The Final Countdown...
Well here we are, our final week at Taricaya and the Peruvian Jungle....
Monday morning started off with an early herpetology walk for Lee, while Rachael went to New Farm to feed the guinea pigs, goats, sheep and donkeys. A very fruitful trip for Lee, as well as collecting 6 frogs he saw a large scorpion and a SCREAMING PIHA!! The same type of bird Rachael had seen last Friday! Keen to see one also he went hunting into the undergrowth when one started calling close by and managed to get a glimpse of it! Brilliant!
After breakfast Rachael was building the predoor to the new monkey enclosure while Lee headed to New Farm in order to administer deparasitising medicine to the animals, a simple enough task with the donkeys and goats as they are easy to catch, the goats usually "hide" in the barn and so can be easily cornered. The sheep on the other hand are a different matter... chasing them around a large field in long grass is pretty tiring and time consuming, until Lee resorted to rugby tackling them! Not only is this method very effective it is also very funny to watch, particularly when Lee disappears into the long grass, only to pop up with a sheep in his arms! Turns out he's very good at catching sheep this way, soon the method was adopted by the others and in no time all the sheep we caught, checked over and the medicine administrated!
In the afternoon it was Lee's turn to work on the predoor. Rachael headed to New Farm Platform with Pascal to do afternoon observations and while walking to the platform a large group of Squirrel Monkeys passed over the trail. Despite forgetting her binoculars (silly moo!) the telescope saved the day and the afternoon was still extremely enjoyable, the highlight being a Dusky Titi Monkey.
Tuesday saw the start of the exodus of volunteers, today Zander left and through the rest of the week five more will leave including us two at the end of the week! Its always sad when volunteers leave, particularly those who have been at Taricaya for a while, in Zanders case it was 3 months.
8am both Lee and Rachael joined two of the other volunteers and Pedro at New Farm to do the second round of deparisitising medicine. Again Lee proved his skills at catching sheep grabbing two in one go! This time we managed to heard the group into the barn and so the rest were much easier to catch. Once we had finished we set the mist nets up around the farm ready for the next couple of days.
On the way back to the lodge another group of around 30 Squirrel Monkeys passed across the trail and then hung around the lodge throughout lunch.
Afternoon activities was a trip to HOB for Rachael and the mighty Canopy Walk Way for Lee. A sticky, humid although overcast afternoon of us had really good observations. Although Lee was stung twice by a wasp and had sweat bees flying in his eyes, he still saw two new species of bird, a beautiul Blue and Yellow Macaw and 4 Red Howler Monkeys! It was quite quiet at HOB but a very worth while session for Rachael (promoted to member of staff again) who also saw a new species, a Zig Zag Heron. A very cool, small and brown stripey heron.
Wednesday morning we were up bright and early, at 4.30am, in order to go mist netting. We were not sure how well the session would go as this time we had decided ourselves where to place the nets. However it turned into a really really good session with 19 birds caught (the most in one session since we've been doing mist netting at Taricaya), 4 confirmed new species and 3 new hummingbird species we have yet to identify! The hummingbirds were particularly beautiful and very very small! A tricky customer came in the form of a Solitary Black Cacique, quite a large bird with strong, sharp talons and a strong, sharp bill that continually pecked at Lee as he abstracted it and measured it, but still it is a beautiful bird, silky black with an ivory bill.
That afternoon everyone was working on trying to remove a huge tree that had fallen onto the Ocelot enclosure. The idea was to attach a rope to the highest point of the tree, then try and pull it side ways away from the enclosure as Alex cut through the base where it had snapped. Unfortunately we didn´t really get far as the tree is wedged against another and we were all struggling with sore hands from pulling on the rope. We had to leave it as it got dark, but the group will return to the task at a later date but looks like they may not be able to stop it falling on the ocelot enclosure. (Ocelot was removed from the enclosure beforehand!)
Thursday, our final day of mist netting at Taricaya. While walking to New Farm at 5am we spotted 3 White Lipped Peccaries on the trail ahead! it was very exciting to see them while out walking and not sitting in a hide out of view. They paused ahead of us before dashing off into the undergrowth. As we arrived at the Farm we heard two seperate grous of Dusky Titi Monkeys and Rachael saw a Brown Agouti as it dashed off between the heliconia flowers.
