Peru: More Manu

Today I am going to finish out the photos from the first half of working at Wayqecha. (As a reminder, these photos were taken between July 17 and August 16 at about 3000 meter elevation)

Scarlet-bellied mountain tanager (Anisognathus igniventris)

Lymanopoda butterfly. I saw these guys very rarely, maybe only 2-4 times.

White-throated hawk (Buteo albigula)

Fog covering the mountainside.

And now for the last few photos, these were taken after we captured the bird in a mist-net. For non-target species (which varied depending on what we were doing that day), we just collected some basic measurements and photos and then released the bird.

Slaty-backed chat-tyrant (Ochthoeca cinnamomeiventris)

Female great thrush (Turdus fuscater)

Black-throated flowerpiercer (Diglossa brunneiventris). Notice the curved bill- this helps them grab the top of the flower and then pierce the flower with their sharp lower beak.

Yellow-breasted brush finch (Atlapetes latinuchus). These were really abundant around our tents and we very good at making sure I didn't sleep in.

One last photo of Lola. (She made it into every post so far!) Her ruffled feathers amused us and made her really easy to ID in the field.

Peru: part 3, now with added maps!

So I realized that my last two posts were missing maps for reference to where I was when I took the pictures you are (hopefully) admiring. I made a few maps using google and my great photoshop drawing skills to show the different places I went in Peru. The map below shows the trip broken up into the three parts. Part one was my vacation time with Ann and Sean (Post here: My first post from Peru). Part two was working at Wayqecha and our mid work trip to the Manu lowlands. Part three was the final vacation portion where I set out to northern Peru to find the Marvelous Spatuletail- photos will be coming shortly.

This is a close-up of the approx location of our camp site within Wayqetcha, the satelite map was a little cloudy and didn't have a clear view of our actual camp site. The main station was where the internets were (sometimes).

Ok, back to the photos. This post is the second third of photos from the first half of my working time in Peru. Did you follow that? That's ok, takeaway is that there are some more bird and butterfly photos from the high elevations.

Oressinoma butterfly. I am not certain on the species, but either way- these little guys were my favorite butterflies in the high elevations. (The low elevation butterflies are a whole different story!)

Corades butterfly, again- working on the species for this one.

The larger bird on the right is a black and chestnut eagle (Spizaetus isidori) and the smaller is a white throated hawk (Buteo albigula). Not sure why these two were hanging out together, but it didn't seem hostile.

This photo is one of those oops pictures that I ended up liking. I spent a lot of time working on my birds with flash skills. I haven't really used my flash much with birds in the past. Unfortunately, even though I saw the amazing grass green tanager (Chlorornis riefferii) very often while working, I only got a few photos of them. This one ended up being my favorite.

The Andean guan (Penelope montagnii) is an odd bird. This day, I was sitting in the quiet and all of the sudden a loud crash in the bushes startled me. I looked in the bush (kind of thinking that a puma may come crashing out any second) and realized it was the not-so-graceful guan.

Amethyst-throated sun angel (Heliangelus amethysticollis).

Our tagged bird Lola (shining sunbeam, Aglaeactis cupripennis) protecting her Oreocallis flowers from flower-piercers.

Amazing or creepy? I choose the former. Sphaenognathus feisthameli, a member of the stag beetle family.

The last third of the first half are coming soon.