All over Patagonia, from Chiloé in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south, we saw Chilean Firebush, Embothrium coccineum . A tall shrub or small tree, in spring it is covered in dramatic scarlet blossoms.
They hang in thick clusters:
Each long thin bud (rightmost below) has four petals which split apart and curl back (center), exposing the long style:
The nectar is very sweet, and as it oozes out it attracts insects:
like this tiny sweat bee, which I think is Callistochlora chloris:
Our guide suggested we try the nectar too: and indeed if you suck on a flower the most ethereal mead-like taste fills your mouth:
Milvago chimangotemucoensis is the subspecies of the Chimango Caracara found in southern Chile and Argentina. It is a bird of prey, about 17″long with a wingspan of about three feet. They seemed to be everywhere, and the one below is dive-bombing my friend Kerstin.
They hunt small prey like lizards, insects, and mice, and scavenge larger prey. We found one near our Hotel Parque Tepuhueico in Chiloé, having a dustbath :
The purpose is probably to remove parasites, though it has also been suggested that it removes excess lipids deposited on the feathers from the uropygial preening gland. You can see it in action in this video:
It seemed to enjoy that lovely glow you get after a good body scrub:
I’ll end with an entirely different bird that somehow never found a place in any other post, the endearing Rufous-collared Sparrow, Zonotrichia capensis:
It sang its tiny heart out on a fencepost:
It is common over much of South America, and tolerant of human presence.
The Black-faced Ibis, Theristicus melanopis, is a handsome bird, which breeds in Southern Chile and Southern Argentina. It is very adaptable, so although open fields are its expected habitat (and outside the breeding seasoning it migrates to the Argentine pampas), it also ventures into quite different territory. Here are a pair poking around in a field for insects, worms, or small vertebrates:
They nest in colonies, often on rocky cliffs:
And in Chiloé they are so laid back that this one settled down on a window ledge. I think it is a juvenile, because of the scalloped wing edges.
I also liked the Blackish Oystercatcher, Haematopus ater.
It haunts rocky coasts from Peru to Tierra del Fuego, dodging the waves:
foraging for shellfish:
Apart from that flashy red bill, it has red eyeliner and pale pink feet with black claws, looking as though it had partied all night, with a very Goth pedicure:
After two full-time puma-hunting days, we spent our last complete day in Patagonia just walking in the Torres del Paine National Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with rich bird and plant life, not just pumas. My goal in this post is to give you a flavor of this stunning place.
We stayed in the Hostería Pehoé, a simple lodge on a tiny island in the middle of Lake Pehoé, reached only by a footbridge.
This was the view from my room.
On the island an Austral Thrush had caught lunch:
Palomita, the Dog Orchid, Codonorchis lessonii, punctuated the undergrowth, with two dark eyes on its hood:
and an enticing entrance to the innermost sanctum underneath:
Streaked Maiden lilies, Olsynium biflorum, almost but not quite over..
The island is exposed:
and the perfectly named Darwin’s Slippers, Calceolaria uniflora, sheltered from the strong winds:
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Rather unusually, this 4″ tall plant is pollinated by a bird, the Least Seedsnipe. It eats the conspicuous white lower lip of the flower, which is high in sugars. As it does so, the stigma and anthers of the flower tap its head and back, and that pollen is then transferred to the next flower it visits.
Moss hung in the small trees:
After breakfast we walked a short and easy trail further south in the Park. We wandered through the scrubby vegetation:
The low trees were a type of beech relative, called Nothofagus antarctica, festooned with Southern South American mistletoe, Misodendrum punctulatum.
In the long grass a Magellanic Snipe, Gallinago magellanica* , was busily poking around:
We then climbed gently to yet another great view:
All along the way there were orchids:
Torres del Paine has nine species of orchid. The yellow one below is a Yellow Orchid (!), Gavilea littoralis:
The greenish white one is a Porcelain Orchid, Chloraea Magellanica, with a spectacular tongue to entice in the pollinators:
On the way back, we saw the snipe again, posing on a rock:
After a delicious lunch at Hotel Lago Grey we walked to get a proper look at Grey Glacier, dwarfing the quite large boat in the foreground:
It is 3om high at its leading edge. I took these photos 15 years ago, from a boat:
On the way back we were observed by a Dark-bellied Cinclodes:
and a few more wildflowers…
Arjona patagonicaCutleaf Anemone
PS * Top tip: if you are searching for the name of an unfamiliar bird down in this part of the world, try choosing an appropriate familiar one from home (thrush, snipe, finch, woodpecker…) and add one of three adjectives: Patagonian, Magellanic, or Austral. Works a treat.
[I have (as you’ve noticed if you read this regularly), been obsessed with my Chile trip, but in January while my Chile blogs were still in full flow, I went to Spain on a different mission, so I thought I’d take a week off from Chile to show you why.]
This post has been planned for a few weeks, but after my previous post it just couldn’t wait any longer ! In case you missed it, I saw my first bobcat on my beaver pond in Maine… read on.
