Entre la tierra y el mar

How I wish there were time this evening to do justice to the first day of our tour, but there isn't. Southwards we headed from Lima, along Peru's painfully arid southern coast, broken here and there by fertile valleys crowded with crops. On our way we made four stops:

At the Pantanos de Villa where many-coloured rush-tyrants (a bird as delightful as its name) and wren-like rushbirds hopped through the rushes, cinnamon teal and great grebes swam on lakes and overhead were hundreds of grey-hooded gulls. At the shore were thousands of birds in an odd uber-flock of band-tailed, kelp and Franklin's gulls (many of this last species in radiant pink breeding attire), turnstones and a willet (which should have migrated but clearly didn't feel like it), moorhens (strolling cheerfully over the beach), puna ibis and neotropic cormorants, and among them a solitary (and very lost) roseate spoonbill.

At Pucusana, a charming fishing town where a charming fisherman, Javier, took us around the cliffs in his happy blue boat. Thousands of Inca terns, Peruvian boobies and equally Peruvian pelicans were on the rock-face, southern sea-lions dozed on ledges and outcrops, adorable Humboldt penguins huddled in a cleft in the cliff, and a single blue-footed booby stretched its long wings over the bay.

At Puerto Viejo where grassland yellow-finches (my streaky favourite of the yellow-finches) bounced through the rushes and Peruvian meadowlarks filled the plain with their buzzy song.

At Doña Paulina's roadside restaurant where Peruvian thick-knees sulked en masse in a broken-earth field and in a tiny patch of maize we found hooded siskins and blue-black grassquits.

A splendid, splendid day but I am tired and must sleep; there are more adventures to be had tomorrow.

New along Peru’s coast

	Mammals
62	southern sea-lion	Otaria byronia
	Birds
494	grey-hooded gull	Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus
495	little blue heron	Egretta caerulea
496	snowy egret	Egretta thula
497	wren-like rushbird	Phleocryptes melanops
498	blue-and-white swallow	Pygochelidon cyanoleuca
499	great grebe	Podiceps major
500	pied-billed grebe	Podilymbus podiceps
501	yellow-crowned night-heron	Nyctanassa violacea
502	cinnamon teal	Anas cyanoptera
503	Andean (slate-coloured) coot	Fulica ardesiaca
504	least bittern	Ixobrychus exilis
505	groove-billed ani	Crotophaga sulcirostris
506	many-coloured rush-tyrant	Tachuris rubrigastra
507	puna ibis	Plegadis ridgwayi
508	white-cheeked pintail	Anas bahamensis
509	roseate spoonbill	Platalea ajaja
510	Andean ruddy duck	Oxyura jamaicensis ferruginea
511	Franklin’s gull	Leucophaeus pipixcan
512	American oystercatcher	Haematopus palliatus
513	killdeer	Charadrius vociferus
514	willet	Tringa semipalmata
515	black skimmer	Rynchops niger
516	yellow-hooded blackbird	Chrysomus icterocephalus
517	guanay cormorant	Phalacrocorax bougainvillii
518	blue-footed booby	Sula nebouxii
519	surf cinclodes	Cinclodes taczanowskii
520	blackish oystercatcher	Haematopus ater
521	red-legged cormorant	Phalacrocorax gaimardi
522	Humboldt penguin	Spheniscus humboldti
523	croaking ground-dove	Columbina cruziana
524	grassland yellow-finch	Sicalis luteola
525	Peruvian meadowlark	Sturnella bellicosa
526	Peruvian thick-knee	Burhinus superciliaris
527	blue-black grassquit	Volatinia jacarina
528	hooded siskin	Carduelis magellanica

2012 Totals

Mammals: 62

Birds: 528

Reptiles: 14

Amphibians: 6

Fish: 6