By Carolyn
After two long days of flying, we had our first planned layover in Santiago. Through her many world wide birding contacts, Becky found us a guide and we headed to the mountains east of Santiago while the pilots devised a Plan B for getting fuel after we leave Easter Island. (Plan A fell apart when we were informed that the boat delivering Jet A would be delayed until December 18.)Fernando Medrano picked us up from the Airport Holiday Inn and we crawled through morning rush hour traffic before escaping into the foothills. As a professional birding guide, he knew exactly where to go to find the target species. The drive was beautiful as we passed through arid rocky terrain that looked like West Texas or Arizona.
It’s springtime in the Southern Hemisphere, so the birds were very cooperative, wearing breeding plumage, singing and gathering nesting material. Becky kept the lists and was allowed no shortcuts...Fernando monitors the Chilean eBird database and likes each stop to be documented separately. But, I can lump them together here: 3 California Quail
3 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
39 Black-winged Ground-Dove
1 Eared Dove
2 Giant Hummingbird
12 Southern Lapwing
3 Kelp Gull
13 Andean Condor
2 Variable Hawk
2 Mountain Caracara
2 Chimango Caracara
3 American Kestrel
3 Moustached Turca
1 Dusky Tapaculo
10 Rufous-banded Miner
1 Creamy-rumped Miner
1 Scale-throated Earthcreeper
1 Buff-winged Cinclodes
2 Plain-mantled Tit-Spinetail
3 Tufted Tit-Tyrant
3 White-crested Elaenia
7 White-browed Ground-Tyrant
2 Black-fronted Ground-Tyrant
1 Fire-eyed Diucon
4 Blue-and-white Swallow
1 House Wren
5 House Wren (Southern)
5 Austral Thrush
4 Chilean Mockingbird
1 Black-chinned Siskin
5 Rufous-collared Sparrow
1 Long-tailed Meadowlark
27 Austral Blackbird
15 Gray-hooded Sierra-Finch
4 Mourning Sierra-Finch
2 Band-tailed Sierra-Finch
4 Common Diuca-Finch
19 Greater Yellow-Finch
5 House Sparrow
Lunch was served at a rocky playground while grey headed Sierra finches and chestnut collared sparrows flitted around waiting for our crumbs. Up and up we climbed, above the tree line to the ski areas. We were rewarded with a whole family of Andean condors at 3,000 meters! They are beautiful birds.
