Birding Factoids

453 species
in 51 families

8 endemics
47 speciality species
19 endangered species
3 week trip expectation -
250 species

Chile
Hotspots

Click here to see Mike Danzenbaker's Chilean Bird Gallery.
Also check out Nick Lowton's 2002 and 2003 Chilean Bird Galleries
Peter Bono's Chile Bird Photos
Michael Rinke's Birds of Southern Latin America
and Juan Tassara's Aves de Chile
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Chile Specialities
(Pause your cursor on the photo to see the species name. Andean Condor - Chile's National Bird - Photo by Martin Reid

Photo copyright Martin Reid ....
Chilean Flicker - Photo copyright Don DesJardin

Photo copyright Don DesJardin ....
Scale-throated Earthcreeper - Photo copyright Cliff Buckton

Photo copyright Cliff Buckton ....
Diademed Sandpiper-Plover - endemic to Chile - Photo by Martin Reid

Photo copyright Martin Reid ....
Band-tailed (Belcher's) Gull - Photo copyright Jeremy Barker

Photo copyright Jeremy Barker ....
Ruddy-headed Goose - endemic to Chile - Photo by Martin Reid

Photo copyright Martin Reid ....
Chilean Mockingbird - endemic to Chile - Photo by Martin Reid

Photo copyright Martin Reid ....
Chilean Flamingo - VULNERABLE - Photo copyright Juan Tassaro

Photo copyright Juan Tassara
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Pink-footed Shearwater - breeds in Chile - Photo copyright Don DesJardin

Photo copyright Don DesJardin ....
Austral Parakeet - Photo copyright Harald Kocksch

Photo copyright Harald Kocksch ....
Andean Lapwing - Photo copyright Brian Schmidt

Photo copyright Brian Schmidt ...
Lake Duck - Photo copyright Juan Tassara

Photo copyright Juan Tassara ....
Cinereous Conebill - Photo copyright Neotropical Journeys

Photo copyright Neotropical Journeys ...
Ashy-headed Goose - Photo copyright Cliff Buckton

Photo copyright Cliff Buckton ..
Magellanic Woodpecker - Photo copyright Alec Earnshaw

Photo copyright Alec Earnshaw
.. Grey-headed Albatross - ENDANGERED - Photo copyright Tony Palliser

Photo copyright Tony Palliser

....Birding Sites in Chile - This site is part of the Birds of Chile website.

Few descriptions of birding sites in Chile are available on the web. Information is available on:

Sites near Concepcion
Sites near Santiago
Sites near Temuco

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....Coastal Chile, Peru and the Humbolt Current - by Angus Wilson.

The Humbolt Current brings cold Antarctic water to the surface along the coast of Chile and Peru, supporting an immense fish population which in turn attracts great numbers of seabirds. An exciting host of species are endemic to the Humbolt Current: Humbolt Penguin, Markham's Storm-petrel, Hornby's Storm-petrel, Peruvian Diving-Petrel, Peruvian Pelican, Peruvian Booby, Guanay Cormorant, Red-legged Cormorant, Grey Gull and Band-tailed Gull.

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....Exploring Chile's National Parks - this site

provides brief descriptions of:

Juan Fernandez Islands
Parque Nacional Torres del Paine
Parque Nacional Laguna San Rafael
Reserva Nacional Cerro Castillo
Parque Nacional Chiloe
Parque Nacional Quelat
Parque Nacional Alerce Andino
Parque Nacional Vincente Perez Rosales

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....Patagonia - Geographic regions and Wildlife -

site provides information on:

Ephemeral Lakes
Peninsula Valdez
Punta Tombo
Los Glaciares National Park
Tores Del Peine National Park
Central Steppes

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....Reserva Rio Clarillo - Rio Clarillo reserve is near Pirque, south of

the main part of Santiago.

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....Birding in Conception - Conce is a good base to visit nearby

well know sites such as Laguna del Laja (near Los Angeles) and Cordillera Nahuelbuta (near Angol).

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....Parque Nacional Cerro Ñielol - Cerro Ñielol National Park is situated

right in the city of Temuco, and can be reached by taxi or bus.

