Great set of photos and stories, Charlotte.
Thank you for sharing them.
Dan Reiff

----- Original Message -----

From: "Byers" <byers345 at comcast.net>
To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 4:56:34 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Off topic: Birds of Chile, south to north



Hello Tweeters,

Bill and I returned from a 3-week birding trip to Chile at the end of November. We started in Punto Arenas and worked our way north birding on both and coast and in the mountains in each location. For me one of the highlights was visiting Torres del Paine. There was nothing between our little hotel, on an island in Lake Pehoe, and the mountains. Andean Condors sometimes swooped right over the island and then vanished over the show fields into the mountains.

Out of Valparaiso we did a pelagic cruise. This one did nothing to improve my opinion of these adventures. However, we had taken medicine and didn?t get sick. The sun was out and the waves were awesome. Our little boat bobbed like a little cork down one side of monumental waves (Bill says they weren?t that big) and then crept back up to the top only to crash down the other side. I quickly decided to stash my camera and hold on for dear life. Bill stood up and took pictures while the boat tossed and heaved and he got covered in salt spray. Probably only one out of about 20-25 of his pictures were any good at all, but he took lots of pictures, including 4 species of albatross. I was very impressed and I think some of his pictures are phenomenal (wife bias here).

We spent several days driving up into mountains outside of Santiago (8000-9500 ft) and then in northern Chile, the group visited Lauca National Park. This park is basically a flat plateau with running water ringed by amazing volcanoes. When we got to Putre, an Aymara village at 11,500 feet, I developed altitude sickness and couldn?t go higher. But Bill went and took pictures. By evening, after drinking coca leaf tea, I felt much better. But I was a day late and we returned to Arica on the coast the next day.

I am including two links: the first to just the birds we got reasonably good photos of. Most are Bill?s, but those taken with a 70-300 mm lens are mine. The second link is to some general photos of our trip and scenic (Chile is a really beautiful country!)



https://www.flickr.com/photos/29258421 at N07/albums/72157689569508744 bird pictures



https://www.flickr.com/photos/29258421 at N07/albums/72157662936902728 scenics for Chile



Charlotte Byers, Edmonds





_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters