Archive for March 31st, 2011

Birdwatching adventures!

31st March

2011

written by Hazel

We were so excited to see my dad, Nigel, that we arrived at the airport really, really early.Â It didn’t help that we had thought his flight got in an hour earlier than it actually did.Â Everything went smoothly though and after a nice coffee at the airport cafe we met my dad and got our rental car!Â I was amazed how much energy he had after a long flight and we set right off for Valparaiso, a town on the coast where we were spending our first three nights.

On the way we stopped off at a nature reserve for the first of many birdwatching expeditions.Â My dad is an avid birdwatcher and we were determined to help him see as many of Chile’s birds as possible.Â He was full of interesting information.Â For example, there is less species variation in the southern hemisphere, so in all of Chile there are not many more species than on the small island near Seattle where he lives!Â We took an informed bet as to how many species we would see in ten days.Â I guessed 93, my dad guessed 115, and Justin was optimistic with a guess of 119.

This first stop was at the Reserva Nacional Lago PeÃ±uelas and we had some good sightings.Â There are additional bird photos if you click any of these for the link to the gallery.