Birding Peru 5-17 August 2018 Lau Jia Sheng (Author), Ang Bao Jun Photo 1: Jon, the Rusty-Tinged Antpitta Introduction Chancing upon a reasonably priced birding trip to Columbia, it struck me that it was possible to realise my dream of visiting South America. After some discussion with Bao Jun, we decided to go for it because this may turn out to be our once-in-a-lifetime window of opportunity. This happened in end of May and within three months, we were birding in Peru, the land of the Incans and the land where the Amazon meets the Andes. The trip would not be possible without the service from Kolibri Expeditions (Email:
[email protected]). Their offering of different multi-days short tours covering the entire country of Peru allowed us to put together an ambitious tour to cover the following in 13- days: (i) birding sites from both North and South Peru, (ii) Machu Picchu, which is one of the 7 New Wonders of the World, and (iii) varied habitats ranging from the sea-level Pacific coast to the dry hillslopes of the West Andes to the high-elevation (>4000m) punas of Andes to the cloud montane forest of the East Andes to the tropical Amazon hill forest. We wanted a trip of the lifetime and we certainly got it. No regrets. In total, we saw a total of 538 species of birds, including 58 species of hummingbirds, 17 species of parrots, 28 species of antbirds and allies, 5 species of antpittas, 72 species of flycatchers and allies, 5 species of manakins and 57 species of tanagers.