Southern Cone: ChAr 2016, Part 2 - Central Chile

Jan 8

Arriving in Santiago, we met up with my friend Adam Timpf who had arrived on an overnight flight from Toronto, and hung out in the airport, getting some Chilean pesos and his luggage. Regan then caught her flight back home, and eventually our third musketeer (or stooge) showed up (Josh Vandermeulen - see his trip report here: http://joshvandermeulen.blogspot.com/2017/01/journey-to-southern-cone-part-1.html), and we were off to find our rental car that we'd booked a few days earlier. The check-in process went smoothly, and by 14:00 we were off, heading west on one of Chile's rather fantastic highways (smooth pavement and 120km/h speed limits! A novelty in Latin America). Along the way, we chatted about birds we'd see and my time in the north, and I added a few birds to the trip list (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26783814), as the avifauna here was almost completely different to that found in the Atacama. Reaching our destination at the Maipo river mouth, south of San Antonio, we found a place to park the car and were off, quickly finding new birds as we walked along the path through scrub, trees and reedy marsh to the river mouth proper (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26783662). I added 46 new birds for the trip here, almost all of them lifers as well, so I won't list them all, but some highlights were the Chilean-endemic Dusky Tapaculo and Chilean Mockingbird, along with some other targets like Ticking Doradito, Gray Gull, Rufous-tailed Plantcutter, and a bird I had long wanted to see - the Many-colored Rush-Tyrant. We actually ended up seeing a dozen of this latter species!

The beach held vast flocks of Franklin's Gulls, and offshore our first Peruvian Boobies and Peruvian Pelicans cruised by, while the mudflats and the river itself held nice flocks of shorebirds and waterfowl.

Many-colored Rush-Tyrant

Elegant Terns, Gray Gulls and Franklin's Gulls

I think we all enjoyed our time here, but before long we had to get moving. Back in the car, we worked our way up the coast, stopping in at Laguna el Peral where the hoped-for Black-headed Duck failed to materialize (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26783688). After a quick dinner, we carried on to Punta de Tralca (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26783724), a rather scenic beach spot much-enjoyed by the locals. We opted to skip the beach though, and headed out to the rocky coastline where we quickly found our main target, the endemic Seaside Cinclodes. Some Guanay and Red-legged Cormorants flying past with the big groups of Peruvian Boobies were also lifers for all of us, and a distant Giant-Petrel remained unidentified.

Seaside Cinclodes

Colourful vegetation at Punta de Tralca

Punta de Tralca

As we still had a bit of a drive ahead of us, we headed out after thoroughly enjoying the view over the Pacific, stopping briefly at a little roadside wetland where we added a few trip birds (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26783756). We eventually made it to Viña del Mar well after dark, where our lack of planning bit us a little. We drove around for quite a while before eventually finding a decent and reasonably-priced hostel to stay at (Marisol, 11000p per person), that had a safe parking area for the car. By 23:30 we crawled into bed, eagerly anticipating what tomorrow had in store.

Running trip list: 120

Jan 9

We awoke at some early hour, and were quickly packed and on the road, cruising through the quiet streets in the predawn gloom. We arrived in Quintero in time to find our boat and get acquainted with our fellow birders who would be going on the pelagic as well. The water was almost glass calm as we departed the harbour, which the on-board guide warned us might mean the birding would be a little slow.

Our boat for the morning

He was right, and the trip ended up being a bit of a bust by local standards, but for us basically everything was new, and despite missing a few semi-expected species, we all had a great time. Not far out of the harbour, our first Chilean Skuas appeared, along with a distant Inca Tern, and shortly thereafter we had our first of several Peruvian Diving-Petrels. As we got into deeper waters, the true pelagic species started to appear, and it wasn't long before the call went up - Albatross! A Salvin's Albatross came gliding gracefully over the swell to check out the activity around our boat (they had started to chum by this point), easily dwarfing the numerous Kelp Gulls. This was the first albatross any of us had seen, and by the end of the morning we had a total of 21 Salvin's and 2 Black-browed Albatrosses. Some of them came quite close to the boat, providing spectacular views. The pelagic list was rounded out by White-chinned and Westland Petrels, Pink-footed and Sooty Shearwaters, and some Wilson's Storm-Petrels (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26811702).

