I like birds

Every morning, before the sun even makes its way over the hill behind our house, I hear hundreds of birds chirping and tweeting outside my window. It's actually a nice way to wake up. They continue their songs all day long. We're so used to the sound now that we don't even hear it anymore.

We watched The Big Year with Paul recently and he became very interested in birds, so we decided to learn the names of all of the different birds here. Paul and I took a notebook and my ipad outside and listened to "I Like Birds" by Eels over and over while reading what birds were in the area and then matching the pictures and the calls to the birds we have here. We have a small leak in our water line that has created a little birdbath right next to the car port. It is a gathering spot for all the birds, especially first thing in the morning and right before the sun goes down. I love to watch all the birds play in it while I wash my dishes.

Most of these pictures are off the internet because I don't have a zoom lens to take pictures, but we have all these species in our yard and can see one out the window at almost any moment.



1. Chimango Caracara: These are hunting birds in the Falcon family and while they're not as common as the smaller birds, they're all over. I've seen one in my yard eating a smaller bird - so gross and yet so cool. I've seen groups of them circling over the trees in the hills behind our house, looking for an unsuspecting victim to eat for lunch. The other birds don't like them and the blackbirds and Chilean Mockingbirds attack them when they stop here for a drink.

 2. Southern Lapwing (Treile, Queltehue): These birds have the creepiest call, like a woman screaming in a horror movie, and they scream all night long. We're all used to it now, but none of us could sleep at first. There is a male and female raising a chick in our yard and one day their baby got trapped in our drained pool so I had to go rescue it.

Look, I'm even standing like a mama bird! Actually I'm making sure the very angry mom doesn't attack me. The adults have bone spurs under their wings for fighting.

 My good deed of the day.

 

from http://avesaraucaniachile.blogspot.com/

 

 

3. Austral Thrush: These are cocky birds who prance around the yard like they own the place. They are very fast and almost pounce on bugs. We have quite a few of these in the yard and they are usually on the ground. Their call is ugly and guttural. They are good sized, but not as big as the hawks or lapwing.

Some Austral Thrush outside my kitchen window.

 

 

4. Long-tailed Meadowlark (Loica): My favorite bird. These fat birds are striking with their black backs, white stripe over the eye, and round red bellies. They LOVE water and visit the birdbath frequently, as well as chase the sprinkler water in an attempt to get a nice shower. Then they fluff all up and do a little crazy shake. Very entertaining.

A Loica outside my kitchen window.

 

 

 

5. Chilean Mockingbird (Tenca): These birds are territorial and will relentlessly attack any Chimango Caracaras who stop by for a drink. They are also highly suspicious and won't stop for water if we're outside. Smart birds.

 

6. California Quail (Codorniz): These birds remind me of chubby old women wearing hats as they waddle along. As always the male is more striking than the female. A couple comes by for water every evening, but they are such wimps it takes them like 2 hours to get one drink. They get close, then run away, then get close, then run away...

Mr. and Mrs. Quail chillin' on a tree stump.

 

7. Rufus Collared Sparrow: These birds are very fashionable with their spiked hair and red scarves. The males have Paul and my favorite call. It's like 4 or 5 notes and goes up and down rather than being a constant chirp.

 

8. House Sparrow: In all my research I learned that the males look more striking in breeding season. Since it's currently spring, they are in breading season and look like they've all grown beards for the occasion. The females are just plain brown. This is the second most common bird in our yard.



Left: A male house sparrow on the power line outside my bedroom window.

Right: We love looking for nests in the trees. We found one that was close enough to the ground that we could look at the eggs. I'm pretty sure it's a House Sparrow egg. So much more fun that going to school...

 

 9. Diuca Finch: We have tons of these little grey and white birds in our yard. They just call them Diucas here.

 

10. Blackbirds

11. Shiny Cowbird (looks like a blackbird who has been swimming in oil). 

12. House Wren
13. Dove - different varieties.

14. Vulture (we have a lot of these circling the trees behind our house too. There used to be a pig farm nearby and they feasted on the dead pigs).