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....Nahuel Huapi National Park - The most important

feature of this National Park is its diversity of habitats, such as the large lake and river system, the sub-antartic and valdivian cold forests, the dry steppes, lowland forest undergrowth and high andean ranges that host an interesting native flora and fauna.

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....Rio Cruces Nature Sanctuary - The history of this wetland goes

back to 1960, when the biggest ever recorded earthquake occurred in Valdivia. A vital wetland habitat for thousands of waterfowl and waders was formed.

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....Map of Argentina and Chile Parks - links to

information on:

Lauca National Park
Fray Jorge
Araucaria
Chiloé National Park
Lake District / Chile
Torres del Paine National Park
Laguna San Rafael National Park
Cerro Castillo National Reserve
Riacuteo Simpson National Reserve
Tamango National Reserve

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....Wetlands of La Puna - At an altitude of 3,500 - 4,000m, La Puna or

the High Andean Plateau of the Central Andes, is shared by Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. It is a cold, desert region with intense solar radiation and strong winds which cause extreme temperature variations. Yet in the middle of this desert landscape, the greatest explosion of life is without a doubt associated with the lakes and 'salares'; the great variety and number of birds, many of them endemic to La Puna, is particularly striking.(This is case study #1, part way down the page)

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....Tierra del Fuego - Located on the southern tip of

South America, Tierra del Fuego extends over 35,000km2 including Isla Grande as well as islands and archipelagos to the south of the Strait of Magellan. Along the coast and in the marine sectors, there are large sandy and stony beaches, numerous fjords, inlets and bays with wetlands which are highly variable in terms of salinity, and with luxuriant algae and peatlands surrounding them. Islands and fjords particularly in the exposed sector possess a large concentration and diversity of marine bird species. This is case study #2, further down the page).

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....Chili - Directory of Wetlands of International Importance -

includes information on all Chili's Ramsar designated sites, including:

Carlos Anwandter Sanctuary

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....Birding Trip Report - Argentina & Chile 2000 - by Jan Van Bulck.

Although we didn't go to Argentina and Chile for birding only, we took any opportunity to spot those birds and we ended up with about 130 species. All the areas we visited offered wonderful birding opportunities. These are some spots (follow the links in the navigation bar for more information) we'll always remember:

Torres Del Paine - Chile
Los Glaciaras National Park - Argentina
Peninsulla Valdez - Argentina
Iguazu National Park - Argentina
Los Esteros Del Ibera - Argentina

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....Trip Report: Isla Robinson Crusoe Travel Diary - Oct 2 - 8, 2001.

By James Owenby. Nature presents many mysteries. Some four million years ago, a small archipelago arose 670 km (415 mi) west of South America, off the central coast of present-day Chile. Because they are volcanic in origin, these islands have never been connected to the continent. Yet living there today is a hummingbird, the Juan Fernandez Firecrown - descendant of wayfaring hummers that somehow managed to cross this expanse of ocean.

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....1996 Grand Chile Trip Report - by Alvaro Jaramillo.

This commercial trip report provides information on a possible iotinerary and the likely birds to be found inthe various locations. See also 1997 Trip Report.

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....Trip Report - Chile - January/February, 1999. By Dave Hanford.

This entertaining trip report, in addition to providing a full bird list, and information on the sites visited, give a real sense of what travelling around Chile as an independent birder would be like.

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....Birdwatching in Bolivia and Chile - August, 1999. By Erik MØlgaard,

Jesper Meedom & Ulrik Andersen, Danish Ornithological Society, Birdlife, Denmark. (NOTE: this is a downloadable report in WORD format from the Danish Ornithological Society´s website). In August 1999, the excursions committee of the Copenhagen chapter of the Danish Ornithological Society (DOF) carried out its first tour to Bolivia. The tour was designed to give the participants a good coverage of the most typical habitats and of the biodiversity of the country. The time of the year was selected to minimize the amount of rain and here we actually succeeded too well - we didn’t have any rain on the entire tour and the very dry conditions kept the bird song at a minimum and was probably part of the reason we missed quite a few of the species normally associated with Bolivia. See also Part 2 and Part 3.

