These 92 bird species were observed on our trip to Peru and Ecuador in March-April 2008.
Some notes about identification.
- I used "Birds of Peru" by Schulenberg, Stotz, Lane, O'Neill and Parker as the main reference—an excellent guide but you'd need a wheelbarrow for it to fulfil its claim to being a field guide. It is also the source of the illustrations provided here. Other guidebooks were also used occasionally.
- The list is probably only 80-90% of what we saw. There were numerous common birds—pigeons, doves and gulls—that we ignored, dozens of small birds that we could not see clearly in poor light, raptors and vultures high up that we could not identify, some birds I suspect we wrongly lumped in with similar birds (for example, the Green Ibis looks like the Puna Ibis)and there's a few that I didn't write down and couldn't remember at the end of the day.
- Many identifications were provided by our guides. We've all been on trips where guides have felt it better to take a wild guess rather than admit that they can't tell a canary from an eagle, but we were very confident in all our guides on this trip.
- Occasionally I had to identify a bird without the help of the guides. I took as definite identification only those birds where I got a good long look and was able to find a closely matching bird listed as "common" in the book. In a few cases I only got only a glimpse of a particular bird but relied on the somewhat suspect method of "that's all it could have been". It feels a bit like a cheat but I trade this off with the ones I did get a look at but couldn't find a convincing match for in the book. Some (for example, several humming birds I got some long looks at but still could not find a close match for in the book), I have marked with an '*' to indicate 'best guess' at identification.
- Saw very few species in Ecuador (only two listed here). The Great Thrush and Russet-collared Sparrow seem to account for 90% of the birds I did see (the Russet-collared Sparrow showed up throughout our trip in several disguises). There are three likely factors for the scarcity in Ecuador: conversion of much of the landscape to farmland; many Ecuadorians kill and eat birds making birds shy and scarce; the poor weather we encountered made it hard to see colors.