 

We can go outside at any moment and within 15 minutes see most of these species. Or we can sit inside with a Coke Lite and look out a window and see them. I will definitely miss them when we go!

"I don't care for walkin' downtown
Crazy auto-car gonna mow me down
Look at all the people like cows in a herd
Well, I like...Birds" (Eels).

La Serena

We decided to take a weekend trip up to La Serena, a very Americanized coastal town about 7 or 8 hours north of us. The company originally intended to buy land for the olive farm in that area and so they have a beautiful office/house in a gated neighborhood (where we stayed). However, after setting up a corporate office for all the South America operations in La Serena, they couldn't find suitable land. They looked further away and found land for the olive farm about 2 years ago. It was originally a grape farm (table grapes, not wine). So they tore all the grapes out and began the process of planting olive trees (another post). Now the corporate offices are being moved down here. There will be new houses in a gated community and new offices.

But this is all in the future, for now let's go back to La Serena and see how much fun we had.

First, let me just say that we had NO idea how far away La Serena was. North of Santiago you go through a rocky, dry canyon and then it is pretty much a dessert for hours and hours. A few hours south of La Serena you hit the coast and the road winds through rolling hills and dense trees, then suddenly the coast will be there: frothy waves beating against stalwart black rocks and soft moist sand and behind that grey-blue water spreading out to eternity on the horizon. Then like that it is gone and the trees are back hiding the mysterious ocean from our view.

You can imagine that part was nice.

We got to the house late Wednesday evening and went out for pizza and groceries. Although the pizza was nothing like home, it was better than any pizza we've eaten here. Or maybe we were just hungry.

The next morning we went to the La Serena museum, which like most history was incredibly creepy.

 Left: Family outside the museum. Right: The narrow overcrowded streets of La Serena

 Paul and Joseph pretending to be babies in some sort of ancient hollowed out rock.

We got in trouble for this.

If you aren't allowed to play in a rock, I suggest you put it behind a wall and not right by a bench...

 Creepy mummy heads. I couldn't read enough Spanish to read what everything was, but we could still enjoy the disgustingness of it all.

 

 Paul checking out the mummy. I do know that the Incas mummified their emperors and basically treated them as if they were alive. They had special servants who fanned the flies away and offered them food and told people what the mummies wanted to say. I don't know if this is one of those lucky mummies.

 It's a good thing silky was there to make everything okay for Becca.

 

 Look! We went to Easter Island too! Actually this statue is like a smaller version of the statues on Easter Island. Nobody knows why it was in La Serena or where it came from, but they found it and put it with all the other creepy stuff in the museum.

One of the many old buildings in downtown La Serena.

 

 

 

We ate lunch at a ridiculously overpriced place by the coast. We ordered a meat and a seafood parrillada. I was brave and tried all sorts of seafood. Bad decision. This wasn't the crab legs and shrimp that we usually think of, it was a lot of squishy, chewy stuff. The fried fish was pretty good, but next time I'll just have a nice safe pork chop.
 

 Then we walked across the street to let the kids play in the sand. They had these awesome exercise machines. I've seen them at parks in a few towns here, but we've never stopped to play on them before.

 

No matter how many activities you plan, the sand is always the most fun - even when it's cloudy and cold.

I love this picture of Becca pensively staring out across the ocean.

Building little castles and waiting for the waves to attack them. It never gets old.

 

The relief society. I think Sam and I just told a funny joke.

 

Mando took these 2. Good job Mando.

You can see the hotel behind Paul. The beach is very touristy.

Mando found this piece of rock with little creatures living inside the holes. I hope I didn't eat any of these earlier at the restaurant...

One of the guys with us told us this was called Agua Muerte, or dead water. It's not alive or anything, just a piece of jelly water. Even Wikipedia doesn't know what it is.