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....Trip Report: Chile - 30 October - 20 November 1999 - by Peter Browne.

I am a keen, long-time, listing birder, and Han is just getting into the sport. I had wanted to visit Chile (my 100th country) for many years, mainly because of the chance to see six families of birds which were missing from my life list: Diving-Petrels, Magellanic Plover, Seedsnipes, Sheathbills, Tapaculos, and Plantcutters.

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....Trip Report - Conception, Chile - November, 2000 - by Eric Toorman.

This report is the result of approximately 15 hour birding in the Concepcion area. I briefly visited the Concepcion area from 18 until 25 November 2000 within the framework of my work.The period of the year is late spring, when most birds are relatively quiet because of breeding activity.

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....Trip Report: Chile and Argentina - 7 October – 26 November 2000. By

Jon Hornbuckle. To fill the major gap in my South American list, I decided to visit Chile and most of Argentina (having already been to Iguazu). I started in Córdoba, then spent 6 full days in NW Argentina, before taking a bus across the Andes to northern Chile where I met up with 3 other stalwarts from South Yorkshire: Phil Gibson, Andy Marshall and Graham Speight. We then covered the whole of Chile, in 4 stages over 3 weeks, after which Andy and I bussed across to southern Argentina for the last leg of the trip. We were to have been joined by a third birder for the last part but as he had to drop out, we cut it short by omitting Ushuaia and Corrientes. The birding was very successful, especially in Chile where I hardly missed anything I hoped to see, thanks to a lot of help and a good team.

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....Trip Report: Chile - November 7 to December 5. With Barry Wright,

Neil Bostock, Keith Turner, Simon Colnutt and Matin Honeybun. Chile has much to offer the visiting birder, with spectacular scenery; excellent roads and internal air network and above all a host of fantastic birds and endemic species. Veterans of South America will still find that Chile is a must, with many species restricted to southern South America reasonably common and easy to see here. In comparison to Argentina the avifauna is similar and the two countries may be incorporated on a single trip in order that all habitats are well covered ornithologically.

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....Trip Report: Chile, 9 November – 24 November 2002 - by Gruff Dodd.

Chile was a destination which Sara and I had fancied for many years – the combination of good birding with lots of Chilean and Patagonian endemics, and a modern infrastructure combined with superb scenery added up to a total experience which seemed hard to beat. Our appetites were whetted further by a visit to Ecuador in September 2001, our first South American trip, which included some high altitude Andean birding.

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....Chile Trip Reports - a number of additional Chilean trip reports are

available from Blake Maybank's "Birding the Americas: Trip Report and Trip Planning Repository".

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....Chile Trip Reports - you can find Chile trip reports on John

Girdley's BirdTours website by following the South America/Chile link from the main page.

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Tours and Guides

See DISCLAIMER
>>>>

birdingpal.com...>>

A Birding Pal is not a paid guide, but someone who likes to help out of town visitors. You can become a Birding Pal today! Help someone to enjoy your local birding spots and find a pal to help you when you travel. Click here for Chilean Birding Pals, or join to be a Birding Pal!

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Slender-billed Parakeet - endemic to Chile - Photo by Martin Reid

Photo copyright Martin Reid ....
Torrent Duck - Photo copyright Ruud and Kitty Kampf

Photo copyright Ruud and Kitty Kampf ....
Long-tailed Meadowlark - Photo copyright Don DesJardin

Photo copyright Don DesJardin ....
Magellanic Penguin - Photo copyright Peter and Barbara Barham

Photo copyright Peter and Barbara Barham

**..Birding Alto Andino - Naturalist Guide Service & Wildlife Tours

in Chile's High Andes. Slow, thorough, naturalist-led tours offer clients the opportunity to observe puna birds and wildife of the saline lakes, cushion bogs, tola grasslands, and Polylepis woodlands of the Chilean altiplano. With a focus on the natural history of a slice of the Andes from Arica through the 4 altiplano wilderness areas of northern Chile, Birding Alto Andino is located in Chile near the Peruvian border, in the Aymaran pueblo of Putre about 135 km east of Arica by road. Birding Alto Andino is the only tour company located within the province of Parinacota, (the most northeastern province of Chile), which contains Parque Nacional Lauca, Reserva Nacional Las Vicuñas, and Monumento Natural Salar de Surire. The year-round tours and guide service concentrate on the natural history and birds of the Region of Tarapacá, Chile's northernmost group of provinces.

