A Pelagic Trip

Areca Harbour full of fishing boats.

Today was a part of the trip that had me a little worried.  A pelagic trip off the coast to see seabirds that don't come into shore.  The Markham storm petrols, whose nesting site we visited in the desert, fly back to their burrows after nightfall and return to the sea before dawn. 

 I'm very prone to motion sickness of any kind.  Don't worry, our guide Lalo said, it's very calm here, I never take anything, it's our trip off Valparaiso in the south that gets rough.  Great, I thought, but I'll be taking gravol.

The problem with gravol  is it makes me sleepy, so I fall asleep and then when it wears offI get a gravol hangover that makes me cranky. Long acting Gravol helps alleviate the sleepyness and the crankyness so that's what I took and hoped for the best.

Do I look sickly, sleepy or cranky?

The other problem is that seabirds are all variations of white, gray and black.

Belcher's gull

They all kind of look alike and it's very hard for me to care about the differences. Especially when sickly or sleepy or cranky.

Xx

Except for the Andean tern.

Come, on look at these dandies

So the job was to manage the symptoms.  Look at the horizon, and minimize looking through the binoculars or standing up and especially standing up and looking through the binoculars at the same time.  And try not to look too sick or too cranky or too bored.

So we set off on the long trip out into the ocean.

I did get excited about this sealing blending in with the giant concrete rip rap.

The other problem is that Leo's automatic camera does not do well in an unsteady boat. Many of his pictures turned out blurry.  So I spare you a bunch of blurry pictures of black/grey/white birds that look like seagulls.

Also his camera is not that fast so lots of photos of empty ocean. That I will also spare you.

We passed these sport fishers who were being followed by this mystery sea creature.

We were joined by another guide with two clients and a few other Chilean birders.  Here the two guides confer.

In English:  Oh I hope our clients get to see some albatross today.

In Spanish:  Let's see if we can make these gringos puke.

Here's a sooty sheerwater.

And here's an Elliot's storm petrel.  We did see one Markham's storm petrel, the species whose nest site we visited in the Atacama desert the previous day.

Species of note:  Salvins and black-browed albatrosses, a cape petrel (usually seen much further south),  and Peruvian boobies.

Our fellow birder Nick, with a better camera (and, no doubt, expertise) got better photos.

Back  in the Arica Harbour we saw a new cormorant, the very attractive red-legged cormorant.

And the Peruvian pelican, which is larger than the similar brown pelican and has a blue pouch (not very evident here).

Xx

You would think a 6-hour pelagic trip would be enough excitement for one day, but there was still more birding to be done.

But first we stopped for an excellent lunch at the home of Gerardo, an artist and chef.

Gerardo built the ramada and all the furniture as well.

The starter was corn cakes with 3 sauces, pureed olives, basil and one other.  Very delicious.

Also he had hummingbird feeders freque ted by the oasis hummingbird and the Peruvian sheartail.

Peruvian sheartail shows off his tail.

Fun fact:  Chile has only one species of  sparrow, the rufous-collared sparrow, and he's a looker!

Affectionately known as a rufy

Lifer! But we were to see these every day.

Another common bird:

West Peruvian Dove

If you're noticing a theme with the names of these birds we are seeing in Chile, that's because most of these birds are seen only in the far north of the country (and throughout Peru.  Birds, of course, don't observe borders, but they do recognize the Atacama desert which is so dry nothing can survive. (Except nesting storm petrels,  but they feed in the ocean.)

The birding was not done for the day, but this post is.

Arica

We were up early to catch our flight to Areca, a coastal city just south of the Peruvian border in the Atacama desert. 

Once off the plane we headed for the Lluta Estuary, home to several pet cemeteries.  

Here we saw burrowing owls (same species as North America) and eventually found two Peruvian Thickknees (lifer!).  We have seen the Australian version of thickknees before.  With its erect posture and giant eyes, this is one weird bird.  They just stand still and stare at you. 

We then followed the Pan-American highway through the Atacama desert. The Atacama is the driest desert in the world and it is pretty barren but the lush river valleys,  fed by runoff from the Andes Mountains far in the distance, are perfect havens for birdlife. Unfortunately, they are also perfect for agriculture so are cleared for alfalfa fields and massive greenhouse complexes. Not so good for the birds.

On our way we were stopped for a half hour of construction at a slump caused by a recent earthquake.  In Cupa we stopped for a giant sandwich in a local diner. I also had a giant and delicious glass of fresh guava juice. 

