The Butterfly Bird

Shany recounts his successful bird-watching outing in the Peruvian Andes. A legend among ornithologists and bird-watchers, the marvelous spatuletail, occurs primarily along an eighty-mile stretch of the east bank of the Utcubamba River. Although little is known about its ecology, the scarcity of the bird suggests it needs a specific combination of plants and environmental conditions to survive.