I hope to resolve the meaning of the word guano. It seems that the word came into use in the mid 19th century when it became an export commodity (mostly from islands off Peru and Chile) for use on European and, later, American farms. So the term mostly means easily collectible nutrient rich droppings. Most dictionaries simply call guano the feces of sea birds. Wikipedia, the most useful site in my search, calls it " the name given to the collected droppings of seabirds and bats." The word has its origin in the Kitchua (aka Quechua, an important Peruvian upland native group with a relatively global visibility. My spelling is the more politically savvy according to Lara Janson, a friend who is going to the area on a Fulbright next year) word "wanu" which, I gather, refers to its ability to enrich argiculture. The most important animal for the Peruvian industry of guano exportation has been the Guanay cormorant and the Peruvian Pelican.
Incidentally, lest we think that this industry was of little importance, let us remember that when the English began to import significant amounts of guano in 1847, their nightsoil industry collapsed. The nightsoil industry collected human wastes from cesspools outside houses in London and other major cities to distrubute to agricultural areas. While the transition to connecting house waste streams to city sewers was well underway, many houses still used cesspools near their homes and paid nightsoil men to take it away periodically. In 1856, the problem of human wastes accumulating in the Thames and London's groundwater became so serious and undenyable that a massive undertaking was begun to build the world's first major system of sanitary sewers seperate from storm water sewers. The seperation of London's water supply from its waste disposal was undertaken by Sir Joseph Balzalgette and saved many lives by reducing cholera epidemics and other fecally transmitted diseases.