Peru Part 6, Thurs June 11 2009

Thursday June 11 was a particularly interesting day at TRC. A cold front from the Andes moved into the area, and we woke up to a chilly and windy dawn. Rudy took us up to the top of the bluff above the Clay Lick seen in prior posts. It was a beautiful view as seen in this brief video. There were many birds to be seen, but all were way down in the tree tops below.




To even see that there is a bird in the picture you will need to click on many of these. Remember they were taken with a 400mm lens, so you get the idea of how far out they were.


As I have said many times, one thing I have learned from Rudy is that most flocks of birds are mixed, meaning there will be several, sometimes many species in the same flock. That was certainly the case here with both a Boat Billed Flycatcher(about 9" top center) and a Gray Capped Flycatcher (about 6") right next to each other. If you look close there are actually 7 birds in this picture, although most are out of focus as I was focusing on the Gray Capped Flycatcher on the right. I was wide open at 2.8 f stop in order to get enough light to keep the shutter at 1/200.





Rudy had the Little Woodpecker (about 6") in the scope for a bit. Being out on the bare limb helped us all get a good look.


I think this is a female, as the male has a red cap, but the streaking and the barring on the belly is really striking.


One of the coolest South American bird families is the Jacamar's. Kind of a cross between kingfishers, puffbirds, and motmot's, with maybe a little hummingbird thrown in. Really fun.


This is a White Throated Jacamar (about 6").


Relatively rare, but generally found as are most of these birds in the river edge canopy.

Without a good scope we simply could not get good looks at these birds. Even then, because they were usually constantly moving, I really tried to get pictures, which even if they are not very good allow me to study the bird later and really try to remember it. Rudy is the best I have ever seen with a scope. So, up on the bluff this day when he kicked his tripod leg to straighten it out and the connection broke off, we were all pretty shook up. Terry had carried from Portland however his and my pocket tools, with which he had fashioned a leg from a bamboo shoot within a few minutes. The only problem was that Rudy who is about 6'8" or so could not raise the tripod and had to stoop the rest of the trip. He was a trooper though and we continued to get the good looks at the birds through his efforts. Here he is with the equipment in question.



The following are a few birds we saw from up on the bluff. Again, I apologize for the low resolution, I have really cropped in on them to be able to see them at all.

The very proud Vermillion Flycatcher (about 5") found in many different habitats.


The Turquoise Tanager (about 5").


A Blue Dacnis (about 4 1/2") is one of several smaller tanagers called Dacnis'.

Another very beautiful jacamar (this picture does not do it justice) is the also rare Purus Jacamar, (about 8").


Here is the Buff Throated Saltator (about 8"). Saltators are similar to the Grosbeaks, which as the name indicates are larger very heavy beaked seed eaters.


One of the most beautiful of the tanagers is the Blue Necked Tanager (about 5").


This Blue Throated Piping Guan is actually pretty large at about 29", but it was not very easy to see sitting up among the branches.



On the way back to the TRC we saw a great looking lizard. Maybe someday I will learn these names.




We also saw this Black Tailed Trogon, which at about 12" is just stunning to see sitting looking down at you from a branch. I couldn't resist showing it again.