Peru 5

I'm currently sitting in my hotel room in Puerto Maldonado. I'm here a week earlier than planned due to a miners' protest that's been going on here. The region of Peru in which I'm staying (Madre de Dios) suffers from vast amounts of illegal gold mining. To combat this the government is going to put a cap on the amount of fuel people can buy without registering. Because the mining requires a lot of fuel, registering to get more would identify themselves as miners to the government. Since 28 March they have been protesting, and there was a truce over easter until 28 April so I had to get out while I can. They block the interoceanic highway which would have prevented me getting back to Puerto Maldonado from the airport, and they also occupy the towns; they've even been known to throw rocks at people out in public during the protest. I had 2 options, either get out now or have to wait until it finishes and as no-one knows when that be I took the first option. It's not all bad news though, as it means I can now go and spend 5 days photographing in the cloud forest where almost every species in front of my lens will be new, so I can't wait for that. This afternoon I'm flying to Cusco before getting a bus to my next destination on Sunday. I then have 5 days there before I fly back to London on 3 May, arriving on the 4th.

I really loved it in the lowlands - as difficult as I found the photography there due to the low levels and high canopy, I can't wait to get back there as soon as I can. Here are a few photos that I've taken there so far.

For a couple of weeks I spent most days down one particular trail near the river as pretty much every time I would see the same troops of Peruvian spider monkeys. On this occasion I just managed a photo before it disappeared.

 One evening while looking for the monkeys I saw this Spot-breasted Woodpecker to the side of the trail. Luckily it was nice and open so the light levels were much higher than normal, and most of the background was covered by trees, leaving no big white gaps in it!

I also spent quite a bit of time up the 60m canopy tower. One evening a group of White-bellied Parrots flew into a castaña tree near the tower, just as the sun was about to dip below the horizon. It wasn't close enough to fill the frame so instead I decided to show some of the castañas on the tree. The colours looked great in the evening sun.

 One of the birds I saw very frequently was this one, the Black-fronted Nunbird. They would perch up on fairly exposed branches before swooping down to the ground to catch caterpillars or, in this case, a katydid.

I also had a chance to go out on one of the oxbow lakes, where one of the most common birds was the Red-capped Cardinal with its crimson head.

That's all for this post; I'll try and do another one within the next few days with some more pictures.