February 26, 2016
After our wild godwit chase yesterday and the day before, we were a little nervous today if we would find any. We were driving south past Chonchi to survey Contuy again. G even made a feeble attempt at a joke about if there were no godwits he’d be worried - I didn’t laugh.
We drove out along the road to the first access point, we have visibility of the flats for a couple hundred meters before we park. And my heart sunk and stomach turned. G’s joke really wasn’t funny now. The look on G’s face proved he was feeling the same as me. How could it be? No godwits here either?
We got out to scan - it was about an hour before low tide - we were only doing a half scan. Maybe they were just far away? Finally, G spotted some. Maybe a few hundred we thought? Far away. Let’s try our other access that should get us closer.
We drove over, and we crossed our fingers and toes. Jumped out and walked down to the beach - godwits! Lots of godwits! There were over a thousand - most were around a bend in the coastline we couldn’t see from the first stop. We ended up refinding two of our FEGs - yay! Still at 29 unique individuals despite G trying very, very hard to find another green flag.
We decided to spend a few hours exploring after our scan and drove down to Queilén - a spit of land at the tip of this part of the island. There we saw lots of Sooty Shearwaters and Imperial Cormorants. The highlight was certainly the Chilean (or Bicolored) Hawk that flew across the road hunting a swallow on our way there. It was a split second lifer look but it was a good one! We’ve been hunting for this Chilean accipiter (related to our Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawks) forever. I had basically given up hope. It was incredible to see this shy accipiter dart out of some shrubs pursue the swallow across the road and up over a hill into some woods.
On our drive back we stopped at a Lagoon. Highlights were a Great Grebe carrying two black-and-white striped babies on its back and our Chile Ruddy Ducks! Two new birds in one day! We even managed to stay dry amongst the intermittent showers.
We’re starting to feel like this trip is wrapping up. G was verbally daydreaming about Mexican food and bacon as we were driving around.
Update: 29 individuals with a 62% second resight rate.
After our wild godwit chase yesterday and the day before, we were a little nervous today if we would find any. We were driving south past Chonchi to survey Contuy again. G even made a feeble attempt at a joke about if there were no godwits he’d be worried - I didn’t laugh.
We drove out along the road to the first access point, we have visibility of the flats for a couple hundred meters before we park. And my heart sunk and stomach turned. G’s joke really wasn’t funny now. The look on G’s face proved he was feeling the same as me. How could it be? No godwits here either?
We got out to scan - it was about an hour before low tide - we were only doing a half scan. Maybe they were just far away? Finally, G spotted some. Maybe a few hundred we thought? Far away. Let’s try our other access that should get us closer.
We drove over, and we crossed our fingers and toes. Jumped out and walked down to the beach - godwits! Lots of godwits! There were over a thousand - most were around a bend in the coastline we couldn’t see from the first stop. We ended up refinding two of our FEGs - yay! Still at 29 unique individuals despite G trying very, very hard to find another green flag.
We decided to spend a few hours exploring after our scan and drove down to Queilén - a spit of land at the tip of this part of the island. There we saw lots of Sooty Shearwaters and Imperial Cormorants. The highlight was certainly the Chilean (or Bicolored) Hawk that flew across the road hunting a swallow on our way there. It was a split second lifer look but it was a good one! We’ve been hunting for this Chilean accipiter (related to our Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawks) forever. I had basically given up hope. It was incredible to see this shy accipiter dart out of some shrubs pursue the swallow across the road and up over a hill into some woods.
On our drive back we stopped at a Lagoon. Highlights were a Great Grebe carrying two black-and-white striped babies on its back and our Chile Ruddy Ducks! Two new birds in one day! We even managed to stay dry amongst the intermittent showers.
We’re starting to feel like this trip is wrapping up. G was verbally daydreaming about Mexican food and bacon as we were driving around.
Update: 29 individuals with a 62% second resight rate.