John and Mary Kormendy: Peru Birds 2022

This site contains the pictures from our 2022 January 26 - February 4 birding trip to Peru.

This was primarily an Amazon Rver cruise organized by Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT). Most of the trip was spent cruising from Iquitos on the lower Rio Ucayali and Rio Marañon and, after their confluence, on the Rio Amazonas. Most birding was from ~12-person skiffs that threaded through smaller rivers as far into the surrounding rain forest as was practical in 2- to 4-hour excursions. In addition, before the Amazon cruise, VENT arranged one day of birding in the Pacific ocean offshore from Lima to see pelagic birds and in a wetland immediately adjacent to the ocean. And on day 1, Mary and I were privileged to have a privately-guided excursion to Lomas de Lachay, a dry hilly region ~ 2 hours by car north of Lima. This day got us 6 important life birds, including John's "number 1" trip bird, Andean tinamou.

The trip was wonderfully enjoyable and generally productive. Birding from skiffs means that we didn't generally get close to birds in the upper stories of the forest, but we often got good views of understory skulkers such as antbirds and antshrikes. We even got a few good pictures of these birds that are normally hard to photograph. The guiding was excellent throughout, although of course it was primarily tuned to birders who were new to the Amazon basin. So it was not especially tuned to getting us as many new species as possible. Still, John managed to get 54 life birds and Mary got 56. The trip was moderately well suited to photography of understory birds: the guides are themselves photographers. The disadvantage of being in a skiff is that one generally has only limited control of viewing angles. So many photographs are not ideal, e. g., with branches and leaves in front of the birds.

This web site primarily serves Mary and me as a record our memories. Its purpose is not to showcase my photography. So even poor pictures are included. This web site is essentially finished. A few more pictures may be added in the coming weeks. Pictures are copyrighted and should not be used for commercial purposes without permission. Fellow trip participants are welcome to copy pictures as long as they are not further posted in public forums.

Trip Birds

Andean tinamou is decisively John's first and Mary's third trip bird. This is also our life bird. Any day when we see a tinamou is a success. This was our only tinamou of the trip, seen at Lomas de Lachay, hiding behind out-of-focus branches, under a bush and at least slightly shaded from the hot sun.

Peruvian warbling-antbird is the second trip bird for both Mary and John. John is especially fond of all ant-related birds, and this one is gorgeous. It was not new, but we got better pictures than in the past.

Castelnau's antshrike is John's third and Mary's first trip bird, seen on the waterfront in Iquitos. This is Mary's life bird.

The Birds -- I. Seabirds and Shore Birds

On January 28, 2022, the first official day of the VENT tour, we had a boat ride out of Pucusana fishing village, near Lima, for sea birds of the (cold) Humboldt current and to visit Pantanos de Villa marshes. We got 10 life birds on the boat ride and 4 more at the marshes, giving us the largest number of new birds on any day of the trip. The boat ride was rough enough to make photography difficult -- I used a telephoto lens with effective focal length 800 mm, hand-held -- but luckily, we are not prone to sea-sickness. Still, I had to scramble to get pictures of as many new birds as possible. Note: In this section, birds are listed more or less chronologically, not -- as in the next section -- in taxonomic order.

Inca tern -- very elegant! -- were the first new bird of the day.

Surf cinclodes (This is our life bird.)

This pair of Surf cinclodes put on a dramatic courtship display:

Surf cinclodes courting

Red-legged cormorants were our third life bird of the day.

Red-legged cormorants at right, including a juvenile. Always lots of social interaction going on, along with the preening. At left and preening so much that you can't see it's red face is the only adult, breeding-plumage Guanay cormorant that I managed to photograph in the roller-coaster chaos of the boat ride. Guanay cormorant was also new this morning.

Peruvian booby (These are our life birds.)

As we got tossed around in our small boat, I got a lot of pictures like this one.

Peruvian booby (With a happier toss of the boat, I got the whole bird.)

Blue-footed booby (This is our life bird.)

Peruvian pelican (Hard to preen when your bill is long.)

Humboldt penguins were new. We saw a lot of them, starting with this group.

Humboldt penguins

Humboldt penguin colonies are loud. Re: the bird with his back to us, to quote Ogden Nash, "When they're moulting, they're pretty revolting."

Humboldt penguins one more time. Always special.

Blackish Oystercatcher (This is our life bird. In the split second that I had to get the picture, the camera focused on the foreground rocks. Please ignore this picture -- I include it only to remind us of the new birds that we got.)

