4: Westland Petrel.
Jaramillo: Again blocky head, long neck, big belly. IN shape quite similar to White-chin, so suggests a Westland to me.

Gunnar comment: Same bird as Fig 1 and Fig 7.

Fig 5: Westland or Parkinson's Petrel?
This is rather thin billed which is interesting, you would need information on the size (definitely larger than a Pink-footed or not?). This could be a Parkinson’s

Fig 6: White-chinned Petrel.

Fig 7: Parkinson's Petrel?

Looks narrow billed, smaller headed, not much of a belly, long and narrow wings.

Gunnar comment: Same bird as Fig 1 and Fig 4.

Fig 8: Molting Procellaria?

robably a first year bird given the state of the thing, but it would be nice to have a look at the bill to know what it is.

Fig 9: White-chinned Petrel.

Fig 10: White-chinned Petrel.

Luciana enjoying the butterflies at the Inkaterra Butterfly House in Puerto Maldonado. Lots of Morphos and Calligos

Great comfort birding

Spectacled Caiman Caiman crocodilus also known as White Caiman. Photo: Gunnar Engblom.

This top-end eco-lodge should be a great alternative for birders who don’t want to join a tour and maybe have a non-birding spouse.  There are good birding guides such as Jesus and Percy. All that InkaTerra does is thought through to minimize the impact on the environment. The rooms are spacious and equipped with eco-friendly soaps, repellent, aluminium bottles you can refill with drinking water. They even grow some of their food themselves and sell organic wine in the restaurant. The main attraction for birders is the canopy walkway and the fact that the localized Black-faced Cotinga is relatively easy to see.

We arrived in the afternoon yesterday, and I was pleased that the transfer very short before we got on the boat. No need to wait for other passengers. We were taken to InkaTerra’s butterfly house which also house the Puerto Maldonado office.

Then an hour’s boatride down the Madre de Dios River. 

There is Wifi internet available at dining room, but sadly for me Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were blocked on the server. Too much bandwidth is used with this service which slows down everyone else. Fair enough, I will just have to blog on my Posterous blog instead and have the blog sent automated to Facebook and the other services.

This first day my family and I visited a new InkaTerra project at Concepcion. Here a new lodge is being built which is part of InkaTerra’s new brand By InkaTerra, which will be the budget brand of the company. Here is a good creek for paddling silently watching the wildlife. We saw Hoatzin, Spectacled Caiman, Yellow-spotted Side-necked Turtle, Gray-necked Woodrail, Sunbittern, Black Caracara, Sungrebe, Black-fronted Nunbird, Gilded Barbet, Pale-legged Hornero, Great Kiskadee, Fork-tailed Woodnymph and Band-tailed Antbird,

There is also some good Bamboo nearby which is good for species such as Fasciated Cuckoo, Manu Antbird, Peruvian Recurvebill and Rufous-headed Woodpecker. Once this lodge is completed I think the two lodges will be a fantastic combination for birders.

Here are some pictures taken yesterday and today.

Sunbittern Eurypyga helias lurking in the shade

Band-tailed Antbird Hypocnemoides maculicauda is a bird which is common in creek and lake edges, but which can be difficult to see. This one was lured out by playback.

Black-fronted Nunbird Monasa nigrifrons is common in the forest edge and secondary forest.

Fork-tailed Woodnymph Thalurania furcata I took about about 20 pictures of this perched Hummingbird - and all but one were very dull, except this one where the bird stretched its neck out and all of a sudden all the throat feathers were aligned to break the light so the green gorget could be seen. Hummingbird colors are structural, so if the light does not fall right, they appear all colorless.

Gilded Barbet Capito auratus female eating a Guava fruit.

Great Kiskadee Pitangus sulphuratus

Sunbittern Eurypyga helias again coming in for landing spreading out its beautiful wings.

Hoatzin Opisthocomus hoazin. Fasinating bird with pre-historic looks.

Spectacled Caiman Caiman crocodilus again.

Procrastination and adult ADD

Man! There are hundreds of causes I have meant to donate to, but things have drawn out and in the end something else have come up. I have done my share of money raising for good causes, but to actually send off a check somehow have seemed a much larger obstacle. I have this great excuse for my faulties as being one of those kids with ADHD 40 years ago, who simply never got diagnosed...and only recently become aware that there is a reason why I procrastinate, why I have a totally disordered desk, why I do 1000 things at the same time, why I have very short concentration span, unless I am really interested in the subject...and why I sometimes totally put my foot in my mouth saying things I later regret. So yes, the excuse for procrastination will always be adult ADD...In spite of all this.....I DID IT!!!!

Donation at last for Satipo road

I finally did it! I donated 10 dollars to the Satipo road project. And it was not difficult!  Just go to RainForest Partnership's Global Giving page and donate via credit card or Paypal. As easy as 1-2-3!

I have been raising money for this project by running a marathon. I have also hustled our clients. I have talked to the communities over and over again about conservation and eco-tourism - and I have brought 6 farmers from communities in Central Peru to Mindo in Ecuador so they could see with their own eyes that conservation, sustainable devlopement and ecotourism is good business.