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....Chile Birding with Hualamo Nature Tours. Hualamo is a Chilean

company specialized in birdwatching and natural history tours. The operations center, Santa María Lodge, is located in the heart of the Cruces River Nature Sanctuary, one of the most important reproductive sites for Black-necked Swans in the world, as well as many other bird species. Here you will start your journey of exploration into the wonderful nature of the Lake District on southern Chile.

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**..Birding Chile with Birding in Peru - If you are an avid birder looking

for a quality and amazing birding tour experience in Peru, Bolivia or Chile, we have that birding trip for you. We cover all birding areas of these countries. The classic tour of Chile - South Americas longest country, never more than 200 kilometers wide but a staggering 4000 kilometers long, and a superb introduction to its Neo-tropical birds. This is a comprehensive tour with domestic flights to enable us to cover this extensive country. The scenery is spectacular to say the least and with good accommodations and food plus excellent world famous Chilean wines - this trip is a must... This trip concentrates on Chilean endemics and near-endemics. Travel with us and we will ensure that you have the most complete birding experience ever with expert neo-tropical bird tour leaders!

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**..Chile Pre-trip with Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT) - The Chile

Post-Trip offers the unique opportunity to bird the Andes, providing excellent chances of seeing an Diademed Sandpiper-Plover. This brief tour will begin with an excursion into the Andes east of Santiago to an area which provides an ideal introduction to Chile's birds. This trip is a post-trip to the main cruise: Antarctica, South Georgia & The Falklands (January 17-February 4, 2003).

Chile Pre-trip (January 16 - February 4, 2003) 6 days - limit 12. With leader Michel Sallaberry.

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**..Chilewith Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT) - The mild climate,

semiarid landscape, matorral-covered hillsides, Eucalyptus groves, and rocky coastline in the central portion of Chile are very much like those of southern California. This is where a wealth of austral (southern) birds can be found on a fairly regular basis. And, this is also where the cold waters of the near-shore Humboldt Current offer some of the finest pelagic birding on earth, including the opportunity for several species of albatross.

Chile - November 09 - November 24, 2002 (16 days - Limit 14) with Victor Emanuel, Barry Lyon and Claudio Vidal.
Chile - November 08 - November 23, 2003 (16 days - Limit 14) with Victor Emanuel, Barry Lyon and Claudio Vidal.

Eco-Lodges

See DISCLAIMER

Photo copyright Ruud and Kitty Kampf

Endemics and Specialities

in Chile

Photo copyright Nick Lowton

Information on endemics and specialities is derived from Sibley & Monroe checklists and bird distribution lists in Thayer's Birder's Diary - Version 2.5, supplemented by material found in Where to Watch Birds in South America - by Nigel Wheatley. South American speciality birds, while not endemic, are those that can only be found in three or less countries of South America. Information on endangered birds is derived from the IUCN Red List, Birdlife International, and supporting data bases developed by Ian Patton, of Merlin Species Watcher. The endemic, endangered and speciality birds may be uncommon, extremely rare vagrants, may be extirpated in the country now or may only be present in migration. However, documented sightings of each species noted below have been made in Chile.

