Santiago (and environs) - question (2 Viewers)

albatross2:

Thanks very much (belatedly!) for the information. I cannot say is I will be going to any of those places, but, among them, they certainly do host many of the birds that I am looking for.

One question (for anyone, really): I cannot find any site on the web that gives me the location of the "Reserva estero Lampa". I can find the town of Lampa on a map, easily enough, but no indication of where the wetland is.

Peter C. said:

albatross2:

Thanks very much (belatedly!) for the information. I cannot say is I will be going to any of those places, but, among them, they certainly do host many of the birds that I am looking for.

One question (for anyone, really): I cannot find any site on the web that gives me the location of the "Reserva estero Lampa". I can find the town of Lampa on a map, easily enough, but no indication of where the wetland is.

Click to expand...

Hi Peter, the road heading east from Lampa towards ruta 5 bisects the marsh. It's fairly easy to park by the roadside and there's a couple of viewpoints. This is a well-known site for south american painted-snipe if you know exactly where to go and are prepared to wade into the marshes (there is also a site for black crake nearby apparently), but when i was there i had neither the time nor the inclination and didn't see much apart from a large flock of andean geese but they will be up in the mountains by the time you get there i imagine.
I found the nearby lago batuco much better to be honest. to get here if you are travelling from lampa turn left down a dirt track very shortly after crossing the rail road (follow the brown signpost to the lake), carry on past a brick factory and a charcoal factory then turn left down a very rutted track to a little parking area. The lake is ahead of you across a wide grassy area (you can see all of this pretty well on google maps, the ground around the charcoal factory is completely black). Amongst other commoner waterfowl i saw black-headed duck, rosybill, cocoi heron, collared plover, baird's sandpiper, plus cinereous harrier and correndera pipit, and there was also a pair of burrowing owl at a ranch on the west side of the dirt road near the charcoal factory.
This whole area is really very close to the airport (30-40 mins drive so is really worth a detour).
There are a couple of problems though, terrible heat haze once the sun gets going, and very territorial lapwings which make a stealthy approach to the lake pretty difficult!!

incidentally, if you do go to Altos de Lircay keep an eye out for Patagonian Forest Earthcreeper. This is described in the Jaramillo field guide as the saturiator subspecies of scale-throated earthcreeper, but is a very recent but now widely accepted split which relatively few birders have seen (i am currently the only person on bubo with it on my list :king: although to be fair i did not realise it was split at the time i saw it!).

i saw one perched in a tree (a good field-mark apparently) in between the park gates and the visitor centre at the reserve.

cheers,
James

At the routa 5, there is one exit to Lampa and one to Batuco just a little further north west. I have only looked out over the area from the Lampa side, and there definitely was a platform next to the road; it was extremely dry at that side when I was there.

However, I was told that the two exits connect with each other to the west of the marsh and that there is actually equally good (maybe better?) view over the marsh from the Batuco rd.

Niels

James, Niels:

Thanks for the information. I can see, now, why the place is so well-known - very convenient to the airport. Still can't tell where it is, exactly (wonder if the Googlemaps photos were taken in a very dry year?), but I have a good enough idea now.

Thanks for tip about Batuco (yes, the charcol plant really does stand out!) it really does look promising; extensive, and very "messy" in a good way. There are some photos of the area, one of which shows a distant view of a couple of swimming birds (coots? some other rails?) which seem to have been included quite incidentally in a scenic shot.

Also, thanks for the tip about the earthcreeper. Any earthcreeper would be nice, of course, from my point of view! We'll be staying over two nights in Vilches Alto (or so I believe - little difficult to pin down a reservation there), so I hope for two full mornings of birding in the area.

Lampa Reserve

Hello,

Lampa reserve is on
33 16,743
70 48,658

From the bridge You can view.
But a little bit south east there was a worker place ( sand hill and so on ), which You can cross and You will reach a longer round trek ( some kilometers ).


Best regards
Deter

Thanks, gents! Just back from Chile on Monday morning - flew into Toronto Int'l about 0610 on Monday, from whence I was driven straight to work (oh, joy!). But had a wonderful time over the previous seven days -

Niels: As you can see, the quest for condor(s) was successful!

James: Vilches Alto was even better that reported; Sebastién upgraded us from the smallest cabaña (which is what I had requested originally) to a 3-bedroom with kitchen, at no additional charge!

Report to follow, when I get a bit of time to get organized.

Thanks again,

looking forward to it Peter,
cheers,
James

Glad to see that!

Niels