Although it was quite sunny and a little windy we still had another really good session, this time 15 birds were caught, including a Ruddy Tailed Flycatcher which was a new species for us both. Bird of the session had to be a Russet Backed Oropendular, we see these large all the time at the farm but are rarely caught in mist nets as they usually fly too high and are slightly too big. Fortunately this one flew into the net as we were standing there and Lee was able to dash over and grab it before it flew off! If he thought the Solitary Black Cacique was painful to hold, it was nothing compared to the Oropendular! Similar build to the cacique but much larger we couldn't even fit it into a bird bag!
11am and we took the nets down for the final time, we've both really enjoyed the mist netting we have done over the last two months, its been our own little project and good fun showing other volunteers how to abstract birds as well as finding new species for us and for Taricaya!
After lunch Rachael was re-sewing the fish enclosure (it returns to haunt us!) while Lee headed back to New Farm to do observations at the Platform.
Friday, and so it came, our final day at Taricaya =0(
We had the privilage of chosing what we wanted to do this morning, both of us were unanimous in our decision to do early morning obs at New Farm Platform. It was a brilliant morning with all the regular birds and 4 new species for Rachael and 3 for Lee, bird of the morning had to be the Greater Kiskadee. This yellow and brown flycatcher seems quite indistinct from the other yellow and brown flycatcher, and believe me there are many of them! However its really distinctive and pretty cool call of "kis-ka-dee" confirms identification beyond doubt.
After lunch we both did lodge maintenance, feeding the animals, for the last time. First task was to find the hole in the monkey enclosure, where Antonia the large Spider Monkey and Billy, the White-fronted Capuchin, had escaped from again! This gave us the opportunity to have one final play with the monkeys including 'Heidi' the baby Spider Monkey!
This fixed we continued to feed the rest of the animals and say goodbye to them all.
Our final activity was an herpetology walk with Daniel in the afternoon, its a long walk round all four traps and its still very hot and humid here. Although we only caught 1 lizard in the traps it was a really good walk, we heard and caught very brief glimpses of a large group of Peccaries very close to our right off the trail. Was a little scary as these wild pigs can be very vicious and will charge and try to bite you! Luckily these simply hurried off deeper into the jungle. Next we saw a group of small monkeys high in the canopy, too high to identify them and they quickly moved away suggesting either tamarins or capuchins. We also heard Howler Monkeys calling and saw or heard numerous birds including 2 Spix's Guan.
And there we have it, our last day working in the Peruvian Jungle. Its been a brilliant two months and we just hope the rest of our travels are this good. Our last day at Taricaya... or so we thought.....!
Saturday, the day we fly to Cusco in order to visit this magical city of the Incas with its most famous of ruins, Machu Picchu. It was a sad farewell to everyone, we've made some really good friends and are very sad to leave but at the same time excited about the rest of our travels. Daniel was kind enough to see us off from the airport, and so at 12.00 we said our final farewell and headed into the departure lounge to wait to board the plane. We waited, and waited, and waited until finally an hour after the plane was supposed to leave it actually arrived. We were then told the flight to Cusco was cancelled due to bad weather! However our plans for Cusco we still alive if we could get on a flight tomorrow. So we headed out of the airport and back to town and to the LAN office to change the flight. Here we waited for another hour and a half (there were a lot of people heading to Cusco today) only to find out that all the flights to Cusco are fully booked until Tuesday! Our plans to see Machu Picchu disappeared as we had to settle for this flight, we now fly into Cusco on Tuesday afternoon and fly onto Lima on Wednesday morning. This will still give us a little time to see some of the Inca ruins around Cusco and the city itself.
We are both quite disappointed, but there is a silver lining to this tale... we get to spend two more days with our friends at Taricaya! And i'll tell you this, the look on their faces as one by one they saw us again was priceless!
So...we have one more final day back in the jungle and then on Tuesday we will start our long journey to New Zealand with a brief restbite in the Inca City...
