Ted Parker finds Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager and Pardusco at Unchog

Connected with God – Ted Parker

Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager. Photo: Gunnar Engblom

One of my highest personal achievements just became reality as I got a slight connection with the God of all South American birders – Ted Parker. Ted Parker was the most talented neotropical birder with a tremendous capacitiy of learning birdcalls and has become somewhat of a hero to any birder who want to aspire knowledge about South American Birds. It was a tremendous loss to, when he died in planecrash in Ecuador in 1993.
Ted Parker’s recently published account in Birding magazine from American Birding Association – ABA-  about his first sighting of Golden-backed Mountain Tanager at Unchog and Quilluacocha in the vicinity of Acomayo, Huanuco is illustrated with my pictures of the same birds. Wow! It is an honor!

You may already have read about our recent speed birding trip to Unchog. I have noticed a lot of hits on my Unchog blog-post the last couple of days. It is probably due to the Birding article.

So I thought I’d share the Parker account here with it’s masterful editing and commentary of Gregg Gorton. Click on the link to download the pdf of the Birding article:

Ted Parker finds Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager and Pardusco

At this point We have had a group of different sorts at Unchog.  We are were training Pervians to learn about the birds to eventually become site guides, and the same Reyes Rivera mentioned in Parker’s account is helping us. There are also three guides taking part from Cusco and Puerto Maldonado taking part in the course.

Shameless commercial plug – read no further…..

Want to see Parker’s dreambird – the Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager?  Check out Kolibri Expeditions web-page for the Carpish trip. Also check our extended Carpish trip that also includes Satipo road. We offer a 20% discount on all Central Peru trips through-out 2009.