Bolivian Highlands

We just spent four days travelling around the Bolivia Highlands from San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. This is really a hostile environment with us travelling between 3600-5000m and experiencing temperatures of -10C. However there is wildlife to be seen, sometimes in surprising abundance.

A few pictures of the landscapes below.

There were a lot of Vicuñas around and we also saw farmed Alpacas and Llamas.

At the Red Lagoon there was a good number of Flamingo’s mostly James’ but also Andean and Chilean.

We saw good numbers of Puna and Collared Plovers along with Least Seedsnipe and Andean Goose too.

At the smaller Black Lagoon we saw Giant Coot, Yellow-Billed Teal and Crested Duck and lots of Viscachas (Rabbit like mammal but no relation).

There were plenty of smaller birds around too such as Rufous-Naped Ground Tyrant, Puna Miner and Black-Hooded Sierra Finch

Before leaving Bolivia we did also have a fleeting view of a Lesser Rhea running across the road which was excellent. We left Bolivia with only 24 species of bird but many of these were new and it took us to 1252 species for the trip.