One of the many things I like about birding is that I meet birders when I travel. It is an instant connection. Never mind you both look similar – muted colored baggy clothes, binoculars around your neck, a camera slung bandolero-style over your shoulder, sensible walking shoes with dried mud on them and ruddy cheeks from outside living. You lock eyes and then look quickly for another look at that bird and then glance back. Yup. You are my people, I think. In minutes I have a new birding buddy. I thrill at this connection as much as getting a lifer.
Recently, while on an expedition cruise exploring the fjords of southern Chile, I had the pleasure of meeting a new birding buddy. On the ship, we few birders found each other within hours on the bow. Within minutes I had made a new birding buddy and we were sharing sightings and taking advantage of each other’s birding knowledge. Names, introductions? Nope. We are birders. We don’t need to bother with that. Enthusiasm for species and photographs was all that we needed. For 14 days we were birding buddies, sharing sightings and hours of bow time looking for petrels, albatrosses, fulmars, cormorants, penguins, and anything else. The pelagic weather was cold, windy but dry and clear. We got lifers and thrilled each time one of us did.
White-chinned Petrel
Southern Royal Albatross
Black-browned Albatross
Southern Fulmar
Pink-footed Shearwater
On land, however, the weather was not our friend. Various excursions led us straight into rain and fierce winds demonstrating typical Patagonian weather. Sometimes we saw birds and many of the same species, and sometimes we just missed them. But not on our last day, our stop in Puerto Williams, Chile, delivered sun, blue skies, no wind, and good temperatures. My buddy and I, with spouses in tow, set off on a walk around the outskirts of town to find whatever we could. Paired Magellanic Cormorants greeted us as we left the ship. We were thrilled to watch a pair of Magellanic Woodpeckers drum and fly above us and Silvery Grebes engaging in courtship displays with head bobbing and bodies rising. It was our best day for species count and photographs as well as getting to know each other a bit more. Names exchanged, bird lists shared, and the promise to connect if we are ever in the same neck of the woods again, we waved good-bye as our travels returned us home. I had made another new birding buddy – a lifer.
Magellanic Woodpecker – male and female
Silvery Grebe
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