Altos de Lircay, Patagonia Chile, 22 April '16

We rose at daybreak to a chilly world. The cabins are in the forest which drops to low single figures this time of year. The kitchen diner had its wood burner rolling so we eat breakfast round that - bread, cheese, jam, some baked pudding item and Nescafé.
Then off in the 4wd, which soon turned out to be a 2wd and hardly up to to the road that took us to about 2000 metres, where a ranger in a wooden hut took out entrance fee. All the way we wound up through Nothofagus forest, through bands of mist.  At the park hut we left the vehicle and proceeded on foot, again in the mist.  I never thought all our clothing layers would be necessary but we wore the lot, plus hat gloves and scarf. The track cut across a slope of shattered granite rocks and larger boulders, with beech forest growing through it but well spaced. Beautiful old, untouched forest, quite silent. The mist added to the sense of primordial isolation. Occassionally it would clear and we saw steep rocky slopes above us, with the tree line perhaps 2000 feet above and rocky faces beyond that. It felt remarkably like being on the steep beech forests of Fiordland, mist and all.

We were on the hunt for the Magellanic Woodpecker, a large species and an example of the wildlife that has migrated from very different northern species assemblages and established in the southern beech forest regions. We found a family of three, quite easily, as their strange cries carry in the forest, as do their hammering so. Not a fast rattling sound like some species but slow thuds like someone cutting wood.  We left the track and headed down hill and there they were, a group of three. We were able to move in quite close and approximately level with them on the slope, and spent about 45 minutes entranced by the experience. How extraordinary to see these sizeable birds, the 2 males with bright red heads, clambering and hammering on the beech trucks around us, crying in their strange voices.

We were also hearing the occasional call of the Huet Huet, so we settled in for another attempt to see it, sitting on the cold ground with the tape recorder emitting the occasional call, a strange bubbling call that you couldn't imagine what made it. This time success, and the bird snuck in close to us, peered through the undergrowth at us and showed itself enough for an attempt at a photo. Not a spectacular animal, more like a large (female) blackbird that moved with outsized feet and its tail
lifted. A big eye for seeing in the gloom and an air of bewildered concern at the intrusion. When it moved it dashed at speed, as if something was hot on its trail. They are members of a family called Tapiculo's, which we have never seen before. They are famed for their vocals and frustratingly skulking behaviour.  We have heard four different species and seen three at this stage - our guide has made a lot of effort with them as they are a unique, iconic group.


A bit of botanising now took place as we have been fascinated by the understory of plants. We
recognise the genera, eg Fuchsia, Aristotellio, Sophora etc but not the species which are different
from our own. That's the consequence of separation (from NZ) and the passage of time.

We headed back for a late lunch at our lodge, a gargantuan meal of meat and potatoes probably boiled who knows, which we decided to accompany with a bottle of wine, initially around the fire until another group turned up for an even later lunch.   Their eating clock run several hours behind ours for  lunch and dinner, and man they can put it away.

We headed out again at 6 pm into what was an exceedingly gloomy evening, more night than day, and stayed until pitch black about 8.30 pm. We hunted for owls with limited success, only seeing one
Pygmy owl with body the size of my clenched fist. We also visited a prehistoric site in the forest, dated 8th century. Several large granite rocks on which a dozen or so people could stand had multiple elongated depressions, with smooth bases. They were grain grinding sites where grass seeds and tree
nuts were ground to a paste or a flour, using a tennis ball sister stone. Very atmospheric site with the
ghosts and shadows of the long gone Stone Age people easily imagined in the surrounding forest.


It rained at night, hosing down until dawn. The power went down with it so we woke to the sound of a generator, and a cold cabin the fire having gone out hours previously. Time to bail out and drive back to Santiago several hundred kms north, a long drive through occasional bands of torrential rain and two truck smashes.