More Birds 2015, part 2 / Birding News from Peru

Published: Tue, 12/30/14


Hi ,

There was a slight misconfiguration of the previous message, so the SPECIAL OFFER DISAPPEARED. If you are considering travelling during the first three months of 2015 you really don't want to miss out on this. 

Here is the end of the previous message the way it should have looked. 

BTW, if you have gotten another version this is from another list. This particular mail goes to blog subscribers of the bi-weekly summaries. Feel free to respond to this email directly. 
I have not blogged as much as I wanted in 2014, but hope to be able to keep you updated with interesting stories and posts in 2015. 

Run for Birds

Most of you know that I run the Marathon. 2014 was truly a great year for me. I ran 2000 miles in total, and ran my third fastest Marathon ever in New York on Nov 2 at 3:14:13. My two faster marathons I ran when I was 21 (3.00.32) and at 23 (03:10:20). Now I am 54!

I am raising the bet!  I will run Boston Marathon on April 22. I would like to make that into a fundraiser for bird conservation as well. Probably one of the projects mentioned above.

My goal is to run in less than 3 hours.  I have even made a promise to not drink a drop of alcohol until I have run the Marathon in less than 3 hours.  Having “Pisco Sour” and “beer” as my mantras when I should push harder may just do the trick.

I believe birders who run, could do much for conservation by making fund raising when running.  And we could attract other runners into bird watching and conservation.  To share and discuss ideas there is a small Facebook group called – yes you guessed. Run for Birds!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RunForBirds/

Facebook Sharing Group. 

If you are into social media and Facebook in particular, as a blogger or photographer you may have noticed.  It is becoming more and more difficult to reach a large audience through Facebook in spite that everyone has more friends and fans than ever. The really good blogposts, the excellent videos and mindblowing photos don’t always reach the audiences they deserve. It is the FB algorithm that has tightened and less of the stuff you share is actually seen by your friends or fans. You may have a couple of thousand friends and still you get only 10 likes and no comments for a post that would have gotten some 100 likes a few years ago and a thread of comments.  What if there was a way that your best post could reach a larger audience? What if we could trick the algorithm?
 
I have long thought of getting a number of good FB sharers together in a “share-club” where each member selects one or a few good share-able items per week – and then each member share the same items on their timelines, groups, twitter, Google+, etc.   For this to work, it is necessary that the items are not about selling anything for one’s own gain and that the items really feel worthy our attention and willingness to share them.  

Rather than forcing people into a new group, I decided to do a test drive within the previously rather silent Kolibri Expeditions Friends Group on Facebook.  This becomes intermixed with posts about our trips, but at least hopefully people can see what I am looking for and a new sharing group can be created with people from Kolibri Expeditions Friends who understand the underlying objective.  

Read the pinned post on https://www.facebook.com/groups/KolibriExpeditions/ to get the essence of this idea. I hope you join if you are not on the group already.


Kolibri Expeditions 3 day Sale.

Offering 15% discount on all Peru tours between Jan 1-March 31 when the tour is booked between now and Jan 1.  Check the tours on 
http://www.kolibriexpeditions.com/Birding/Calendar.aspx?IDM=5

From February 14 and March 5 ABA:s Noah Strycker will be with us as he is on his World Big Year itinerary and is aiming to score more than 5000 species of birds in a year. We hope that around 750 or so will be added in Peru. We will allow a limited number of birders to join us during these dates – also with 15% discounted price as long as it is booked before Jan 1.

Write me ASAP at kolibriexp@gmail.com if interested.

Finally some video and some shots.
http://youtu.be/uPCsbQgfTLI – Jaguar at Heath River 2014
http://youtu.be/LHFQNcK2-rs  Satipo goes to Mindo. Meet Maria - the Giant Antpitta. 
http://youtu.be/0Lknchq6Mps   Long-whiskered Owlet 2014

Saludos


Gunnar Engblom
Kolibri Expeditions
Kolibriexp@gmail.com