Out on Big Blue

Salvin's Albatross

Pink-footed Shearwater

Our time offshore flew by, and before we knew it, we were heading back to the harbour, picking up another Inca Tern, some Blackish Oystercatchers and several Seaside Cinclodes on the way in. Shortly after noon, we were back in the car and headed toward our next destination, making a stop for lunch and picking up Cattle Egret for the trip en route to La Campana. The park holds a nice mix of matorral scrub and forest, and has a few Chilean endemics. We arrived right in the heat of the day, and birded the entrance road for a while before we accepted that it was simply too hot for there to be much bird activity. We did, however, score our first Giant Hummingbird of the trip, along with Chilean Pigeon, Fire-eyed Diucon and Striped Woodpecker (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26845229). Deciding that we would return once things cooled down in the evening, we went off to find accommodation for the night. Since we wanted somewhere that was relatively close to the park, and reasonably priced, it took us longer than we would have liked to find a place (1.5h), and we eventually ended up going back to the first place we had checked. The La Campana Tourist Info Centre runs a hotel/restaurant, and it ended up costing us 59000p for a room with three beds, a bit more than we would have liked, but it came with a pool. After a late second lunch (it was around 16:00 when we got to the hotel) and a bit of a rest, we headed back up to the park, and mostly birded the road and the Mina Nueva trail until it got dark (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26845223). Moustached Turcas, Dusky-tailed Canasteros, Tufted Tit-Tyrants, Thorn-tailed Rayaditos and a Great Shrike-Tyrant entertained us, while our first White-throated Hawk went by overhead. We eventually stumbled across some rayaditos making a fuss, and looking down a gulley we saw the reason - an Austral Pygmy-Owl was sitting in a low tree, staring back at us. All throughout, White-throated Tapaculos were heard calling, but remained frustratingly out of sight for Josh and I, while Adam had only a brief glimpse of one. An Andean Fox (Culpeo) made a brief appearance at the trailhead, and as it got dark we made our way back toward the taller forest along a stream, where we heard a distant Rufous-legged Owl calling. As we were all pretty exhausted by this point and the bird sounded quite far away, we decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel for some pizza and beer, and a late-night swim in the pool once the day visitors had cleared out.

Running trip list: 145

Jan 10

We were back at La Campana in the morning, with a goal of actually seeing a White-throated Tapaculo (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26845190). While we didn't add anything new for the trip, we had some success with the tapaculos, and eventually got decent looks at one. We also finally saw a Dusky Tapaculo, having only heard them on our two previous encounters. Otherwise, the birding was about the same as the previous evening, with a little more activity in the cool morning hours.

La Campana

By 09:00 we were back at the car, as we had some ground to cover. Heading through the hills, our little rental car barely made it up some of the steeper sections, but eventually we were over them, and found a pair of Black-chested Buzzard-Eagles soaring over the road near Tiltil (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26845183). Our first stop en route was at Laguna Batuco (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26845152), where we wasted a fair amount of time trying to figure out how to access the lake, which seemed to be a popular stop on birding tours. We eventually parked the car along a dirt road on the east side, and walked through some unfenced fields to the lake edge. It was much reduced, as we were there in the heat of summer, but still held plenty of waterbirds. Our first Cinereous Harriers cruised over the grasslands, and a couple of Austral Negritos were nice to see, along with more Many-colored Rush-Tyrants. Our main target here, however, was the Black-headed Duck, which we eventually had good looks at before it disappeared into the reeds. Lake Duck and White-faced Ibis were also new for the trip. Our next stop was not far away, at the Lampa 'wetlands', which seemed like a good spot for the local subspecies of Black Rail - a potential future split. One had been seen only a few days before, but when we arrived at the spot, it was almost completely dried up, and no rails were to be had in the afternoon heat (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26845102). Cutting our losses, we headed onward to the high-elevation Andes just east of Santiago, at the ski-resort area of Farellones (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26845075). On our way up, we stopped at a few spots to enjoy the scenery and scan for birds, and at one stop had decent looks at a Chilean Tinamou across a gully.

On the way up to Farellones

Farellones has two main roads, and we took the southerly fork first, to Valle Nevado. A good diversity of tyrants, Sierra-Finches and Rufous-banded Miners greeted us, and at the ski resort area, numerous Andean Condors hung out on the buildings. Up the hillside on the ski slopes, a little colony of Coruros (a type of rodent) provided some entertainment as we struggled to catch our breath at the high elevation.

