Chile: Key Bird Guide
Claudio Vidal, Jorge Valenzuela, David Couve
More details about this Trip:
Claudio Vidal
Claudio F. Vidal has been exploring and birding since the age of 12 and currently leads birding/nature tours and photo safaris throughout Patagonia, Chile and South America. Claudio has guided for about every major birding tour operator in America and Europe.
Claudio has a particular interest in the seabirds and marine mammals occurring in the Humboldt Current, Patagonia and Antarctica. One of his most recent passions involves the photographic documentation of wildflowers of desert and Mediterranean regions of the world.
Claudio is now finishing the writing of a Field Guide to the Birds of Chile together a team of accomplished field ornithologists. He is also co-author of more than 20 books, featuring 'Birds of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and Antarctic Peninsula'.
He is actively involved in several ecotourism projects in Chile.
Jorge Valenzuela
Jorge is a viticulturist by profession, Jorge was attracted to birds at an early age while frequenting the countryside of central Chile during holidays, a fact that made him pick a career related to the outdoors such as agriculture, which enabled him to have an even deeper contact with nature.
From watching birds in the wild, by 1993 he was motivated enough to become a member of UNORCH, the Chilean Ornithologists Association, a step that further helped him into deepening his knowledge on the birds of Chile, and from birdwatching he gradually moved into self-taught outdoors photography, a craft he learned through many hours in the field, reading and seeking advice from experts.
Some four years ago he started devoting more and more hours out in the field to learn bird and wildlife photography first-hand, especially in the central Chilean Andes mountains. Today the images he has captured during his travels across Chile stand out as testimonials of his journeys, which started as a schoolboy in 1992, and continue to this day, leading him to explore new places such as southern Chile and Chilean Patagonia.
In his spare time Jorge enjoys mountaineering, cycling and fly-fishing, all outdoors and nature-related sports.
David Couve
David lives in Tierra del Fuego, exploring the island and investigating particular events that make up its environment: archaeological sites of the first humans 11,000 BP ago; glacial geological formations that shaped the Strait of Magellan and the island more than 65,000 BP ago; Nothofagus forest ecosystems; the great problem with the arrival of the exotic species Beaver; studies and observations of migrations and nesting of birds on the island.
The desire to learn and observe has been above all his greatest tools, enthusiastically approaching each new exploration.