The author provides a comprehensive guide to most of the major birding sites in Peru, including a few previously unpublished localities, and sites in Bolivia and Northern Chile visited during a stay in South America from September 1997 to March 1998.
This stay can be divided into two parts, the first of which was spent in the Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Zone in the Amazonian lowland rainforests of South-Eastern Peru as a member of "Proyecto Tambopata", a two-year tropical ecology research project aiming at the investigation of the impact of ecotourism on the populations of mammals and birds, as well as reptiles and amphibians at a set of six different tourist lodges within or in the vicinity of the reserved zone.
The second part of the stay was spent travelling in and around the Peruvian Andes and to the west of them. Detailed area maps and informative text provide the reader with an in depth introduction to a wide range of Peruvian birding sites.