Well Butters, I must say I am pretty disappointed.
You can walk to the
beach in Lima and would have seen more species than
that. Although, it is true
that West of the Andes birdlife is
pretty sparse as most of the area is desert. Nevertheless only 3 hours (by slow
bus) South of Lima is Pisco (which you could have done in a day) you would have
got some great endemic bird ticks,
and could have used the bird ID book 'Lonely Planet' which had most of the
species in it. Books were very expensive and usually in Spanish. My notes
from paracas
May 2003. After overnighting in Pisco
we took a tour to Paracas national reserve and the Ballestas islands. Going to
ballestas on a speed boat took 1/2 hr. we saw sealions, which had babies and at
times frolicked around the boat, grey - peruvian boobies (which have a white
collar but are grey), blue footed boobies- only 2, inca terns (black with red
legs and beaks), turkey vultures (which eat baby birds), peru red legged
cormorant (black with red legs), guanay cormorant, and black cormorant.
Peru pelicans which are grey and 2/3
the size of ours, and 2 humbolt penguins, band tailed gull and kelp gulls and
grey gulls.
The red legged cormorant is
endangered because fishermen shelter in the ballestas island caves (ballestas
means arches, ie cave arches) and the cormorant also lives in the caves and the
fisherman eat them. On the island is also a guano
factory.
Later, after lunch we
passed to paracas reserve and saw about 200 chilean famingos, which have bright
red wings, and ran into our swedish and netherlands buddies from Lima. The flamingos
migrate inland to mountain lakes but because of el nino had stayed
longer. The boobies were diving into the
ocean for fish and the pelicans were herding, it was pretty cool.
Alternatively Martin,
you could have flown to Cusco (about 3 hours) and then to Manu National Park (about 1 hour) in the amazon
and seen about 800 species (although I only saw about 100). The guides had bird
books.
You really should have stayed for the weekend.
Benj
