EXCITING FIRST FOR OUR GUIDE IN UGANDA

There are some words that thrill a birder’s heart: “endemic” or “rare” or “newly discovered.”  Another littel phrase that can make your day, your week, even your birding career: “first time.”  We at Partnership for International Birding already knew that our man in East Africa is a birder without peer.  Johnny Kamugisha is the ace of Uganda bird guides.  Now he gets to add the phrase “first ever” to his accomplishments.

Here’s a picture he took of a Gray Pratincole (Glareola cinerea).  It is a common-enough bird in Africa, but only along the Atlantic Coast.  That’s WEST Africa.  Johnny took these shots at the Kazinga Channel in Uganda.  This is the first time this bird has been recorded in Uganda. That’s EAST Africa.  It remains unknown in neighboring countries like Kenya and Tanzania.  There is a single previous record in nearby Burundi.

So that’s just one more very good reason to add a Kamugisha trip across Uganda to your global birding plans.  There are hundred more including numerous endemics.  Look at these pictures also taken at Kazinga just last year.  Look at the variety:

The crowded pictures at the bottom were all taken within a short time. Spoonbill, various storks, gulls, terns, stilt, etc.  A tiny fraction of the birdlife variety you will find in Uganda.  So click here to check out our tour schedule for future birding trips led by “First Ever” Johnny Kamugisha.

GET YOURSELF TO BIRDING PARADISE

Paris for art, Himalayas for altitude, Peru for birds.  The biodiversity in Peru is tops in the League.  No other nation has as many bird species.  There are over 1800 species known to have occurred in Peru.  There are over 100 endemics and one-fifth of those are endangered.  From a rainless desert to mountains over 20,000 feet high. From the Pacific littoral to the
Amazon Basin, Peru provided a myriad of habitats, climate zones and hundreds upon hundreds of bird species. With a
few months in the field you would see more Peruvian birds than Owen Wilson’s character in the entire “Bird Year” portrayed in the movie.

Now PIB has a relaxed pace trip next summer that can get you started on your Peruvian life list.  We’ll confine ourselves to the northwestern section of the country.  But your trip list will still includes hundfeds of species and some birds you can see nowhere else.

This trip will move from Chiclayo on the Pacific Coast eastward into the montane forest around Jaen and on to Abra Patricia.  We will bird in the dry coastal forest and the humid Andean forests above 7000’ elevation.  We’ll spend more than a full day birding the Chaparri Reserve where nearly 3 dozen endemics have been recorded.  In the Andes we’ll bird Abra Patricia mountain pass.  Among the birds we’ll seek here is Johnson’sTody-tyrant, first described just ten years ago.

Click here for links to fuller itinerary.

The trip next summer (July, 2012) is organized for the Lucky Birgade, a group of birders who want a good trip list but also espouse an easier pace.  Usually at least two nights in a given location so each morning doesn’t mean packing and moving.

Pictures from top: Parrot-billed Seedeater.  Marvelous Saptuletail. Purple-backed Sunbird.  Now get those reservations and start studying your field guide.  It’s two inches thick.