Last summer, I completed my first field season at the Los Amigos Biological Station. My research focused on sampling and identifying dung beetles across a variety of habitats. As an avid birder and student of ornithology, I spent my time off birding, and quickly realized I wanted to come back to the station to complete another project focusing on the birdlife there. I am thrilled to be returning to Peru [...]
Their long and sometimes prehensile tails, and their capability to climb and jump among tree branches are a few of the key features of Neotropical primates. These highly arboreal organisms are perhaps one of the most charismatic groups in a tropical forest. Los Amigos harbors eleven primate species, from the largest and highly vulnerable spider monkey (Ateles chamek) to the smallest and very rare Goeldi’s tamarin (Callimico goeldii). Among the [...]
The migration of animals is one of the most studied phenomena by scientists, and one of the most anticipated events by nature lovers. This annual phenomenon, which is affected by many factors such as age, sex, resistance, and survival skills, involves animals leaving habitats in winter and reaching the ideal and warmest places for feeding and reproduction. Birds -- with their ability to fly, a highly developed nervous system [...]
Recently, we hosted a distinguished American ornithologist at two of our birding lodges in southeastern Peru. Dr. Robert Ridgely, whose name is synonymous with South American ornithology, was impressed by the “extraordinary habitat” surrounding the lodges, calling the deeply forested transect from Wayqecha Birding Lodge, high in the Andes, down to Manu Birding Lodge is one of the “the biggest, wildest montane forests” on the planet. Dr. Ridgely is a distinguished author, ornithologist [...]
University of British Columbia PhD candidate Micah Scholer has visited Peru enough times to know the lay of the land and discover some of the incredible birds the country has to offer. Read about how he got into birding, the research project he is conducting in the Amazon, and some of his adventures in the field. How did you become interested in birds? Growing up in northern Minnesota I spent lots of time [...]
I discovered my passion for birds years ago while researching macaws in the Peruvian rainforest in Tambopata, one of the most biodiverse spots on the planet with a wide variety of habitats and around 550 bird species. Among the variety of habitats found there, the most amazing to me was the bamboo forest, one of the largest bamboo patches of the entire Tambopata area, and also a favorite of the [...]
Last year Arjan Dwarshuis set a new world record for the highest number of birds observed in a single calendar year: an astonishing 6,841 bird species observed in 40 different countries (about 65% of the world’s species!). Of all those countries, Arjan named Peru as the number one destination for birding. “Hands down,” he says about his choice “…we saw 1,001 species in 24 days – a record within a record! 577 [...]
Amazon Conservation held its second course on ecology, taxonomy and conservation of neotropical birds at our Los Amigos Biological Station in Peru earlier in September. The course was held for Peruvians in conjunction with, the Arequipa Museum of Natural History (MUSA) and the Center for Ornithology and Biodiversity (CORBIDI). The purpose of bringing together these organizations was to continue our goal of training the next generation of Peruvian ornithologists to grow bird conservation and awareness [...]
