Chile Birding Tours

Birding Chile with Far South Exp

Chile Birding Tours. Biogeographically speaking, Chile is an island in its own right, isolated from the rest of the Neotropical region (Central and South America) by natural barriers in all four cardinal points. Chile is a very scenic country with huge contrasts, and provides of excellent highlights for any birding trip, either you are a very experienced world birder looking for the endemics and local specialties OR a novice bird enthusiast enjoying also of other aspects of the natural world and the local culture. We invite you to read about the different birding zones you will come across while visiting this long and thin country.

Diademed Sandpiper-Plover, Photo ©Rodrigo Tapia, Far South Exp

Northern Chile

Northern Chile holds the driest desert in the world, the inhospitable Atacama on the border with southern Peru and Bolivia. This unique area is home to such diverse species as the huge, flightless Giant Coot, to the tiny Chilean Woodstar. In the coast lies Arica, Chile’s northernmost city, with beaches, river estuaries and desert valleys, haunt of such specialties as Oasis Hummingbird, Peruvian Thick-knee and the odd Slender-billed Finch.

The pleasant hamlet of Putre is the perfect base to bird the surroundings. Sparkling Violetear, Puna Hillstar, Dark-winged Canastero, Blue-and-yellow Tanager, Golden-billed Saltator and Hooded Siskin are among a range of exciting birds that occur here at the southern limit of their range.

Moving further up the Andes, the High Andean Plateau, Puna or Altiplano, supports a great diversity of Andean specialties: Puna Rhea, all three Andean species of flamingos (Chilean, Andean and James’s), Puna Tinamou, White-winged Diuca Finch and Andean Swallow are all part of an impressive avian cast, spiced-up with grazing herds of Vicuña and other mammals like Vizcacha and Southern Grey Fox.

Striped Woodpecker, Veniliornis lignarius © Bastian Gygli, Far South Exp

Central Chile

Central Chile is one of the most interesting places in our country from a biogeographical point of view, as it contains the eco-region of Mediterranean Chile, one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world and an area of endemism. Not surprisingly, almost all of the Chilean endemic species of birds are found here, including White-throated Tapaculo, Moustached Turca, Dusky-tailed Canastero and Chilean Mockingbird. The remarkable Giant Hummingbird, largest of hummingbirds, is a regular here during Spring and Summer, and so is White-crested Elaenia. Other birds found here are Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle and several other raptors, Striped Woodpecker, Chilean Pigeon and Tufted Tit-Tyrant, among many others.

The Central Chilean Andes are an impressive collection of peaks and river valleys that are home to many very specialized birds adapted to high altitude and cold weather. Scanning the slopes and craggy ravines produces rare songbirds like the endemic Crag Chilia and the local Creamy-rumped Miner, and a representative sample of Andean birds including Grey-breasted Seedsnipe, White-sided Hillstar, Cinereous, Black-fronted, White-browed and Rufous-naped Ground-Tyrants, Greater Yellow-Finch, Yellow-rumped and Thick-billed siskins and one of the most beautiful shorebirds of the world, the Diademed Sandpiper-Plover, an enigmatic inhabitant of high Andean bogs.

Tour Leader Rodrigo Tapia © Claudio F. Vidal, Far South Exp

The central Chilean coast, can produce some interesting birds like the endemic Chilean Seaside Cinclodes, various shorebirds, gulls and terns and other coastal seabirds, reed songbirds such as the stunning Many-coloured Rush Tyrant and Wren-like Rushbird and waterfowl like Black-necked and Coscoroba swans, Chiloe Wigeon, Cinnamon Teal and Red Shoveler.

Salvin’s Albatross (Thalassarche salvini) off Valparaiso, Chile © Rodrigo Tapia, Far South Exp

Humboldt Current

Valparaíso, Chile’s oldest and main port city, is also the perfect gateway to launch an unforgettable pelagic birding trip to the cold waters of the Humboldt Current in the South-eastern Pacific Ocean, undoubtedly one of the highlights of birding in Chile and one of the best pelagic birding locations in the world and home to a great array of tubenoses such as Black-browed, Buller’s, Salvin’s, Chatham and Northern Royal Albatrosses, Southern and Northern Giant Petrels, White-chinned, Westland, Pintado and Masatierra Petrels, Pink-footed and Sooty Shearwaters, Wilson’s Storm Petrel, and Peruvian Diving-Petrel. Other seabirds found here include Humboldt Penguin, Inca Tern, Guanay Cormorant and Chilean Skua.

Southern Chile & Lake District

With its dense temperate rain forests, big lakes nestled among impressive snow-capped volcanoes, and a coast shattered in a myriad of fjords and islands, offers the chance to discover birds like the skulking and tiny Des Murs’ Wiretail, Patagonian Tyrant, Fire-eyed Diucon, Chucao Tapaculo, Ochre-flanked and Magellanic Tapaculos, Black-throated Huet-Huet and the magnificent Magellanic Woodpecker, one of the largest woodpeckers in the world.

Magellanic Woodpecker, Campephilus magellanicus © Claudio F. Vidal, Far South Exp

The magical Chiloé Island is the home of birds like Flightless Steamer-Duck, Silvery Grebe, Black-necked Swan, and wintering flocks of Hudsonian Godwit and Red Knot. Exploring the native forests of the area, we search for the endemic Slender-billed Parakeet and Chilean Pigeon.

Patagonia & Tierra del Fuego

Further south from the Lake District lies mythical Patagonia, a windswept land of rolling hills, endless plains and wind-bent trees that has fascinated and captured the imagination of countless explorers over the centuries. In a remote bay in Tierra del Fuego stands the only King Penguin colony in mainland South America, and scanning the saline ponds of the area can produce the rare and odd-looking Magellanic Plover and other grassland specialties such as Rufous-chested and Tawny-throated Dotterels, Austral Canastero and the stunning Black-throated Finch.

King Penguins, Aptenodytes patagonicus © Claudio F. Vidal, Far South Exp

Another essential highlight of Chile is a visit to Torres del Paine National Park, where a visit to subantarctic woods provides good chances to see Thorn-tailed Rayadito, White-throated Treerunner, Magellanic Woodpecker and the southernmost of all parrots, the Austral Parakeet.

Take a look at the birding tours we have devised for you and experience birding Chile firsthand, following in Darwin’s footsteps and enjoying its unique birdlife. We will have the great pleasure of introducing you to the country we proudly call home. The wines flow freely, people are friendly and the sight of the Condor soaring overhead will linger long in your memory – this is our commitment.

Also, take the time and read about our Patagonia nature trips. Learn more.

Read more in our old site. Click here.