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Endemics in Chile
___ Chestnut-throated Huet-Huet ___ Chilean Mockingbird ___ Chilean Tinamou	___ Crag Chilia ___ Mustached Turca ___ Chilean Seaside Cinclodes	___ Slender-billed Parakeet ___ White-throated Tapaculo
... Endangered Birds in Chile
Breeding Birds		Non-Breeding Birds
___ Andean Flamingo ___ Austral Canastero ___ Austral Rail ___ Chilean Woodstar ___ Defillipi's Petrel ___ Horned Coot ___ Juan Fernandez Firecrown ___ Markham's Storm-Petrel ___ Masafuera Rayadito	___ Peruvian Diving-Petrel ___ Pink-footed Shearwater ___ Puna Flamingo ___ Ringed Storm-Petrel ___ Tamarugo Conebill ___ Slender-billed Finch ___ White-tailed Shrike-Tyrant ___ White-vented Storm-Petrel	___ Eskimo Curlew ___ Westland Petrel
Other Speciality and Spectacular Birds in Chile (from *Where to Watch Birds in South America* - by Nigel Wheatley. with additions from Martin Reid)
___ Andean Condor ___ Andean Flamingo ___ Andean Avocet ___ Band-tailed Earth-creeper ___ Black-throated Huet-Huet ___ Black Siskin ___ Burrowing Parrot ___ Chucao Tapaculo ___ Creamy-rumped Miner ___ Defilippe's Petrel ___ Diademed Sandpiper-Plover ___ Dolphin Gull ___ Dusky Tapaculo ___ Dusky-tailed Canastero ___ Giant Coot ___ Greater Yellow-Finch	___ Grey-breasted Seedsnipe ___ Hooded Grebe ___ Humboldt Penguin ___ Inca Tern ___ Least Seedsnipe ___ Lesser Rhea ___ Magellanic Diving-Petrel ___ Magellanic Oystercatcher ___ Magellanic Penguin ___ Magellanic Plover ___ Magellanic Woodpecker ___ Peruvian Diving-Petrel ___ Peruvian Sheartail ___ Peruvian Tern ___ Puna Flamingo ___ Puna Plover	___ Ruddy-headed Goose ___ Rufous-bellied Seedsnipe ___ Rufous-chested Dotterel ___ Rufous-tailed Hawk ___ Rufous-tailed Plantcutter ___ Snowy-crowned Tern ___ Spectacled Duck ___ Stejneger's Petrel ___ Tawny-throated Dotterel ___ Thick-billed Siskin ___ Torrent Duck ___ Two-banded Plover ___ White-bellied Seedsnipe ___ White-tailed Hillstar ___ White-throated Treerunner

Print and Other Resources on Birds

and Birding in Chile

(logos and links take you to on-line locations where you can order/purchase these resources)
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AMAZON.COM is the registered trademark of Amazon.com, Inc.

A small portion of your purchase price for any books purchased by following links from this site will go toward supporting the maintenance and development costs of this site.
Chimango Caracara - Photo copyright Eric Van Poppel

Photo copyright Eric Van Poppel

....A Guide to the Birds and Mammals of Coastal Patagonia - by

Graham Harris (Illustrator), William Conway. This is the first guidebook to the birds and mammals of the coastal region of Patagonia, a vast area at the southern tip of South America. This guide describes the 185 species of birds and 61 species of mammals known to inhabit the land and sea along two thousand miles of the Patagonian coast, from Peninsula Valds to the Strait of Magellan.

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....Birds of Chile/Aves de Chile: Illustrated in Color - by Sharon R.

Chester. This book supplements the 1993 field guide by Araya and Chester. It was designed to fit into a binocular case or pocket, and is printed on heavy stock with a plastic cover to withstand field use. Twenty-nine color plates drawn by the author illustrate over three hundred common bird species of mainland Chile.

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....The Rough Guide to Chile - by Melissa Graham, Richard Danbury.

Seen in the pages of an atlas, the country's outline strikes you as aberrant and fantastical: almost 4000km in length (the equivalent of Scotland to Nigeria), and with an average width of just 180km, the very idea of it seems absurd. Once on Chilean soil, however, these boundaries make perfect sense, and visitors quickly realize that Chile is a geographically self-contained unit.

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....Lonely Planet Chile & Easter Island (Chile and Easter Island,

5th Ed) - by Wayne Bernhardson. With 86 maps, whether you seek outdoor or urban adventures, this guide has what you need to eat, sleep, speak, and experience the finest Chile has to offer. Also included are details for travel to the Falkland Islands and Antarctica.

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