Birdwatcher's tally

For all you birdwatchers out there, here is a tale and a tally. We already told you that in warmest summer we went to view penguins. Chiloe is home to the only place where both Humboldt and Magallanes penguins nest side by side. Three months after our visit we returned with Pat and Art only to find that the penguins had all left Chiloe. Little did we know that penguins fly to warmer water in the summer and colder water in the winter. As the penguins did not seem to have the migration thing backwards, we later discovered that flamingoes winter over in Chiloe. While the salt lakes of the Atacama desert dip to freezing in the high mountain winter, the flamingos come south to Chiloe. So wrap your head around this....we have penguins in the summer and flamingoes in the winter and the penguins are on the end of the island closest to the equator and the flamingoes are on the end closer to the South Pole. Last weekend we took the bus out to Putemun to see the penguins. They did not disappoint. We could see their pink plumage from away as we walked down to the shore. The tide was out so the flamingos were a ways out at the edge of the water. As we stood gawking, a flock flew in, their pink feathers lit up against the dark hills behind them. While they may be shy, flamingos certainly know how to make the most of Chiloe's changing light for a dramatic entrance.

So, for all you birders out there, we have paid a little attention to our fine feathered friends. Here's what we've seen:

Seagulls, of course. A flock of sea gulls is any early warning of the olfactory assault to come from fish farms, fish meal factories, mussel cannery and mussel shell dump. The latter we make special note to turn off the vent on the rental car as we approach.

Black-necked swans - rare in Chile, but common here in the ocean bays of Chiloe. A few years ago a large concentration of black necked swans was wiped out by an industrial accident in Valdivia. Sewage was released into the estuary near Valdivia killing the resident swans.

Lapwings (so we're told), that fill the role of crows here. Oddly enough, there are no crows, squirrels or pigeons to be seen on Chiloe. Trash seems to be picked at by stray dogs and lapwings.

Small stork-like birds with longish legs and a long curved beak that hang out in the fields. We have had a hard time getting close to them for photos. Although when ever we want to get to sleep we can be sure to have a flock of them making their rattling calls to one another.

Wit-wit (an onomatopoetic name for a medium-size flightless bird that lives in the forest south of here), and other drab birds with melodious calls that live in the forest where they're hard to see.

Cormorants - the black ones, and a white-breasted one that we first noticed last weekend.

A pelican- Another bird we did not catch a picture of but that we recognized right away. During late fall we saw pelicans in the bay where Gamboa creek comes into the estuary.

Parrots! In April we noticed large flocks of noisy birds in the fields and roosting in the poplars near our house at night. In silhouette, they looked like doves, but after a look with the field glasses we discovered that they're green parakeets. During the day the parrots fly off in flocks and feast on the apples that are ripening. With apple trees in nearly every garden yard, there is no shortage of food. We wonder why the parrots waited till fall to come feast. February's plums were in abundance but fell to the ground uneaten. Now that winter's chill has set in and the apples are mostly gone, so are the parrots. Another tropical bird that seems to like our most untropical island!
Out on the fresh water lake, Lago Huillinco, I spotted a fisher bid of some sort.

Hummingbirds - they love the fuscia! (Chilean national flower) Interestingly, their wings move much more slowly than the wings of northern hummingbirds - you can almost see them, and they don't make the buzzing sound - but they hover and drink nectar like the others. They're green with a red head.

I was inspired by all the birds the other day that I went for a walk along our shore to try to photograph the birds of our area. Not being a bird watcher, I will not try to give any of the birds a name.


Along my walk I was accompanied by the neighbors' dog who helped in my photography by chasing after as many birds as he could. The birds were helped along by thick low tide mud. I nearly fell over laughing when the mutt charged off after a seagull only to land in chest deep muck. .