Let’s face it; while Peruvian culture and cuisine are indeed interesting, the real reason I’m making the journey to that nation with Gunnar Engblom and Kolibri Expeditions is to see and photograph wildlife – particularly that belonging to the Class Aves. However were I simply to turn up in Cuzco without having spent considerable time learning about the assorted creatures that walk, crawl, fly, swim, and in a dozen other ways traverse the Peruvian countryside, I would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of life forms I beheld before me. Therefor, I have begun in earnest to read from some field guides that have been recommended to me in order to be able to become at least passingly familiar with some of the birds, mammals, insects, and other wildlife whose paths I might cross in my journey.
As most bird watchers well know, the definitive text for referencing the birdlife to be found in Peru is that magnum opus of Messrs. Schulenberg, Stotz, Lane, O’Neill, and Parker – The Birds of Peru. However as Princeton University Press, the publisher of this cornerstone of ornithological literature, is releasing a revised and updated edition of the book this July, I am momentarily cooling my metaphorical heels hoping that the published date will be bested and a copy will become available before then. Thus in the meantime I am diverting my attention from birds specifically to a more general survey of Peruvian wildlife as presented in David L. Peason and Les Beletsky’s Peru from the Traveller’s Wildlife Guides series.
Produced by Interlink Publishing, the Traveller’s Wildlife Guides are splendid overviews of the various creatures (in the case of the Peru volume, most of which is drawn from the Phylum Chordata – butterflies, moths, and other members of the Arthropoda being simply too numerous and too marginal in the interest fields of many travelers to make their inclusion feasible). Particularly helpful to me in this present volume is the authors’, as well as the overall series’, approach of presenting each taxonomic family in terms of its overall natural history rather than going into great detail at the individual species level. Thus in reading it, I am able to begin at the macro level and, with additional study of other works, such as Princeton’s Birds of Peru, work my way down toward more specific knowledge.
Make no mistake, this is not a field guide for those simply wishing to fill out a trip checklist. Not all species of the families discussed are depicted in the plates nor are the field marks of each species depicted exhaustively detailed. While this may be off-putting to those seeking a comprehensive presentation of a particular taxonomic class for the region, it is indeed to be welcomed by all, myself included, who seek a more multi-dimensional understanding of Peru’s wildlife, and how each family relates not only to one another but to the larger ecosystem as well.
