Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Nov 19 - Cajamarca and flying back to Lima

Today we started at 5:00 AM to head to San Marcos to look for the Great Spinetail. The first stop produced a Tawny Crowned Pygmy Tyrant, and a few already seen hummers. The plants were interesting because there was a lot of re-growth on burned areas such as on cactus and guava type plants. The second stop produced lots of Tropical Gnatcatchers, Amazilla and White Bellied Hummers and just when we were about to give up on the Spinetail, Juan came to get us to say he had great views of it. So we walked back and after about 5 minutes the bird responded to the taped call. It was now 9:30 so we decided to drive back to the Creek we were at the day before, but with the distance, bad roads and traffic we didn’t get there until about noon so we only had an hour to bird.




No new birds there, but it was nice to enjoy the sunshine in this scenic spot.We had great views of the Black Metaltail, Gray bellied Comet and Giant Hummingbird again, along with the Torrent Tyrannulet. At 1:00 we headed off to lunch in the same plaza area as the day before and I had fish (shark I think). Then we went back to the hotel to grab our luggage and head off to the airport for our 5:15 pm flight. On route Gunnar called to let me know that Juan would be buying our tickets as he forgot to book them! This actually went fairly smoothly, but there were issues with Martin and Ulf’s tickets because Gunnar bought them online and there was no way to indicate they weren’t Peruvian residents, therefore they had to pay a higher price at the airport. A van picked all of us up at the Lima airport and drove us to the Hotel La Castellana in Miraflores where Paul and I would be spending the night. Gunnar met us there and we all walked a couple of blocks for dinner. The diner’s doors were open and they were saw cutting the street outside, making a lot of noise and then 2 guys came in with guitars to drown out the other noise. After dinner we bid goodbye to Juan (our guide) and Martin and Ulf. They were headed off on a nighttime bus ride to Carpish for another 7 day birding event. Martin will have spent 2 months birding in Peru by the time he is done. Tomorrow we will have a 4:30 AM start and spend our last day in Santa Eulalia looking for Andean Condors and other higher elevation birds. The room at the Hotel this time is MUCH nicer than it was the first night in Peru. The first night the room was tiny and smelled musty.

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