Andean Condor

After we'd had our fill of condors and ground-tyrants, we headed up the other fork to the Los Condores side, and stopped at a small stream near La Parva. This proved to be quite birdy, and we added Magellanic Tapaculo, White-sided Hillstar and Scale-throated Earthcreeper for the trip, and I got better looks at Spot-billed Ground-Tyrant. In the general vicinity, Dark-bellied and Gray-flanked Cinclodes were new for the trip, along with Chilean Flicker and Greater Yellow-Finch. After cleaning up most of our targets in the four hours (we missed Creamy-rumped Miner for the group, and Mountain Caracara for Josh and Adam), we headed back into Santiago, where some Monk Parakeets flew over the road as we found a place to eat.

Birdy stream near La Parva

Unfortunately, our decision of a Chinese restaurant proved to be a terrible idea - the food was horrible on take one, and we were cheap enough to bring the leftovers for lunch the next day for take two... This was followed by a bit of a fiasco trying to find a place to stay on the southeast edge of Santiago in the dark. After driving around the sketchy neighbourhoods of Puente Alto for a while, we stopped in at a gas station to ask where the nearest hostel or cheap motel was. We were informed that there were no hotels at all in Puente Alto, and it was a dangerous area to be at night - we'd be better off going into downtown Santiago. As we had no desire to do that, we kept going up the road toward San Jose de Maipo, where we eventually found a place that had some cabins. Despite the place being empty (it was actually closed when we arrived after 23:00 - the night guard called the owner for us), they refused to budge on their price of 80000p for a night, so we carried on, not wanting to spend that kind of money. As we got closer to our destination for the next morning, we eventually conceded that there were no other options for places to stay, so we simply found a pulloff well up the El Yeso road and set up camp. Adam and I slept in the car, while Josh had luckily brought a thermarest and sleeping bag, and he slept under the stars beside the car. By 00:30 we were all asleep.

Running trip list: 166

Jan 11

After our fiasco the night before, we were a little sluggish in the dawn gloom. After packing up and having a quick breakfast, we slowly made our way up the El Yeso road toward the reservoir, stopping at a few likely-looking cliff faces. It wasn't long until our first target made an appearance - two pairs of Crag Chilias were foraging on one such face! We spent a while enjoying the company of the chilias before continuing on past the reservoir, to a grassy hillside.

Crag Chilia

El Yeso reservoir

A rather birdy stop

Culpeo (Andean Fox)

The road from here up toward the hotsprings was loaded with birds, and we spent most of our time here walking the road past the gate (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26844760). We didn't make it as far as the hotsprings though, as we realized the habitat probably wasn't quite right for our target bird, and Josh started to feel the effects of the altitude. Highlights of this stretch were Buff-winged Cinclodes, Sharp-billed Canastero, and Cinereous and Black-fronted Ground-Tyrants, all new for the trip. We also had great looks at a male White-sided Hillstar, a few Andean Condors and quite a lot of Gray-breasted Seedsnipes. Still no luck with Creamy-rumped Miner though, or our main target up here.

Scenery up the El Yeso road

Greater Yellow-Finch

With our time running out (we had to have the car back by 14:00 or we risked paying late fees), we reluctantly made our way back toward the reservoir. As we were about to leave the valley, we noticed a wet area beside the road that we had seen on the way up, and figured we'd give it a few minutes of searching. It didn't take long before Adam waved his hands, and Josh and I ran over to where he was standing and began excitedly taking photos of a Diademed Sandpiper-Plover and its chick! We decided to risk the late fees at this point, and spent some extra time with these charismatic little shorebirds. Crouching down in the wet marsh, the adult walked right up to us and foraged not 2m away, seemingly not caring about the trio of giants that had invaded its territory.

Diademed Sandpiper-Plover

DSP habitat

Thoroughly soaked, muddy and happy, the three of us piled back into the car and raced toward the airport, hoping to avoid an extra day being tacked on to our rental. Despite arriving back several hours late, we were not charged any penalties, and they also didn't notice the small hole Josh had put in the bumper when he backed into a rock wall at La Campana - a stroke of good fortune after a few misadventures! From the airport, we took a bus into the city centre and found a hostel close to the train/bus station (La Casa Roja, 11000p each - we actually got the last three beds in the whole place). There we enjoyed a few of the typical Chilean 1L cervezas and chatted with the other world travellers for the evening.

Running trip list: 172