Our tour is designed to seek the many upper-elevation endemics and specialties of the central Peruvian Andes amid some of the finest montane scenery in the world. We'll begin on the arid slopes above Lima--with Great Inca-Finch, Bronze-tailed Comet, and Rufous-breasted Warbling-Finch as possibilities--as we work our way up altitudinally. In the Cordillera Blanca to the north, we'll bird Huascaran National Park, which preserves almost a million acres of high Andean wilderness and supports perhaps the largest Polylepis woodland in South America, complete with Giant Conebill and Tit-like Dacnis and a host of endemics, from White-cheeked Cotinga and Rufous-eared Brush-Finch to the very local Plain-tailed Warbling-Finch.

Based in Huanuco, we'll explore the Carpish Mountains and Bosque Unchog. Here deep canyons and rainshadows isolate portions of the eastern cordillera from other such blocks, and in this isolation some of the most distinctive birds in Peru have evolved. Along the famous Paty Trail, we'll seek east-Andean forest specialties, including three fabulous antpittas, before heading for Bosque Unchog, where we camp for three days at the edge of elfin forest for such local endemics as the monotypic Pardusco and the enamel-plated Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager. After a search for the flightless Junin Grebe, we'll ascend to our highest point, in the arid puna of the western cordillera, home to the rare and local White-bellied Cinclodes and the exquisite Diademed Sandpiper-Plover.

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