Vulture Humour

Piece by piece

A couple of years ago I started my quest for knowledge and wanted to become a birder.

I always loved nature, but growing up in a big grey city made it very hard to enjoy it. Then, while living in another country for a totally different reason, I discovered that I liked birds and wanted to learn more about them.

I had no money for books, guides, fancy equipment, etc. All I had were my new 'birding eyes' and a small camera (got stolen and after half a year I got the one you see here)


I decided to start this blog to learn. I had no idea of what it meant to be a birder, what I would need, the amount of information I would find, etc. My only source was Internet, and as there was no information in Spanish, I thought I would give it a shot in English.

I started to meet the most wonderful people! It was slow, but then I found so many great blogs, awesome naturalists and birders, and it was such a joy to continue with my learning.


A few months later, once back at home (Peru), I started to find pretty birds...


And as I have a partner that enjoys nature, birding and adventures as much as me, it was fun to take a walk to the park or make a trip somewhere... (too bad he's away for a few months)


Then, with my dear love, managed to get field guides, one by one...


But as you may have noticed by now, possibly the most important piece was missing: Binoculars!

I'm happy to say that I have a pair now! This week I got a precious gift from a very dear friend, a dear angel who has been a huge help in the past months in many ways. I'm so excited to be able to use what belonged to this dear angel! I've been out this weekend for a couple of hours and it was AWESOME. It is another world when you see it through these...


I'm almost set! All I need now is my sidekick to come back and off we go...

More urban nature

Last week I found this 10cm... moth(?) leaning on the outside of the backyard's door.

Can anyone help id, please??


I had a pretty hard week. Work, health, family, friends. Lot's of not great news, but I'm fighting them all, each problem at a time ;)

I decided to 'cure' my sadness and frustration by going back to the pics either Tommy or I took last year. I found some pics that I never published before, and, as I haven't been able to go out this week, I decided to post them today. They are not great, but are a reminder of great moments, so, to me they are precious.


A female Vermilion Flycatcher a few metres from the house...


... And another one getting closer to a male Vermilion Flycatcher on the neighbour's fence. Fun Fact: Local name is "Turtupilín", trying to copy the sound of the song of this beauty.


A Blue-grey Tanager very high on a tree. Fun fact: In Peru, the local name is "Violinista", which means "violin player", because of the bird's song too.


It is curious how we try to name what we don't know. Both the "Turtupilín" and the "Violinista" after their songs or the sound of them. And other creatures, especially birds, after how they look, the colours they have, the masks, the hoods, the size of legs or tails...

The next bird I couldn't id. First I thought it could be a juvenile Safron Finch, but this one was bigger, and both maxilla and mandible are the same color, plus the whole bill looks bigger, a bit more like a Grassland Yellow-Finch, but I'm not sure. PLEASE, I know that some of you have the awesome "Birds of Peru" guide, so, HELP!!


That's all for now, I'll try to go out tomorrow morning and hopefully find some pretty bugs, flowers or birds to share with you during the next week.