Chile: The Classic Tour

From the Atacama Desert and rich waters of the Humboldt Current to the wilds of Patagonia and the Strait of Magellan; from ancient forests of Nothofagus beech to puna grasslands below the snow-mantled peaks of the highest Andes; and from the reigning Andean Condor to the endemic Crag Chilia, Chile is a land of awesome beauty and home to an avifauna largely restricted to the southern latitudes of South America. We’ll visit several of Chile’s major parks and reserves as we bird each of the distinctive vegetational and altitudinal zones from the Peruvian border to the gorgeous Lake District, continuing to the tip of the continent, Tierra del Fuego. The trip includes a very birdy pelagic and two comfortable ferry crossings. (Chile is such a long country that it’s hard to show detail in a small map; click on the small tour map here for a larger one where you can see more detail.)

Our tour will record approximately 270 species of birds, among these widespread southern species; but there are also many others that are little known or of very local distribution. Some include the recently rediscovered Austral Rail, Magellanic Plover, the much-wanted Diademed Sandpiper-Plover, Rufous-legged Owl, Slender-billed Parakeet, Chilean Woodstar, the incredible Magellanic Woodpecker, and the many special tapaculos–the huet-huets, Turca, and Chucao. Join us this year for a second spring–this one in Chile!