March 07, 2016
Today we headed north of Puerto Montt towards Puerto Varas to spend some of our time between scans seeing a bit more of the countryside. We ended up at Parque Nacional Vicente Pérez Rosales.
PN Vicente Pérez Rosales is the oldest national park in Chile, and I have to say it just might be the prettiest I’ve seen. It lies between Lago Llanquihue and the Andes/Argentina border, and encompasses one of the two most famous and active volcanoes in the region - Volcán Osorno. Volcán Calbuco (farther south) is the other volcano in the region and you may remember that it erupted last year.
We went to Los Saltos - or the waterfalls. We had one particular bird we wanted to see - a species of duck that lives year round in swift moving water. We hiked along the river enjoying the glacier blue water, rapids, and beautiful tall trees, but sadly no ducks. We were in for a treat though, don’t despair.
Remember that nemesis bird of ours? The Treerunner? Well we finally “saw” it the day we left Senda Darwin, though we really only heard it in my opinion. Well we heard it again - in the parking lot of all places. There were some very large trees surrounding the lot - almost the perfect habitat for them. We got amazing views of its stiff rusty tail and white belly. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the sighting!!
Work went well again. We surveyed Lenca and found no godwits, but we did find some Ashy-headed Geese - a species we rarely see. In the evening, we headed to Quillaipe. G found a green flag almost immediately from the car, and we were both very happy to find female 1KP again. We had seen her in January at the next bay to the North and she was my biggest target to get a second resight on before we left. She's one of our six complete breeding pairs as we've seen her mate, male E95, as well.
We have one last scan and then a vacation day before we migrate north. I’ve been ‘saying goodbye’ to all my green flags as we see them again. Hopefully I’ll see them all again very soon in Alaska!
Today we headed north of Puerto Montt towards Puerto Varas to spend some of our time between scans seeing a bit more of the countryside. We ended up at Parque Nacional Vicente Pérez Rosales.
PN Vicente Pérez Rosales is the oldest national park in Chile, and I have to say it just might be the prettiest I’ve seen. It lies between Lago Llanquihue and the Andes/Argentina border, and encompasses one of the two most famous and active volcanoes in the region - Volcán Osorno. Volcán Calbuco (farther south) is the other volcano in the region and you may remember that it erupted last year.
We went to Los Saltos - or the waterfalls. We had one particular bird we wanted to see - a species of duck that lives year round in swift moving water. We hiked along the river enjoying the glacier blue water, rapids, and beautiful tall trees, but sadly no ducks. We were in for a treat though, don’t despair.
Remember that nemesis bird of ours? The Treerunner? Well we finally “saw” it the day we left Senda Darwin, though we really only heard it in my opinion. Well we heard it again - in the parking lot of all places. There were some very large trees surrounding the lot - almost the perfect habitat for them. We got amazing views of its stiff rusty tail and white belly. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the sighting!!
Work went well again. We surveyed Lenca and found no godwits, but we did find some Ashy-headed Geese - a species we rarely see. In the evening, we headed to Quillaipe. G found a green flag almost immediately from the car, and we were both very happy to find female 1KP again. We had seen her in January at the next bay to the North and she was my biggest target to get a second resight on before we left. She's one of our six complete breeding pairs as we've seen her mate, male E95, as well.
We have one last scan and then a vacation day before we migrate north. I’ve been ‘saying goodbye’ to all my green flags as we see them again. Hopefully I’ll see them all again very soon in Alaska!