Great egret To celebrate the publication of Mama Amazonica from Bloodaxe this September, here are just some of the birds I saw in the Peruvian Amazon, mostly on the Rio Tambopata banks, and in oxbows or around our lodge Tambopata Research Center. Such glory! The book may deal with trauma, but here is a counterbalance of beauty which I soaked up on my two trips to pristine rainforest. Here is what must be preserved, a world only partly visible, many species as yet undiscovered, unnnamed. Here is what I want to celebrate in my poems, along with the terror. 

Most of the photos were taken by Brian Fraser, a few by me with my iPhone, and our guide Jungle Paul took the super-sharp night-hawk.


crested oropendola


Rufescent tiger heron


Cormorant in Oxbow Lake


Black-tailed trogon


Roseate spoonbill


Red-capped cardinal


Azure gallinule


Blue-throated piping guan


Horned screamer


Mama hoatzin with chick in nest on fish pond in island


Night hawk on Tambopata photo credit Paul F Condori (Jungle Paul) our guide


Night hawks on the Tambopata, sleeping on driftwood