Birds & Words

From Atacama to the Andes: Bird Watching and Botanising in Chile

All this and rainforest too

Hummingbird perched in front of the flag of Chile, Atacama Desert. © Bronwen Scott

This time last year, I had just flown back to Australia after a three week trip to Chile to look at birds and plants with Inala Nature Tours. We travelled from the Peruvian border to Chiloe Island and saw marvellous wildlife and landscapes and tried a pisco sour at every stop.

How things change.

Here are five scenes from the trip. There were many more.

1: Desert

As the plane approaches Arica from the south, it passes barren cliffs that rise 1000 metres out of the Pacific Ocean. The Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth, yet seasonal rivers have carved steep valleys through the rock. It is a place of contradictions.

In the Atacama Desert, we walk on a plateau where Tillandsia plants thrive by plucking water and nutrients from the fog that rolls in off the ocean. Nearby, Markham’s petrels have excavated burrows in the rock. These birds fish hundreds of kilometres offshore in the Humboldt Current, and nest tens of kilometres inshore on the Atacama plateau. We are there because they are not at home. They have left their footprints and feathers as a mark of ownership.