Day 18: A duck is a bird is a goose is a petrel
San Antonio, Chile
Sunday 5 January 2020
69 °F
“Henry, there’s a duck sitting in the harbor out there!” I bounded out of bed and immediately snapped this photo, not of a duck of course, but of my life bird PERUVIAN PELICAN!
I laughed and informed my dad that pelicans are four times larger than ducks, and he laughed in turn, saying “A duck is a bird is a goose is a petrel,” prompting a belly-laugh from all of us and of course, an appropriate title for today’s post. Ninety minutes later, we had left the HMS Coral Princess for the last time, but not before I picked up more birds from the harbor, including my life bird PERUVIAN BOOBY! Awesome!
BROWN-HOODED GULLS:
KELP GULLS:
This cormorant flew over from the west, too quick to identify.
But it prompted me to scan toward the west and I quickly found more boobies sitting with my life bird RED-LEGGED CORMORANTS. The cormorants’ easily-identifiable characteristic is the white patch on the sides of their throats. 
Then, it was time to bid farewell to the Coral Princess and begin our day of transit back down to Punta Arenas. 
We said goodbye to dad at the cruise terminal and hopped a cab for the 90-minute ride to the Santiago Airport. Our cab driver thought of the drive more like an amusement park ride than a taxi service, whipping around corners ferociously and even exiting the highway, pulling an (illegal) U-turn and entering again in order to avoid a toll. All in good fun! Now we are waiting in the Santiago airport for a one-stop flight on LATAM Airlines (which my Dad told us was “duct tape air,” lol) down to Punta Arenas.
Bird-of-the-day to the Peruvian Booby with runners-up to the Pelican & Cormorant. Stay tuned: tomorrow we drive from Punta Arenas to the incredible Torres del Paine National Park.
Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1102 Species (3 life birds today)
