Lost City Birds

05/11/2024

First recorded sighting of a Swainson's thrush (Catharus ustulatus) in Ancash... as far as I can tell. Found above the Rio Puchca at about 2700 meters.

Hasta donde sé, esto es el primer registro de un zorzal de Swainson (Catharus ustulatus) en Ancash. Encontrado en el valle del río Puchca a unos 2700 metros.

08/10/2024

Picocono Gigante/Giant Conebill (Conirostrum binghami)
Quebrada Demanda, Parque nacional Huascarán

In all these years birding in Ancash I have never, even once, run into another birder. Not even in Llanganuco which must be the location of the majority of bird lists in Ancash.
By the way, this is free if you live in Peru:
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/giacon1/cur/introduction?lang=es

En todos estos años observando aves en Ancash, nunca, ni una sola vez, me he encontrado con otro observador de aves. Ni siquiera en Llanganuco, que debe ser el lugar con la mayoría de las listas de aves en Ancash.
Esta página es gratis si vives en Perú:
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/giacon1/cur/introduction?lang=es

24/09/2024

An Andean cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola peruvianus) from Aguas Calientes below Machu Picchu. Taken during this year's University of Texas Rio Grande Valley study abroad.

Un gallito de las rocas andino (Rupicola peruvianus) de Aguas Calientes, abajo de Machu Picchu. Tomada durante el programa de estudios en el extranjero de este año de la Universidad de Texas del Valle del Río Grande.

01/09/2024

Female Golden-tailed Sapphire (Chrysuronia oenone) from the feeders at Pico de Hoz in Manu.

23/08/2024

Black-tailed Trogon (Trogon melanurus)
Pilkopata, Cusco

15/08/2024

Saffron-crowned tanager, tangara coronigualda​ (Tangara xanthocephala)
Aguas Calientes

25/07/2024

White-necked Jacobin (Florisuga mellivora) Manu, Peru

I can spend a whole day wandering through the jungle with no more than glimpses of hummingbirds, but put up a few feeders and you will end up with hundreds of easy-to-photograph birds that appear to hang around all day. I have read that the sugar water itself does no harm to the birds, but I wonder if it could cause hummingbirds to visit less real flowers and thus not pollenate them adequately. A free lunch always makes me suspicious...

Puedo pasar todo el día vagando por la selva sin más que vislumbrar colibríes, pero si hay algunos comederos colocados, terminamos con cientos de aves, fáciles de fotografiar, que parecen quedarse todo el día. He leído que el agua azucarada en sí misma no hace daño a las aves, pero me pregunto si podría hacer que los colibríes visiten menos flores reales y, por lo tanto, no las polinicen adecuadamente. Ustedes que piensan?

18/07/2024

Dusky-capped flycatcher (Myiarchus tuberculifer) from the Salkantay Trek in June.

25/01/2024

A beautiful plumbeous kite (Ictinia plumbea) we saw a while back near Quillabamba.

16/01/2024

The corona de cristo flowers are in bloom in the Campo Santo in Yungay and there are hundreds of hummingbirds visiting them, mainly the giant hummingbird, the purple-collared wood star, the sparkling violetear, and the bird pictured here, the spot-throated hummingbird (Thaumasius taczanowskii).

Las flores de la corona de Cristo están en plena floración en el Campo Santo de Yungay y hay cientos de colibríes que las visitan, principalmente el Patagona gigas, el Myrtis f***y, el colibrí coruscans y el pájaro que se muestra aquí, el Thaumasius taczanowskii.

14/01/2024

If you hear a strange metallic chirp coming from a river here in the Andes, you can be sure that there is a white-capped dipper (Cinclus leucocephalus) nearby. This one took break from zooming up and down the river just long enough to have his picture taken.

31/10/2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyxQ-4uzP0

This is video of a few birds cobbled together from a short trip to the beautiful Sacsara Valley in April 2023.Este es un video de algunos pájaros vistos en ...

15/10/2023

I wasn't sure if I would be able to tell the difference between mountain and Andean parakeets, but it turns out that mountain parakeet (Psilopsiagon aurifrons) calls sound very much like house sparrows, which makes it easy for any North American. This bird was one of a flock of at least 20 I saw near Pomachacas deep in a canyon in the Conchucos east of the Cordillera Blanca.

No estaba seguro de si sería capaz de distinguir la diferencia entre los pericos cordilleranos y los pericos andinos, pero resulta que los llamados de los pericos cordilleranos (Psilopsiagon aurifrons) suenan muy parecidos a los gorriones caseros, lo que facilita la identificación para cualquier norteamericano. Este pájaro formaba parte de una bandada de al menos 20 que vi cerca de Pomachacas, en lo profundo de un cañón en los Conchucos al este de la Cordillera Blanca.

11/09/2023

Silvery Tanager (Stilpnia viridicollis) from back behind Machu Picchu near Santa Teresa.

04/09/2023

Hamadryas februa (gray cracker) from Chisquisca on the descent to the Rio Apurimac en route to Choquequirao.

30/08/2023

A male swallow tanager (Tersina viridis) peaking over a branch in Quincemil, Peru.

05/07/2023

A cinnamon flycatcher (Pyrrhomyias cinnamomeus) from Cusco.

27/05/2023

From our last Choquequirao trip, a salpensa sailor (Dynamine tithia salpensa). The whole Apurimac Valley was a chaos of butterflies.

17/05/2023

Here's a blue-capped tanager (Sporathraupis cyanocephala) from the stairs to Machu Picchu a week or two ago.

12/04/2023

Ok, it's not a bird, but it's mighty pretty. This is a Panacea prola, common name "red flasher" (the red is on the underwing) from Pichari in the VRAEM. I identified it by dropping the photo into the Google search bar (thanks Mike). Incredible.

02/04/2023

Here's a big hummingbird from Big Day 2022. This giant hummingbird (Patagona gigas) is world's largest hummingbird and quite common in the intermontane valleys of the Andes. A cactus seems like a pretty good nesting spot. This was with our new lens, so I was not at all close to the bird (it's important to give nesting birds lots of space).
Our website: http://lostcitytreks.com

16/03/2023

An endemic black metaltail (Metallura phoebe) we photographed on the Santa Cruz Trek in the Cordillera Blanca (Peru) a few months back. I bet this one is a female because there's no sign of the blue gorget. They seem to visit a fairly wide range of flowers; I've even seen them visiting eucalyptus trees, which a lot of Peruvian hummingbirds don't like.

http://lostcitytreks.com

22/02/2023

A gray-breasted mountain-toucan (Andigena hypoglauca) from our trip to the Vilcabamba last year. It's considered to be near-threatened, but in the Sacsara Valley it's pretty common.