The condor

The Nasca Lines (Nazca)

These are a series of geoglyphs located in the Nasca Desert, 53 miles or more than 80 kilometers between the towns of Nasca and Palpa (Peru) , created by the Nasca culture between 200 BC and 700 AD.
There are hundreds of individual figures, from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys and lizards.

The monkey

The Nasca lines cannot be recognized as coherent figures except from the air, as it is presumed the Nasca people could never have seen their work from the air, there has been much speculation on the builders' abilities and motivations.

The area encompassing the lines is nearly 500 square kilometers (200 square miles), and the largest figures can be nearly 270 meters (900 feet) long. The lines persist due to the extremely dry, windless, and constant climate of the Nasca region.

The spider

Here are some details on where the main figures are located:

Click on map to enlarge

And finally, some of the pictures of the birds represented there, condor, alcatraz, humming bird, parrot... Another proof of birds being important for ancient peruvians, I wish they were these days, hopefully they will be remembered soon and respected like they were in the past...

The hummingbird

The pelican

The parrot


The alcatraz

The Peruvian Pelican

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Pelecaniformes
Family: Pelecanidae
Genus: Pelecanus
Species: P. thagus

Found these guys - also at Paracas - first sitting on a boat and later on at Ballestas Islands.

The second and third pics are interesting: first the pelicans have some intruders (Humboldt penguins among them, can you find them?) and then they are the ones that crash the party of the cormorants!!!

They live on the west coast of South America, from Lobos de Tierra Island in Peru to Pupuya Islet in Chile.
These birds are dark in colour with a white stripe from the top of the bill, up to the crown and down the sides of the neck and have long tufted feathers on the top of their heads.
Their main breeding season occurs from September to March, during which they usually produce two or three eggs. These are incubated for approximately 4 to 5 weeks, with the rearing period lasting about 3 months.
This bird feeds on several fish species, showing a strong preference for Peruvian Anchovies. It feeds by plunge-diving, like the Brown Pelican.

I found out that it is not clear if it is a Brown Pelican or another species; this is what I found on http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Brown_Pelican.html:

"The Peruvian race of the Brown Pelican, found along the Pacific Coast of South America from southern Ecuador to Chile, is sometimes considered a separate species. It is larger than the other races, has fine white streaking on the feathers of the underparts, and has a blue pouch in the breeding season ".

So, can anyone clarify this for me??? THANKS!!!