American oystercatcher at Los Pantanos de Villa wetland

Belcher's gull (Both mandibles of the bill have red tips; the legs are yellow, and the primaries have no white tips. Contrast Kelp gull, below. This is our 9th life bird of the morning, during the boat ride off Pucusana fishing village.)

Kulp gull (Note that the red tip on the bill is restricted to the lower mandible and that the legs are greenish. White spots at the tips of the primaries are just barely visible.)

Elegant tern (We got it during the boat ride, but this is at Los Pantanos de Villa wetland.

Peruvian thick-knee (These are our life birds, 11th of the day, just outside Los Pantanos de Villa. The image is blurred by heat waves -- what astronomers call "bad seeing".)

Vermilion flycatcher near the entrance to Los Pantanos de Villa (Here is a better picture taken in Austin, Texas.)

Yellow-hooded blackbird (This is our life bird. We saw this species again during the Amazon cruise.)

Franklin's gulls (We saw more Franklin's gulls in 10 minutes at Los Pantanos de Villa than we probably will see in the rest of our lives.)

The Birds -- II. Lomas de Lachay Pre-Trip and Amazon River Cruise

Speckled chachalaca serenading (Note that there are two birds in this picture -- we don't have control of viewing angles.)

Horned screamer (We got our life birds in Ecuador in 2017, but they were very far away, and this trip's closer looks were much more satisfying.)

Turkey vulture (neotropical lowland subspecies: Cathartes aura ruficollis)

Hook-billed kite (dark morph)

Great black hawks

Black-chested buzzard-eagle (adult at left, juvenile at right, both at Lomas de Lachay)

Black-collared hawk

Black-collared hawk growling!

Black caracara

Aplomado falcon (This is our life bird at Lomas de Lachay, blurred by heat waves.)

Yellow-billed terns (These are John's life birds just about when he "got" them. Using 15 X IS binoculars makes it very hard to get life birds "on the fly". Seeing them perched made them easy. Mary got her life birds on a previous trip.)

Yellow-billed terns

Large-billed tern (with the Yellow-billed terns)

Eared dove (in Lima)

Blue and yellow macaw (Macaws passed by often in raucous flyovers but rarely perched and never perched close to us.)

Red-bellied macaws (flyover -- not very good pictures, but they show the field marks)

Red-bellied macaws (in Moriche palms, on the last full day of our cruise)

Red-masked parakeet (Lima)

Dusky-headed parakeet in nest hole

Dusky headed parakeet's mate, just outside the nest hole

Bonaparte's parakeets (These are our life birds, in a mixed flock with Tui parakeets and maybe others. Diagnostic are the dark crown, red forecrown, light cheek patch, scaly throat and nape and green separating the scaly areas from the red lower belly. Little is known about this species.)

Tui parakeets (These are our life birds, in a mixed flock with Bonaparte's parakeets and maybe others.)

White-winged parakeet (The white edging to the yellow patch on the wings is hard to see. This was the first bird of the first morning of the Amazon cruise.)

Spectacled owl

Spectacled owl (magnificent from any angle)

Ferruginous pygmy-owl

Great potoo (Full disclosure: I cleaned away a few branches, as carefully as I could.)

Ladder-tailed nightjar

Ladder-tailed nightjar (This was the most interesting bird that we saw on our only night excursion.)

Peruvian sheartail (This is a bad picture, but it shows our life bird, at Lomas de Lachay.)

Amazonian trogon (This female is our life bird.)

Green-and-rufous kingfisher (This proved to be the hardest kingfisher to get, either at Sacha in Ecuador or on our Amazon cruise out of Iquitos. Very elusive. This is Mary's life bird.)

American pygmy kingfisher

White-eared jacamar

Bluish-fronted jacamar (Jacamars were surprisingly hard to photograph both on this trip and in Ecuador.)

Black-fronted nunbird

Plain-breasted piculet in nest hole (This is our life bird.)

Spot-breasted woodpecker (first full day of birding in the Amazon)

Cream-colored woodpecker

Ringed woodpecker (This is our life bird. Moments later, it gave is a perfect view, but this was one time when I was too slow to catch it. Still, seeing this rare bird was a coup.)

Chestnut woodpecker (female in nest hole)

Coastal miner (Lomas de Lachay pre-trip) (This is our life bird.)

