Punta Arenas

February 19, 2015
In the night the ship had entered the Straits of Magellan and in the morning was docked at Punta Arenas.  We met early, half an hour before the first tender to port was expected to leave, were all in the first tender, and met a vehicle on shore.

This is the inside of the tender.



A view of our cruise ship from shore with imperial cormorants in the foreground:

Our first stop was Tres Puentes Marsh in the city.  We would look at four kinds of cormorants and gulls on one side of the city street, then run across the street to look at flocks of ducks. An example of city birding:



Back on the bus we drove out of the city to explore the Patagonian steppe. As we drove we saw lots of Lesser Rheas.



At Laguna de los Palos we clearly saw in the distance the gray back and bubble gum legs of the Magellanic Plover.

 

 

A group of happy birders  were back at the ship at around 4:00.

A Note:  All photos for today’s post were taken by James.

Bird List:
Lesser Rhea
Upland Goose (800 or more)
Kelp Goose
Ashy-headed Goose
Flying Steamer-Duck
Flightless Steamer-Duck
Spectacled Duck
Crested Duck (100 +)
Chiloe Wigeon
Speckled Teal
Yellow-billed Pintail
Red Shoveler
White-tufted Grebe
Silvery Grebe
Chilean Flamingo
Magellanic Diving Petrel (One in hand)
Neotropic Cormorant
Magellanic / Rock Cormorant
Imperial Cormorant (500 +)
Black-faced Ibis
Andean Condor
Southern Caracara
Aplomado Falcon
Red-gartered Coot
Southern Lapwing
Two-banded Plover
Blackish Oystercatcher
Magellanic Oystercatcher
Magellanic Plover
Chilean Skua
Brown-hooded Gull (100 +)
Dolphin Gull
Kelp Gull (100 +)
South American Tern (100 +)
Dark-bellied Cincloides
Austral Thrush
Patagonian Sierra-Finch
Rufous-collared Sparrow
Long-tailed Meadowlark

Other birders saw:  Black-crowned Night Heron, American Kestrel, Peregrine Falcon, Eared Dove, Scale-throated Earthcreeper, Buff-winged Cinclodes, Austral Negrito, Blue-and-white Swallow, Chilean Swallow, House Wren, Austral Blackbird, House Sparrow.
Also seen was a Bottlenose Dolphin.