Birding around Arica

In the morning we drove out to the outlet of the Lluta River.  Here we saw lots of seabirds, including gulls and terns.

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Scouting

Some cool birds:

American oystercatcher on its nest

Common gallinule

Snowy egret and puna ibis

The estuary is within sight of the city.

Lots of turkey vultures hanging around.

Many of the birds are the same species as in North America.

Greater yellowlegs

Wilson's phalarope

Immature black-crowned night heron

Little blue heron

We also saw this Peruvian meadowlark:

With a bright red breast

Also this lizard:

We spent a very long time at the Estuary looking at sandpipers, especially long if you were female and there were no shrubs to hide behind.

But eventually we drove to a rest station only to find it was a pay station.  Very embarrassing for me as I did not have small change to pay and Lalo had to jump in and pay for me.  

We then drove up the Camarones River valley and higher  higher into the Atacama along a narrow windy road littered with rockfalls.  We passed some geoglyphs but I was on the wrong side of the vehicle.

Eventually we reached a settlement where we strolled through someone's farm, with a dog following along till we reached an alfalfa field.

Here we spotted Raimundi's yellow-finches at the very southern tip of their range.

Male and female Raimundi's:

We drove back to Arica, had a late lunch, said goodbye to our driver Christian and caught the 10:30 flight to Santiago.  Into our hotel after midnight and grateful to be staying in one place for 2 nights.

Count:  61 species, 9 lifers