Mon, Jul 1, Birding La Serena

Hilary, Cait, Bob, and I took off at nine, vacating our precious parking spot, and paying the jolly parking lady who seems to control this street. 

Hil drove us down to the oceanfront whose boulevard is lined to a large extent with high rise condos to accommodate the vast numbers of summer visitors largely from Santiago and Argentina. 

Thankfully, the buildings are all on the inland side of the road and the seaward side has only small restaurants, parks, and walkways, so everyone has a view of and access to the shore.  

We drove down the bay almost to the next town of Coquimbo, where we turned off onto a dirt parking area for the Humedal El Culebrón, a rare area of marshland that has not been drained for development.

There was good

signage and educational notices about the value of swamps to the environment and to people.  Quite a few birders were there which was good to see. 

Red-gartered Coot -with tiny band
 of red on upper leg and on bill

We soon spotted three new kinds of Coot:  Red-gartered, Red-fronted, and White-winged, thus completing the entire Coot page in the bird guide in one trip!   We also saw the Chiloe Wigeon, new for the trip, among others.

Red-fronted Coot

We crossed the road and walked along the sand for a ways. 

Austral Negrito

American Oystercatchers

The beach is very wide and must a great place to sun and swim in the summer. Groups were busily cleaning seaweed off the beach and hauling it away - cleaning up the town for the Eclipse?

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Hill-top Cross in next town of Coquimbo

Hil drove us home through very heavy traffic, part everyone going home for siesta, and part eclipse tourism we figured.  We arrived home at 2 miraculously finding a parking space and immediately had some trouble with a new parking lady, trying to figure if we have to pay now, later, if we can leave our car overnight??  She put a slip under our window wiper and left, so I guess we’re OK.  Hilary, Cait, Bob, and I went exploring and shopping.

  After some gelato we went to several grocery stores to find some special salsa that is made in the Elqui Valley for our friend Robert in Tucson, but no luck so far! The internet indicates that it may be sold out.

No Plastic Bags in Chile!

  We went to a very bustling department store and actually bought some clothes, before returning to La Sombra and resting until six when we all set out for Restaurant El Fogón, a Peruvian place that looked good on the internet.

We settled in at a long table upstairs and ordered Pisco Sours which were excellent and made in the Peruvian manner with frothy egg white and a splash of bitters. 

Our globe trotting SB neighbors, Leila and Brian, arrived from the beachfront condo they are renting to join us and we placed our orders.

  This is to be their first eclipse which is very exciting - I wish they could see it with us but they have already signed up with a tour, so we will have to hear about it later.

Bob and I split an ocopa, boiled potato which is supposed to be served with peanut sauce, but came instead with cilantro.

  Then we had a platter of Tiraditos, thinly sliced, very good raw fish with four different sauces which, although of different colors, unfortunately tasted very similar to each other.  But the sweet potato and chocla (large corn kernels) were a good accompaniment. It was great to see our friends and catch up on their adventures.

We walked home in the cold night air.

Note:  We think the red flower/fruit growth on the cactus we posted yesterday, may well have been something like mistletoe rather than the cactus’s actual inflorescence.