Well here we are, our final week at Taricaya and the Peruvian Jungle....
Monday morning started off with an early herpetology walk for Lee, while Rachael went to New Farm to feed the guinea pigs, goats, sheep and donkeys. A very fruitful trip for Lee, as well as collecting 6 frogs he saw a large scorpion and a SCREAMING PIHA!! The same type of bird Rachael had seen last Friday! Keen to see one also he went hunting into the undergrowth when one started calling close by and managed to get a glimpse of it! Brilliant!
After breakfast Rachael was building the predoor to the new monkey enclosure while Lee headed to New Farm in order to administer deparasitising medicine to the animals, a simple enough task with the donkeys and goats as they are easy to catch, the goats usually "hide" in the barn and so can be easily cornered. The sheep on the other hand are a different matter... chasing them around a large field in long grass is pretty tiring and time consuming, until Lee resorted to rugby tackling them! Not only is this method very effective it is also very funny to watch, particularly when Lee disappears into the long grass, only to pop up with a sheep in his arms! Turns out he's very good at catching sheep this way, soon the method was adopted by the others and in no time all the sheep we caught, checked over and the medicine administrated!
In the afternoon it was Lee's turn to work on the predoor. Rachael headed to New Farm Platform with Pascal to do afternoon observations and while walking to the platform a large group of Squirrel Monkeys passed over the trail. Despite forgetting her binoculars (silly moo!) the telescope saved the day and the afternoon was still extremely enjoyable, the highlight being a Dusky Titi Monkey.
Tuesday saw the start of the exodus of volunteers, today Zander left and through the rest of the week five more will leave including us two at the end of the week! Its always sad when volunteers leave, particularly those who have been at Taricaya for a while, in Zanders case it was 3 months.
8am both Lee and Rachael joined two of the other volunteers and Pedro at New Farm to do the second round of deparisitising medicine. Again Lee proved his skills at catching sheep grabbing two in one go! This time we managed to heard the group into the barn and so the rest were much easier to catch. Once we had finished we set the mist nets up around the farm ready for the next couple of days.
On the way back to the lodge another group of around 30 Squirrel Monkeys passed across the trail and then hung around the lodge throughout lunch.
Afternoon activities was a trip to HOB for Rachael and the mighty Canopy Walk Way for Lee. A sticky, humid although overcast afternoon of us had really good observations. Although Lee was stung twice by a wasp and had sweat bees flying in his eyes, he still saw two new species of bird, a beautiul Blue and Yellow Macaw and 4 Red Howler Monkeys! It was quite quiet at HOB but a very worth while session for Rachael (promoted to member of staff again) who also saw a new species, a Zig Zag Heron. A very cool, small and brown stripey heron.
Wednesday morning we were up bright and early, at 4.30am, in order to go mist netting. We were not sure how well the session would go as this time we had decided ourselves where to place the nets. However it turned into a really really good session with 19 birds caught (the most in one session since we've been doing mist netting at Taricaya), 4 confirmed new species and 3 new hummingbird species we have yet to identify! The hummingbirds were particularly beautiful and very very small! A tricky customer came in the form of a Solitary Black Cacique, quite a large bird with strong, sharp talons and a strong, sharp bill that continually pecked at Lee as he abstracted it and measured it, but still it is a beautiful bird, silky black with an ivory bill.
That afternoon everyone was working on trying to remove a huge tree that had fallen onto the Ocelot enclosure. The idea was to attach a rope to the highest point of the tree, then try and pull it side ways away from the enclosure as Alex cut through the base where it had snapped. Unfortunately we didn´t really get far as the tree is wedged against another and we were all struggling with sore hands from pulling on the rope. We had to leave it as it got dark, but the group will return to the task at a later date but looks like they may not be able to stop it falling on the ocelot enclosure. (Ocelot was removed from the enclosure beforehand!)
Thursday, our final day of mist netting at Taricaya. While walking to New Farm at 5am we spotted 3 White Lipped Peccaries on the trail ahead! it was very exciting to see them while out walking and not sitting in a hide out of view. They paused ahead of us before dashing off into the undergrowth. As we arrived at the Farm we heard two seperate grous of Dusky Titi Monkeys and Rachael saw a Brown Agouti as it dashed off between the heliconia flowers.