 

That night we went to a famous observatory near La Serena. We met the tour group at 10 pm and followed them up a windy mountain road. When we got there it was pitch black and very late (both necessary to see stars). As you can imagine that is not very fun for little kids, but I loved it. We walked up a spiral staircase to a dome building. The ceiling could open slightly and then rotate so the opening was pointing the direction you wanted to see. An English-speaking guide told us a little about the stars we could see and then let us all view a few famous stars/clusters. Did you know the constellations are upside down in South America? The telescopes we were looking through were so powerful that we were looking at things like one star in a cluster or part of a different galaxy. It was kind of hard for the kids to grasp. Then some of the little ones started crying and we had to go. Too bad. Here's a really grainy iphone picture of the big telescope. You can't see the dome top, but it's the best I could get in the pitch black.

 

 

The next morning everyone was tired and we thought we would just go back to the beach for a few hours. But then it was cold, so we just hung around the house for a little while and then headed back.

Some flowers from the beautiful garden around the house.



Sam lounging on the carpet.

He loved to suck his lip like this for awhile, but he's kind of outgrowing it. I miss this face.

 

Sorry to go crazy with pictures of Sam, but he's so cute and chubby. I just can't resist.

We drove by tons of these windmills on the way home. It's hard to judge their size in a picture, but they're HUGE. I looked them up and they are apparently part of Chile's plan to provide power for the growing technology use.

It's probably good that Chile has a plan to upgrade their electricity - we see power lines like this all over the place.

 

Grocery Shopping

Here are the Chilean food groups: mayonnaise, pasta, bread, and hotdogs. Everything else is just extra.

 

For all you Walmart haters, fear even more: Walmart has even worked it's way to Chile. Actually, it's called Lider, but it is owned by the same company and even has a few Great Value brands. We buy all our groceries at Lider, usually in Melipilla because we have to go there for church events during the week sometimes. However, the Lider in San Antonio is MUCH nicer so we shop there sometimes too. Both towns are about 45 minutes away (in opposite directions).

 

 

Lest you see these pictures and think shopping here is the same as at home, know that this is not typical of Lider. I took these pictures on the ONLY day I've seen the shelves fully stocked and the store not packed with people. Also, in a decent sized town like Melipilla there are 1 or 2 nicer grocery stores, but people frequently buy things from smaller shops that are within walking distance. These shops are smaller and older and sell only specific things, like bread or produce or meat. So just to clarify: These pictures aren't typical of Lider and Lider isn't typical of Chilean shopping.

 

So enough talk, let's say it's Friday night and you are going to Melipilla for Young Men (Mando's a counselor) and to practice the hymns for Sunday's sacrament meeting on an only partially functioning keyboard (I TRY to play for Sacrament meeting, I'm also the Primary Music leader). We park under the ground and walk up a ramp to the store - there's a few clothes, shoes, and baby supplies in the front and a small electronics, toy, household section to the right.  Then we get to the food. I took a picture of most aisles so you can see what Lider typically carries.

 

Aisle 1. Left: oil, vinegar, & lemon juice. But mostly oil. They love it here.

Right: Dry beans and few other dried foods, including tons of instant potatoes. There are no canned beans of any sort here. Or canned tomatoes or vegetables (besides mushy peas and palm hearts).

Aisle 2. Left: tomato sauce and rice and my oldest son who is currently reading Harry Potter 4. This picture is deceiving. It looks like there are tons of sauces to choose from. But there is really only one. It comes in a few different brands and occasionally in jars, but mostly it's in those Capri Sun looking pouches. It has a different flavor so we don't eat it much.
Right: PASTA, PASTA & more PASTA. Chileans LOVE pasta, which confuses me because they have very little sauce to eat with it. You can see that we take up quite a bit of room when we go shopping.



Aisle 3. Left: peaches and palm hearts. Flour? It's at the end of this row or the sauce one.
Right: Mayonnaise. There are a few other condiments but Chileans love mayonnaise. They dump it on everything from corn to pasta to sandwiches. I think spices and baking stuff is at the end.



Aisle 4: Left: Powdered milk in a variety of brands and flavors. This whole aisle is powdered milk and milk flavoring.
Right: Coffee and sugar - no pic.


