The Best of Birding around Santiago

The Yeso Valley is well known for being one of the most accessible places to see the sought-after Diademed Sandpiper-Plover. This beautiful and enigmatic mountain shorebird breeds in the high elevation bogs of the valley and will be our main target for the day. Members of Albatross are proud to have led a research project on the species for many years, and thus have a great track record for finding it.

In addition to the Sandpiper-Plover there are many other interesting species we will be stopping to look for on our way to higher elevations. Among them are the endemics Crag Chilia and Moustached Turca; Torrent Ducks in fast-moving rivers, and many Andean specialties like White-sided Hillstar, Andean Goose, Scale-throated Earthcreeper, Black-fronted and White-browed Ground-Tyrants, Greater Yellow-finch, Yellow-rumped Siskin, Andean Condors and Mountain Caracara. Reaching higher elevations we will also be able to see some more rare and localized species like Creamy-rumped Miner and Grey-breasted Seedsnipe.

The scenery here is some of the most beautiful and dramatic in Central Chile. High mountains, turquoise lakes, hanging glaciers and white-water rivers combine to make a magnificent spectacle.

Leaving early from Santiago we will head towards the coastal city of San Antonio. Just south of the city we will visit a recently created reserve on the Maipo river estuary. This reserve protects one of the most important wetlands in central Chile, where we’ll be able to enjoy large groups of gulls, Black Skimmers, terns, pelicans and shorebirds.

The reedbeds at the reserve entrance are a great place to see the stunning, but skulking, Many-colored Rush-Tyrant and Wren-like Rushbird, as well as Yellow-winged Blackbird and Sedge Wren.

On the beach, seawatching can add sightings of Red-legged and Guanay Cormorants, Peruvian Boobies, and even Chilean Skuas.

After scanning the masses of migrant shorebirds on the mudflats in search of potential rarities we will pay some more attention to the passerines and look for the rare Ticking Doradito (a recent split from the Warbling Doradito), Spectacled Tyrant, Correndera Pipit and the Chilean endemics Dusky Tapaculo and Dusky-tailed Canastero.

Driving north along the coast we will have lunch at a seaside restaurant on the rocky shoreline. This location is also a great spot to find another Chilean endemic, the Seaside Cinclodes.

In the afternoon we will visit more protected wetlands, looking for Spot-flanked Gallinule, Black-necked and Coscoroba Swan, Plumbeous Rail, Black-headed Duck and maybe even the secretive Stripe-backed Bittern.

We will also stop near a Peruvian Pelican colony where a few Humboldt Penguins are also breeding.

Murphy said “I now belong to the higher cult of mortals for I have seen the albatross!”

If you want to belong to this cult, and enjoy one of the best pelagic experiences in the world, then you have to go on a pelagic trip on the Humboldt Current!

Seabirds such as albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters are species with a unique biology. In their wandering through the seas of the world they only touch firm ground for breeding. Thus, to see them up close it is necessary to embark on offshore pelagic trips to reach their feeding areas.

Chile has more than 4,000 kilometers of coastline and is considered as one of the best places in the world to do pelagic trips. The Humboldt Current was named after its ‘discoverer’, the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt; a cold and low-salinity ocean current emerging from the seabed off the coast of southern Chile and moving northward dragging nutrients even as far up as Ecuador, creating one of the world’s richest marine ecosystems.

This huge rise of nutrients notably favors the observation of marine fauna. Exceptional trips have produced roughly 60(!) species of seabirds. With over half a dozen species of albatrosses, and multiple species of petrels, shearwaters, terns, diving-petrels, cormorants, gulls and terns.

The abundance of different species vary throughout the year, depending on each species’ reproductive strategy. Among the most commonly seen species off the coast of Valparaiso are: Black-browed, Salvin’s and Royal (Northern and Southern) Albatrosses, Northern Giant-Petrel, Mottled (Cape), Juan Fernandez, White-Chinned and Westland Petrels, Sooty and Pink-Footed Shearwaters, Peruvian Diving Petrel, Inca Tern, Wilson’s (Fuegian) Storm-Petrel, Humboldt and Magellanic Penguins, Peruvian Booby, Guanay Cormorant and Peruvian Pelican. Among the more uncommon species we may see, are Masatierra Petrel, Chatham and Buller’s Albatross, and Southern Fulmar.

Our pelagic trips last roughly 6 hours and a shared boat is scheduled for the second Saturday of every month.