After the Ecuador trip, coming to Calabaza on the Satipo road (Pampa Hermosa district) I was very pleased to see the kids having had a drawing contest. My eyes filled with tears in joy experiencing that the all the talks and the trip to Ecuador had this effect. 
Even more important now is that RainForest Partnership have adopted the project and are doing great fund-raising. 30000 dollars shall be raised to build a community lodge and  to train the community in dealing with tourists.

This is important. RP has a great chance to win the Green Open Challange with your help. Presently, RP is number 2. There are great bonuses to be won for the projects that place highest. The top three (3) projects that raise the most funds will also receive supplementary cash bonuses from GlobalGiving of $10,000, $5,000, and $3,000 respectively. The top three (3) projects with the greatest number of unique donors will be awarded a bonus of $4,000, $2,000, and $1,000 respectively.

I hope I can persuade 1000 people to donate 10 dollars each. If I can climb the procrastination wall, so can you! And I promise I shall fight procrastination every day for the rest of the project period until July 30. That is 160 dollars from me - and 16 hurdles to climb. I only ask you to do it once!

Atlantic and Pacific forms of Wilson's Storm-Petrel?

I have been looking at pictures of Wilson's Storm-Petrel from Lima pelagics. They always strike me as very chesty - at least when one looks at photos. Sort of Pomerine Jaeger like, if you know what I mean. Supposedly they are the same subspecies here in Lima as birds in the Atlantic. Have a look at this series from a Pelagic in Lima in June 2009, especially photo 7.

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wilson-s-storm-petrel-L27PBUJ8kEDug8P6i98b.zip (454 KB)

Or photo number 8 from the a Pelagic from Lima in April, 2007.

There are both Wilson's and Eliott's Storm-Petrels in that picture.

I looked at some pics from the Atlantic recently and they looked bulky but more trimmed in shape. Maybe my birds have their crops full - or could there be a structural difference?

Look at this Photo by Tony Beck from the North Carolina Hatteras pelagic for example

Click on people's faces in the photo to tag them.

I wonder if these structural differences are consistant?

How to make a Sharpbill image rank higher on Google!

OK. I am not even sure it will work, but this is a test to see if a
seemingly non-indexed picture by Google suddenly could be placed
among the top 20 pics in a Google Image search, as it presently is not even
among the first 200. Which  picture? This picture by our guide Alex
Durand!

This is the Sharpbill Oxyruncus cristatus. A quite rare bird in SE
Peru and local elsewhere in South America although it occurs in all
over the Amazon. It is also enigmatic in terms of its taxonomic
placement. Is it a Tyrant, a Tityra or a Cotinga?

Snow (2004) writes: "The
peculiar and still little-known
Sharpbill is more problematic. The anatomical characters that have been
studied do not provide clear evidence of its relationships, and the
species' unique bill shape is considered phylogenetically
uninformative. In some respects, such as the concealed crown patch and
the male's modified outermost primary, the Sharpbill resembles the
tyrannids, and certain other features, including the structure and
musculature of the syrinx, support such a relationship. On the other
hand, the general body proportions, the singing behavior and the fact
that the young are fed by regurgitation point to a relationship with
the cotingas.... For the time being, it is probably best to treat the
Sharpbill as a cotinga, but the taxon clearly remains in need of
further study."

The current consensus is that it is neither. It could best be treated
as family of its own as discussed by SACC.

Image SEO

I found the above picture in my blog post about the community lodges of Manu
and its name was just (IMG3826893.jpg) which is not very good for SEO
purposes. Therefore, I reloaded the picture with a proper name, and
also edited the title and the alt texts.

Furthermore, I re-linked to the post on our Facebook page, sent a
tweet and a link on my private Facebook wall. Then I wrote a blogpost
update about the Manu project and again linked to the same post.

Still 24 hours later, it does not seem to be enough to get the image
up there in the Google ranks, so this is my last try to do Search
Engine Optimization for this pic.

You could help by re-tweeting this or Facebook this post or any of the
posts I am linking to.I'll let you know if it worked. I will be
forever thankful!

There is an interesting discussion going on - on Kolibri Expeditions Facebook page. Which are your top birding destinations in South America?

Just click on the link above to take part in the discussion.

I am using this posterous blog and the Posterous applet in the tool bar to create a very fast post that is instantly shared on twitter and Facebook. Then I edit to put this text on top rather than at the bottom. More on Posterous blogging on my blogpost on the subject.

This is part of a little experiment with Posterous. I simply selected a part of the Facebook page and dragged it to the Posterous applet which I have installed in my tool bar and created a post this way - and this way direct you to my page. If you like to take part in the discussion you must "like" the page. Smart, huh?

I should not take credit though...

As usual I seek inspiration from Social Media peers. John Haydon is one of them. This post on Facebook pages and point number four describes what I am trying to do.

Read the start of the discussion here below...and then click on the link to visit our page...

Looking forward to a great discussion...

Was thinking it would be cool to have a Peruvian News widget on my blog. Hmm! Maybe not. Seems like all Peruvian news in one way or another reflects only bad news.
http://www.topix.com/world/peru
Me thinks, it is time to get some extrordinary positive news from Peru.