 Aisle 5. Left: Cereal (no pic). They have about 1/4 of the selection we have at home but we're not big cereal eaters so it's okay. No pancakes or fruit snacks or pop tarts. They have a few granola bars and you can find syrup in the American section sometimes.
Right: Boxed milk. They don't sell cold milk, just this stuff. It tastes like canned milk. At first I was grossed out by it, but we've gotten used to it and as long as it's cold my kids don't mind it.

Aisle 6. Left: cookies, Right: candy. They are mostly Chilean brands. There's a few familiar things like oreos and snickers, but they are ridiculously overpriced. We've found a few cookies we like, but we typically don't go down this aisle.


Aisle 7 & 8. Wine. We live in wine country. There are vineyards and drunks everywhere. Lider has 4 rows of wine and more in the back. You can see part of the sign behind the wine that says pescados and mariscos (fish and seafood). It stinks so bad that we just don't go to that section.

 Aisle 9. Left: Chips, mostly in Chilean brands. There are tortilla chips and Doritos (different flavor).
Right: Soda. They had cans on the shelf that day, but they don't always have them and they're very expensive. The soda is sweeter here and there isn't much to choose from. Adults have Coke, Coke lite (no Diet Coke *sniff*), Pepsi (no Dr. Pepper). The kids have Fanta, Pina, Papaya, some sort of Lemon Lime. You have to be careful because some of the sodas are used bottles that have been refilled. I'm sure they're sanitized, but I just can't do it... I think it's funny that there's only like 6 aisles of food and a whole aisle of just chips and soda.

The produce is amazing here. We don't have the same selection we had at home but it's mostly good and very cheap. Notice the large pig leg in the foreground.

Check out those nice juicy hunks of meat. The beef in Chile is grass fed and no good, but they also sell beef imported from Brazil, Australia, Argentina, etc. The cuts are different and I never know what to buy so I just get something with some marbling and cook it all day and it usually turns out good.

You have to take a ticket and wait in line to get chicken or pork from the butcher section. They have a limited selection of frozen chicken and pork if you don't want to wait in line but it's not as good.

There is also a deli with lunch meat and cheese you have to have a ticket for, as well as a small refrigerated section with prepackaged lunch meat and cheese and another Chilean favorite, hot dogs. They come if every size and flavor. There is only white cheese here. The have some gouda (good but expensive) and mozerella (different), but mostly they sell queso montescusa which is pretty disgusting.

They have a small freezer section up front with some icecream, frozen corn (no other vegetables), hamburgers, and a few chicken nuggets. It is about the size of one side of an aisle at home. They also have like 3 kinds of hard white bread and unrefrigerated eggs.

Fresh bread. It's all crusty and hard, so we never buy it. This section is usually packed and entirely empty.

Dairy aisle in front: left yogurt, right butter and margarine. There is a ton of yogurt compared to the limited selection of other foods, but it's different here. It is way sweeter and more like a drink. My kids all love it, especially Joseph. Butter comes in grams instead of cups. It makes baking a little tricky, but butter is butter and I love it everywhere.

 This is the entire makeup section. It's behind a locked case so it won't be stolen. In general, people don't wear makeup and blow dry their hair here. It's very liberating to not have to paint my face to go out. I wish home was more like that.

 

 This is a little icecream stand at the front of the Lider in San Antonio. The kids love it. The Melipilla Lider (the rest of the pictures) doesn't have one.

We go to this little fruit and vegetable stand at least once a week to get fresh produce. It's less than 5 minutes from our house and much less crowded than the ferias.

 This guy knows us now and is very helpful. Doesn't Mando look thin in this picture?

A few things we don't have here:
Cheddar cheese, Monterey Jack cheese, shredded cheese in any flavor
Canned soup, canned sauces, canned beans, canned pumpkin, or canned anything
Pizza or pepperoni or cheese or sauce to make pizza
Instant foods like macaroni & cheese or frozen stuff (I miss Costco...)
BACON!!! Or breakfast sausage
Corn Tortillas
Spices, seasonings (we brought a few with us)
Tender cuts of meat

And yet we're somehow still alive! We've had to adjust how we eat, but we're loving all the fresh produce!