After lunch we drove up the Camarones Valley to find the endemic and endangered Chilean Woodstar. Bird of the Day! There are only 350 of them left and we saw at least five of them today.!.8!  The male is quite striking with its long forked tail.  Our fellow birder Nick from Los Angeles is a recent convert to birding. He took it up during the pandemic when he started spending more time outdoors.  He's now on a quest to see every hummingbird in the world and is well on his way with over 100 species. He was pretty thrilled to see this species.  Our guide Eduardo says they almost always only see females here so we were lucky to see two males chasing each other around.

Leo was having g trouble with his camera today so this is the best we got

Lest you think we were in some pristine tropical paradise, we were actually wandering around a junky abandoned industrial site with derelict homes surrounded with piles of rusted old cans.  Birding takes you to all the best places!

 Another exciting bird we saw was the adorable pied-crested tit-tyrant, which we would be inclined to name the BOD, except there are more than 350 of them left in the world.

On our way back to Areca we stopped in the desert to check out some holes in the ground.

We were at the recently discovered nesting grounds of the Markham storm petrol.  Leo had studied nesting leaches and fork-tailed storm petrels long ago on Haida Gwai so we were very intrigued.  For years noone knew where these birds nested. Now they have found the nesting grounds of several other storm petrel in the Atacama desert.

Our guide Lalo played a recording of the storm petrel. If there's a bird in there they might answer back.

Not this time.  But we could see the storm petrel tracks.

Back in Areca we checked into Areca to our nifty beachside boutique ecohotel, the Apacheta. 

It's right next to a popular beach and we have a sea view from our balcony. 

And a canopy bed

Before dinner we walked the shore and spotted a few more lifers:  Belcher's and gray gulls and Peruvian booby, as well as black skimmers and neotropic cormorants we've seen before in North America, and familiar North American surfbirds, ruddy turnstones and willets. 

And some American avocets

We had dinner on the patio facing the surf and it was delicious!  

Total species seen: 9  Total lifers:  8

Santiago, Chile

Greetings from Santiago, Chile! We are staying at the airport Holida Inn after a gruelling 19 hours of air travel.  We are a long way from home.

We found our first new bird this morning flying over the moat surrounding the hotel.

Chilean Swallow.  Other birds we saw in the concrete jungle were house sparrow and rock pigeon, bringing our trip total to 3 birds.

After catching a few hours of sleep we took a taxi to a nearby mall and got cell service set up. 

These photos were taken at a series of living walls across from our hotel.

The large-leafed plant on this wall is bergenia, which we planted in our yard.  I checked to see if it's native to South America.  Nope, it comes from the Himalayas.

We met our guide Eduardo (Lalo) over dinner tonight and tomorrow we fly north to the coastal city of Arica near the Peruvian border.

Total bird species seen: 3. Lifers: 1

Last Camping of the Season

We planned to go to Bridge Lake Provincial Park for our last camping trip this season, but the weather forecast was for rain and then our friends came down with covid.  So we decided to head for drier country. We snagged the best campsite in Steelhead Provincial Park (overlooking the lake and the end of the row).

We walked down to the river; the water was very low.  We'd never seen so much beach.

There were lots of gaillardia blooming on the beach.  Some with the typical brown-eyed Susan coloring but more that were pure yellow.

There were not many birds around but we did see lots of yellow-rumped warblers and a few common mergansers in the river.

The next morning we drove into Kamloops and hiked in Kenna Cartwright Park.

The rabbitbrush is blooming!

We had great views over the city and the 2 bridges across the Thompson.

In this closeup you can see the remains of the old red bridge which just burnt down a few days earlier.

Our friends Rick and Margaret stopped by on their way home from Summerland and snagged the site next to us.

We had a great fire for roasting hotdogs and a great view down Kamloops Lake.

And there was a spectacular sunset.

The next day we drove back to Kamloops and hiked in Kenna Cartwright Park again, this time starting at the trailhead by Home Depot.

We like the trails on this side better.  

Great view of the pulpmill.

After Iour hike we stopped for lunch at the Noodle Box.

 

Back in Savona at sunset we went for a walk at the campsite and discovered that the park extends to the other side of the highway and follows down the Thompson River.

The road is blocked off and appears to lead to an traditional fishing area for the local First Nation.  They put up many signs encouraging us not to continue any further.  There's also a trail that leads up to the mountain on the left of this photo.

We turned back; it was getting dark anyway.