Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!cluster!andrewt
From: andrewt@cs.su.oz (Andrew Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Birding in Bolivia
Message-ID: <2087@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>
Date: 19 Feb 91 00:55:06 GMT
References: <1991Feb18.093451@cs.utwente.nl>
Sender: news@cluster.cs.su.oz.au
Reply-To: andrewt@cluster.cs.su.oz (Andrew Taylor)
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Lines: 35

In article <1991Feb18.093451@cs.utwente.nl> deby@cs.utwente.nl
(Rolf de By) writes:
> extremely high on my list: Diademed Plover (Phegornis mitchellii)

I saw one during a 5 day walk in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru. We were at
the end of a long days (uphill) walk and had reached about 4300m (14,000 ft).
Driving snow and sleet had dropped visibility to about 10m. We were trying
to find a decent campsite when through the snow I saw this bird sitting on a 
low rock.  Binoculars showed it to be a weird plover. I could only watch it
briefly because Monica insisted we move on before she froze. We had only just
met so she didn't appreciate that a new bird can be more important than
frostbite. One of my favourite birds.

I guess this doesn't help much except for the location - at the top
of a grass covered glacial valley, not far below the snowline, about 200m
from a beautiful glacial lake. I remember seeing it mentioned in a brochure
for a Chile trip by an US bird travel company.

> I know of two trip reports of birdwatchers to Bolivia ...

5 years ago I spent 3 weeks in Bolivia but my birding was limited by
transport, money and language difficulties. Also the only book I had was a
poor Argentinian field guide in Spanish. Bolivia isn't an easy country to
travel.  I highly recommend the South American Handbook - the best travel
guide ever written.

There is a great walk which from outside La Paz -> Corrico. Its along
a pre-Inca road now used only by a few tiny indian villages. You cross
a ~4500m pass on the first day then walk down for the next 3 days going
from above the snow-line into full rain-forest. I wasn't that successful
with birds on the walk, partly because of rain and lack of time but I did see
tinamou at the snow-line and torrent duck in raging white-water (they are
amazing).

Andrew Taylor