Yellow-chinned spinetail (These are our life birds, seen just after Red-and-white spinetail, below. A hint of yellow is barely visible just below the bill but is obvious when the color saturation is set obnoxiously high. Also, unlike Red-and-white spinetail, these birds have a white superciliary stripe. This picture shows why these birds are called "spinetails".)

Red-and-white spinetail (The upper picture shows our life bird.)

Parker's spinetail (This is our life bird. It is a river island specialist that we looked for often without success ... until the last morning or our trip. Then, it was nesting -- that, presumably, is partly why it was hard to see. It is uncommon and much wanted by birders. For us, Parker's spinetail was the prize bird of our last morning.)

Orange-fronted plushcrown

Point-tailed palmcreeper in Moriche palm on the last full day of our cruise. We saw only one and this is the best view that we got. This is Mary's life bird.

Black-crested antshrike (This is our life bird.)

Barred antshrike (male)

Castelnau's antshrike (Iquitos)

Peruvian warbling-antbird

Silvered antbird

Black-and-white antbird (Like most antbirds, it was not cooperative.)

Band-tailed antbird (Very bad but only picture of our life bird)

Lesser wagtail-tyrant (This is our life bird.)

Southern beardless tyrannulet (Lima)

Spotted tody flycatcher

White-headed marsh tyrant (We saw this bird on the last morning of the trip, but we got our life bird three days earlier.)

Short-tailed field tyrant (This is John's life bird, seen on the Lomas de Lachay pre-trip.)

Short-crested flycatcher

Cinnamon attila

Bright-rumped attila (Not the best angle ... but these pictures show why it is called "bright-rumped".)

Black-tailed tityra (not a good angle, but typical for birding from a boat)

Bare-necked fruitcrow (female)

Chivi vireo (Iquitos waterfront)

Black-capped donacobius

Masked crimson tanager (I got a better picture in Ecuador.)

Yellow-bellied dacnis (male) (I have not increased the color saturation of this image.)

Collared warbling-finch (Lomas de Lachay pre-trip)

Caqueta seedeater (We got our life bird earlier on the same day, January 26, 2022.)

Chestnut-bellied seedeater (This one was at the Iquitos waterfront, but we saw the species often.)

Chestnut-bellied seed-finch

Rufous-collared sparrow is THE sparrow of South America. This one was at Lomas de Lachay.

Yellow-rumped cacique (We tended to ignore the most common birds, such as Yellow-rumped caciques. This is not fair, because they are elegant and clever: they weave deeply hanging nests that discourage predators and nest parasites.)

Orange-bellied troupial (This is our life bird.)

Oriole blackbird

Birds from the USA and Canada:   our house,   Hornsby Bend and greater Austin,   Texas,   California,   Hawaii,   Canada,

Neotropic birds from Central America and the Caribbean:   Honduras,   Costa Rica,   Panama,   Trinidad and Tobago

Neotropic birds from South America:   Ecuador 2004,   Ecuador 2017,   Brazil.

Western palearctic birds:   Europe: Germany, Finland, Norway,   Europe: United Kingdom,   Europe: Spain,   the Canary Islands,   Europe: Lesbos, Greece,   Israel

Eastern palearctic birds:   China

Birds from Africa:   The Gambia,   South Africa

Indo-Malayan birds from   India: North-west (Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand)   India: North-east (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya)   India: Central (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh)

Birds from   Australia,   New Zealand.

For our 2014 December trip to India, see this travelog.

For our 2016 May-June trip to India, see this travelog.

For our 2017 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.

For our 2018 March trip to India, see this travelog.

For our 2018 May trip to China, see this travelog.

For our 2018 November trip to China, see this travelog.

For our 2019 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.

For our 2019 July trip to China, see this web site.

For our 2021 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.

For our 2021 December trip to Ecuador, see this web site.

For our 2022 January trip to Peru, see this web site.

For our 2022 July-August trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea, see this web site.

For our 2022 September trip to Bolivia, see this web site.

For our 2022 November-December pre-trip to Argentina (before our Antarctic cruise), see this web site.

For our 2022 November-December cruise to Antarctica, see this web site.

For our 2023 January birding in Chile, see this web site.

For our 2023 January-March cruise from Chile to Antarctica and around South America to Miami, FL, see this web site.

For our 2023 March-April birding in south Florida (after the Seabourn cruise), see this web site.

John Kormendy Home Page

University of Texas Astronomy Home Page