Backcountry Birding

The day after Cristobal and I visited the glacier, we headed up to the nearby town of El Chalten, the town closest to Fitz Roy peak. The mountain’s original name is actually “El Chalten” which means “The Smoking Peak”, named for the clouds which so frequently cloak its dramatic spire. Skip to the bottom of the page if you’re wanting to see photos of the mountain sans birding narrative.

As we were making our way there, Cris pointed at a small pond on the roadside. “Check it out, there’s always something here when this field has water”. He was right—a Red Phalarope was foraging at one end, spinning in place in the way that only phalaropes do. This was a pretty unusual species for the region so we pulled over. There was also a Greater Yellowlegs, another bird that would soon be headed to N. America, and a Pectoral Sandpiper, which was a lifer for Cris and an even rarer bird than the phalarope. He laughed when I explained that in my part of Tennessee, Pectoral Sandpiper is pretty much the most common shorebird to be found during spring and fall. Here are some photos from the pond:

After a few more stops to take pictures of the scenery, we arrived in the town at about 10am. We bought a couple of sandwiches and headed up the trail to a high glacial lake called Laguna de los Tres. It was a beautiful trail that led through meadows of stunted Lenga and Ñire trees that were just starting to change color. This made for a pretty stunning foreground in front of the mountain itself:

In some of the more closed-in woods we saw and heard some good Austral Forest species, like Thorn-tailed Rayadito, Austral Parakeet and White-throated Treerunner. The trail was about 8 miles each way, and the mile closest to the lake was pretty steep, climbing 1000 feet straight up the rocky slope of the boulder mound (moraine) deposited at the foot of the glacier when it reached much further down the valley. When we got to the top it was pretty evident why it was such a popular hike. We were very lucky to have such a clear day:

While a place like this in Colorado might have a couple of Ravens and Magpies searching for dropped granola or bread crusts, this picnic spot had White-throated Caracaras and Black-billed Shrike-Tyrants:

Since we both had headlights with us, we decided that we should just hang around until some of the crowds left. I ate a sandwich and promptly fell asleep, as did Cris. We woke up about an hour later, and we had the place entirely to ourselves. The sensible folks who didn’t want to hike down in the dark were all back in El Chalten by now. Cris thankfully had brought his Maté and thermos, so we sat for a while longer as the sun dropped behind the peak, casting an immense shadow across the valley below.

We headed back down the trail, and by the time we reached the lower lake, the stars were out in force. Some of the most amazing stars I’ve ever seen, with almost no light pollution anywhere nearby. I took a couple of long exposures before we continued on.

Just before we got back into town, we heard and spotted a Lesser Horned Owl, a bird that was just recently split from Great Horned Owl. I managed to get this picture with a very high ISO and Cris holding the headlamp:

The next day we met up with Cris’s friend Geronimo (Gero) who had that day received his official bird guiding license! As you could guess Gero was pretty stoked, and we headed to one of his favorite spots: a glacial lake that never sees any tourists. Might have had something to do with the fence we hopped to get there but I don’t think anyone was the wiser, nor would they have minded. We walked up a steep dirt road that loosely followed a river canyon in some of the most beautiful woods I’ve seen, and finally arrived at the stunning lake.

We stopped on the glacial moraine to eat a sandwich, and I snapped a couple candid pictures of them sitting on a rock with the glacier as a background:

That afternoon Cris and I hiked up to a viewpoint called “El Paredón”, a very creative name that translates to “The Really Big Wall”:

On the way up we got another look at a Lesser Horned Owl it was roosting directly above the trail. I think a much better name would be the Magellanic Horned Owl, as the size difference is indiscernible.

From the top I got some shots of El Chalten that I’m pretty stoked about, so here are my pictures of the mountain, starting with the first view:

That wraps it up for this post. Cristobal headed back to El Calafate and I hung out for another day in El Chalten to go birding in the morning with Gero. That post is already written and will automatically come out tomorrow! Thank you for reading.