It was simultaneously a very eventful and very uneventful day out in Chile today. We set off early, at 06:00, in order to be at the border nice and early, only to discover that it would not open until 08:00. Since we arrived at 07:00 this left us at a loose end for an hour, either waiting in the queue or maybe driving down the beach road to see if anything was around. We opted for the latter and were rewarded with finding Double-banded Plover and Small-billed Miner.
It took an hour to cross the border due to the cars building up during the early hours, and the various stations required to get the vehicle through. That said, it passed by without too much incident, and we were soon on our way. This is when we discovered the King Penguin colony we wanted to visit was in fact closed on Mondays (we had originally planned on visiting on a Sunday in the original itinerary) and this meant that our rushed day trying to complete everything we wanted in Chile and returning before the border closed, suddenly became much more relaxed. We did decide to stay in Chile for the night and then see the Penguins in the morning.
As such we continued driving on the road to Porvenir where there were a few things to see. We started by checking out a spot I had marked for Peales Dolphin being regularly seen on the coast, but there was nothing doing despite an hour moving up and down the coast. But it was a relief to find my first Patagonian Yellow Finches here, as well as having excellent views of Double-banded Plover and Bairds Sandpiper.
With no sign of the dolphins, we continued to the next destination, the Laguna Verde which I had marked for Magellanic Plover. We spent about an hour searching along the beach, seeing many Guanacos and a Culpeo, as well as a few birds, but no sign of the plover. In the end we were exploring the wrong area of the beach, and not long after we started searching the right area Jonah spotted once nestled among a flock of Bairds Sandpipers. With some crawling I was able to get some very nice views of one of my most wanted birds for the trip. Smaller than I was expecting, but all the sweeter for it.
After another unsuccessful trip to try for the dolphins, we found a hostel in town and crashed to relax, after a pleasant, if not rather logistically challenged, day.
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