There are four species of lynx in the world. Where I live in Maine, we have bobcats, which are technically lynxes, (Lynx rufus), and the Canadian Lynx (Lynx canadensis), which seems to moving back into some areas of the state. In Europe, there are two other species. The European Lynx (Lynx lynx) is found in northern and eastern Europe and eastwards across northern Asia. But the rarest of all is the Iberian Lynx, Lynx pardinus, found only in Spain and Portugal. I really wanted to see this, and you will understand why when you see their tufted ears and endearing facial ruffs:
In 2002, the Iberian lynx was on the verge of extinction, with only 94 individuals left in two isolated subpopulations in Andalusia. It was considered the most endangered feline in the world, classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN.
A hugely successful conservation program, focussing on improving habitat, restocking and keeping healthy their main food of rabbits, and a breeding and reintroduction program, means that now there are over 2000 in the wild, and in 2024 they were re-classified by the IUCN as Vulnerable.
These two small areas are still the best chance to see them, so that is where we went. We started in Huelva, in the Doñana National Park. On our first day, we had 180mm (7″) of rain, the most rain in 24 hours in eight years. Needless to say we saw nothing. The next day, most of the roads into the park were flooded, and again we saw nothing.
So on we went to Andújar, further north. First day, no lynx, but a group of lovely male mouflon.
On the second day, we heard that a lynx had been seen, and we roared off in the hope of catching it. Initially, no luck, but then someone spotted it, lying on a rock about 800 meters (nearly 1/2 a mile) away, circled.
The dirt track and surrounding landscape is only open to rangers, so this was the closest we got. There was the lynx, lying on the rock facing away from us, with its head up. Here is my best photo (!); the black spot is the tip of its tail, and the two smaller black spots are the tips of its ears. .
This was our only view in the wild, the fruits of four days of trying.
But … so as to keep the suspense up, I omitted to tell you something. In Doñana National Park (our first stop), there is a reproduction centre called El Acebuche that houses a pair of lynx in about 5 acres of wild countryside. Over the years, their offspring have been used to repopulate the area, so successfully that reintroductions are now being sent as far as Portugal. They’re aging, but still there. They hunt rabbits in their enclosed area and may not be seen for days. The centre is not open to the public, but our guide got us in, and we were very lucky. Not only were they hanging about near the viewing area, but they weren’t hiding behind a bush, and they weren’t asleep (though dozy!). These photos were taken through a pane of glass, under lowering skies, but I hope they give you a sense of these glorious animals.
This is Felix, the male.
And this is Dama, the female:
They were deliberately chosen from the two different geographical areas, to mix the gene pools, but they seemed like a fairly contented couple:
Felix had apparently originally had another bride, and when Dama first arrived he was not initially friendly, which could be intimidating judging by these teeth:
Indeed, on one occasion while we were there he snarled at Dama, asserting his dominance:
and you can see how she cringed:
But she too can be fearsome, look at that glare:
They are not huge, the larger males can be up to 32″ long (not counting that stubby tail) and 35lbs in weight. But they can dispatch a rabbit with ease.
I have lived in Maine on and off for 43 years, and never seen a bobcat. I have caught them on camera traps, and seen tracks, but that’s it. Until now.
I was out for the second time that day snowshoeing and hoping to see otters. None. I had turned for home, and as always I looked over my shoulder one last time in case they had appeared as I left.
And there one was, on the far side of the pond. So, I headed back out for a closer look:
The otter dived under the ice, but there was another shape on the snow, rounder and fluffier:
My first ever bobcat, Lynx rufus. I took a few shots from very far away. It was barely moving, carefully placing one silent rear paw in front of the other:
then settling into a crouch:
I wasn’t sure, but I wondered if it was preparing to stake out the otter hole. I was a very long way away, so I moved a little closer. From my new angle, I could see that it was now right next to the otter hole (the disturbed snow to its left):
But it smelled me or heard me or saw me,
and took off, just letting me snatch a short video:
It stopped on the edge of the woods, and looked back reproachfully:
Three minutes of a privileged glimpse into its world.
I have since tried to discover if bobcats hunt otters. There is the occasional reference to otter remains being found in the stomach contents of bobcats, but that’s about it, and these could easily have been either carrion, or very young otters. An adult otter would be a formidable prey, being much the same weight as a bobcat. Look at this video of a bobcat recoiling from an angry otter: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TJZlFwmdo64
Their main food is snowshoe hares, but they do very occasionally eat fish, so they may have been trying to steal the otter’s catch. See Newbury and Hodges 2018 for more on their diet. Bobcats’ feet don’t cope well with deep snow (unlike Canada Lynx), and we have had plenty of snow this winter, at the northern edge of their range, so my bobcat may be very hungry indeed.
Scott Lindsay, Regional Wildlife Biologist at the Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, agrees that it was unlikely to be hunting otters, and he tells me that bobcats are curious, and it was probably just checking things out.
PS Maine has a total bobcat population of around 1500, and a female’s home range is about 23 square kilometers. So it is not surprising that they are hard to see! There’s some useful,information here, including how you tell the difference between a bobcat and a Canadian Lynx.
Eyes on the Wild 