I heard the Condor Call my Name

 We thought we 'd check the Navajo Bridge one last time on our way back from the Vermilion Cliffs.

I walked out onto the pedestrian bridge and what did I see?

Each released condor gets a number attached to them. If you see a condor without a number, it's a wild hatched bird.  Eventually they will try to trap them at the release site we visited and give them a number.  They try to retrap the birds once a year to monitor for lead poisoning. If lead levels are high they will treat them.

If you check the website Condorspotter.com you can learn the history of the bird.

T9, male, was hatched in the wild in May 2016.  

44, female, was hatched in June 2016 at the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. I have visited the center.

There were more condors perched under us on the pedestrian bridge and on the cliff edges.

V5 is a male hatched in June 2017 at the World Center for Birds of Prey

V3  is a male, hatched May 2017 at the Oregon zoo

2C is a female, hatched in May 2021 in the wild. Young condors have a black head.

Needless to say the highlight of the trip for us!

Grand Canyon -No Room at the Inn

Our dream of hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon has once again been foiled by our poor planning or perhaps our refusal to plan.  We weren't too worried about getting a backcountry permit, since apparently there are always lots of cancellations if you can wait around a few days.  And the last time we were here, though the park campsites were full there were plenty of sites in the commercial rv park.  But somehow we managed to arrive on Easter week and when we got to the rv park they told us they only had two sites left and only for one night. 

So we set up camp and then drove into the park for an afternoon of sight seeing, and to try to get a glimpse of a condor.  The park was crazy busy, but we managed to get a parking spot in the last parking lot, and we walked the rim for a few hours, but no luck, condor wise.


Obligatory selfie shot

The sheer masses of people from all over the world was kind of fun for a while, but eventually it wears you down.


Some of the masses, many of them eating ice cream cones, brrrrr

But the canyon itself was as vast and beautiful as ever, especially as the sun dipped lower in the horizon.



It was cold!  Quite a shock after a few warm days in Cottonwood.  We had to run the furnace all night to keep the plumbing from freezing.

Valparaiso Pelagic Trip

We were up early and walked from our hotel to the Wharf where our pelagic trip was to begin. I took my Gravol and steeled myself for the trip. Apparently this trip is usually much rougher than our first trip.

Guide Nelson Contardo on the right with some of our co-birders

We met a group of seven Chileans and their guide Nelson.  The plan was that Nelson would be the Spanish speaking guide and Lalo would be the English guide.  In the event, Lalo got pretty excited about the birds and would forget what language he was speaking, and Nelson would step in with the English.

Heading out the harbour we passed the tall ship Esmeralda, a training ship for the Chilean navy that has travelled the world.

Note the Esmeralda's figurehead:

The closest look we got of an Andean condor.

I just now read of the Esmeralda's dark past. She was a torture ship during the Pinochet years.

I did much better on this trip, hardly felt seasick at all and spent most of the trip on my feet looking at the birds.

Also they attracted the birds by chumming, throwing fish guts over the side of the boat.

(Apparently chumming doesn't work in the north).

The pelicans and gulls come flying in on a feeding frenzy.

It was fun to watch. The albatrosses are then attracted by other birds and fly in.

We saw 5 kinds of albatrosses. I can't honestly say I could distinguish them in the frenzy. But they are impressively large and magnificent.

 

Think this is a black-browed albatross with a sooty shearwater in the background.

Although this was a much better trip for me, 6 hours is still a long time on a boat.

Peruvian pelican landing

Salvin's albatross?

Pelicans at rest

Below is a royal albatross, one of the really big ones with a giant wingspan:

Gulls, pelicans and an albatross in front:

We also saw a large school of dolphins following a fishing boat. Too far away for a photo.

A highlight was seeing Humboldt's penguins in the water.

Cruising back into harbour:

Afterwards we had lunch at a seafood restaurant right on the wharf.

Nick enjoys caldillo de congrio and a last pisco sour before he flies home.

I had fried congrio (conger eel). Unlike the eel they smoke for unagi the flesh is not oily at all.  It's a delicious, meaty white fish.

Nick and Lalo had caldillo de congrio, a traditional fish stew, that Pablo Neruda wrote an ode to!  Had I only known!  In his home city!  But I was getting a little od'ed on seafood at this point. 

With an avocado and heart of palm salad on the side.

We then drove back to Santiago, stopping at the Parque Bicentenario to nab this guy:

The spot-flanked gallenule

This was a really beautifully landscaped park with ponds and planted marshlands.

They introduced some black-necked swans, native to Chile, but we were strongly cautioned by our guide not to count them on our species list!

Leo snuck a picture anyway!

The rest of the birds came here naturally, so counted:

Chiloe widgeon

Shiny cowbird

Monk parakeets are not native but have an established population so we could count them.

Monk parakeet feeding on jacaranda seedpods

Couldn't count the coi either!

Dinner was at Le Due Torri, an Italian restaurant.  Leo had gnocchi (fun fact, Chilean for gnocchi is ñoquis).

I had seafood canneloni, very good, but quite salty and the portion was enormous especially after having a large lunch.

And very pretty!

Total species seen: 41, Lifers:  10

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Farellones

We said goodbye to Nick last night and also to our big Sprinter and downsized to a perfectly adequate SUV.  Today we drove up to the Valle Nevada ski centre following the Mapocho River.

Our first stop was on the outskirts of Santiago where Chilean tinamous were known to live.  While we heard them, we were unable to coax them out.

This interesting house was perched on the hill across from the road. Squatters?

We were, however able to call out the very agreeable mustached turca, the most sociable of the generally unsolvable tapaculos.

We also saw the very cute plain-mantled tit-spinetail, and a bunch of typical Chilean birds like the eared dove.

Further up the road

we stopped for a white-sided hillstar feeding on a flowering bush

Lifer!

And an Austral pigmy-owl, a distinct species from the Peruvian pygmy-owl we saw up north and our North American pygmy owl.

Not the greatest photo but another Lifer!

Higher up yet we reached the vegas grasslands.  

Here we got a good view of an immature Andean condor flying overhead.

We saw three birders standing under a tree and stopped to find:

Lesser horned owl, lifer!

Then finally up to the ski area where sometimes Andean Condors hang out on the condominium balconies.  Not today though.

But we did see condors flying, the rufous-banded miner, a black-fronted ground-tyrant building its nest,

Black-fronted ground-tyrant

a variable hawk,

and gray-hooded sierra finches.

We stopped again further down the mountainside for a scale-throated earthcreeper 

Scale-throated earthcreeper

and a white-browed ground-tyrant.

White-browed ground-tyrant

Lastly we stopped here:

and spotted the Bird of the Day, a bird Leo and I have long wanted to find, an aplomado falcon, extirpated in the southern US (but now reintroduced in Texas).  

Back in Santiago we headed for supper.

The barbecue place we meant to go to was closed so we went to a traditional Chilean restaurant where we both had pastel de chocle, which is like shepherd's pie but with a cornbread topping.  We really liked it, and it wasn't a huge portion!

Total species:  44  Lifers: 8