A Long Drive For a Rarity

One day we left our hotel in Santiago and drove up into the Andes looking just for this bird.  It took us over 5 hours to get to the destination (although we did stop to bird along the way).  It didn’t take Marcello long to find our target – a Diademed Sandpiper-plover.  What makes this bird so unique and worth the trip was that it is the only Plover to live at high elevations – all other plovers are found around bodies of water a sea-level or a little higher.  Well worth the trip!