Although it was quite sunny and a little windy we still had another really good session, this time 15 birds were caught, including a Ruddy Tailed Flycatcher which was a new species for us both. Bird of the session had to be a Russet Backed Oropendular, we see these large all the time at the farm but are rarely caught in mist nets as they usually fly too high and are slightly too big. Fortunately this one flew into the net as we were standing there and Lee was able to dash over and grab it before it flew off! If he thought the Solitary Black Cacique was painful to hold, it was nothing compared to the Oropendular! Similar build to the cacique but much larger we couldn't even fit it into a bird bag!
11am and we took the nets down for the final time, we've both really enjoyed the mist netting we have done over the last two months, its been our own little project and good fun showing other volunteers how to abstract birds as well as finding new species for us and for Taricaya!
After lunch Rachael was re-sewing the fish enclosure (it returns to haunt us!) while Lee headed back to New Farm to do observations at the Platform.
Friday, and so it came, our final day at Taricaya =0(
We had the privilage of chosing what we wanted to do this morning, both of us were unanimous in our decision to do early morning obs at New Farm Platform. It was a brilliant morning with all the regular birds and 4 new species for Rachael and 3 for Lee, bird of the morning had to be the Greater Kiskadee. This yellow and brown flycatcher seems quite indistinct from the other yellow and brown flycatcher, and believe me there are many of them! However its really distinctive and pretty cool call of "kis-ka-dee" confirms identification beyond doubt.
After lunch we both did lodge maintenance, feeding the animals, for the last time. First task was to find the hole in the monkey enclosure, where Antonia the large Spider Monkey and Billy, the White-fronted Capuchin, had escaped from again! This gave us the opportunity to have one final play with the monkeys including 'Heidi' the baby Spider Monkey!
This fixed we continued to feed the rest of the animals and say goodbye to them all.
Our final activity was an herpetology walk with Daniel in the afternoon, its a long walk round all four traps and its still very hot and humid here. Although we only caught 1 lizard in the traps it was a really good walk, we heard and caught very brief glimpses of a large group of Peccaries very close to our right off the trail. Was a little scary as these wild pigs can be very vicious and will charge and try to bite you! Luckily these simply hurried off deeper into the jungle. Next we saw a group of small monkeys high in the canopy, too high to identify them and they quickly moved away suggesting either tamarins or capuchins. We also heard Howler Monkeys calling and saw or heard numerous birds including 2 Spix's Guan.
And there we have it, our last day working in the Peruvian Jungle. Its been a brilliant two months and we just hope the rest of our travels are this good. Our last day at Taricaya... or so we thought.....!
Saturday, the day we fly to Cusco in order to visit this magical city of the Incas with its most famous of ruins, Machu Picchu. It was a sad farewell to everyone, we've made some really good friends and are very sad to leave but at the same time excited about the rest of our travels. Daniel was kind enough to see us off from the airport, and so at 12.00 we said our final farewell and headed into the departure lounge to wait to board the plane. We waited, and waited, and waited until finally an hour after the plane was supposed to leave it actually arrived. We were then told the flight to Cusco was cancelled due to bad weather! However our plans for Cusco we still alive if we could get on a flight tomorrow. So we headed out of the airport and back to town and to the LAN office to change the flight. Here we waited for another hour and a half (there were a lot of people heading to Cusco today) only to find out that all the flights to Cusco are fully booked until Tuesday! Our plans to see Machu Picchu disappeared as we had to settle for this flight, we now fly into Cusco on Tuesday afternoon and fly onto Lima on Wednesday morning. This will still give us a little time to see some of the Inca ruins around Cusco and the city itself.
We are both quite disappointed, but there is a silver lining to this tale... we get to spend two more days with our friends at Taricaya! And i'll tell you this, the look on their faces as one by one they saw us again was priceless!
So...we have one more final day back in the jungle and then on Tuesday we will start our long journey to New Zealand with a brief restbite in the Inca City...
posted by Lee Barber at
8:05 AM
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