An unexpected wonder: The parakeets of El Condor

Pair of burrowing parakeets, El Condor, Argentina.

Peninsula Valdes was a disappointment, I had hoped to see some elephant seals up-close, and maybe even killer whales offshore, waiting for elephant seal and sea lion pups to stray into the surf. There was really no place to hike, or bike, though the beach at Puerto Piramidides was very nice. After leaving the peninsula, I headed back to Puerto Madryn for a night, more banking, and it was a nice town. I wild camped south of town on a bluff overlooking the ocean before I again headed north the next day. I stopped in Las Grutas for a night on the way, next destination, El Condor, south of Viedma and Carmen de Patagones. This would be my last stop before officially exiting Patagonia and making the run for Buenos Aires. This would in some ways be the last stop on my adventure, the rest would be work, just driving to get to the port city of Zarate, northwest of Buenos Aires, where I would drop off my van for shipment back to the United States. My adventure was almost over.

The trip up Ruta 3 to Viedma was easy, and it was a short trip down to the coast and El Condor. There were a number of private campgrounds in El Condor, and I ended up at one on the west end of town, right across the street from the beach. I planned to chill a bit, start the process of packing, catch some rays, and, see some sea lions and hopefully, a bunch of parakeets.

The first day, it was windy, really windy, but I headed off to the Reserva Faunistica Punta Bermeja anyway, to see some sea lions.  But, this short trip turned out to be another Argentinian disappointment. They charged me $5 pesos to take a short walk to a platform high above the beach, and the colony of sea lions. You could see very little, you were a hundreds of meters above the beach, and again, like Punta Delgada on Peninsula Valdes, I am not even sure if I took any pictures. 

I stayed in and around El Condor for a few days, accessed the wifi at the Tourist Office in town, biked a bit, and went into town, Viedma, still more banking, and had to address a tire which was losing some air. It turned out that the tire had a half dozen leaks, one caused by a nail which had totally penetrated the tire. We put on the spare tire, and did not bother to try and fix the damaged one; I just hoped that I would not get a flat the rest of the trip.

I liked El Condor, nice little beach community, and as it was the end of the season, kids were back in school, tourists were gone, and it was quiet. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate, it was windy, very windy a couple of days, even too windy to hang on the beach, which was very nice. It stormed one afternoon, really stormed, thunder, lightening, wind and driving rain, the whole enchilada. And one afternoon, on the recommendation of a woman working at the Tourist Office, I biked down to the end of the road in town and walked along the beach to where the parakeets live.  El Condor was home to one of the largest colonies of burrowing parakeets in the world, it was time to see something special. There were none, tons of borrows, but nobody was home. It turns out that the best time to see these animals is in the morning, early, though you do have to go at low tide, as at high tide, the water comes all the way to the base of the bluffs where these birds live.

So, one morning, early, even before coffee, I biked down to the end of town and headed down the beach, and was greeted with quite the spectacle, the largest colony of burrowing parakeets in Argentina (and maybe the world) was awake. And it was loud, really loud, as I walked slowly down the beach taking pictures. The tide was coming in, but I did have plenty of time to enjoy the insanity of thousands of parakeets getting ready for the day. The colony here in El Condor extends over 9 km down the ocean-facing, sandstone bluffs, and is believed to include 35,000 active nest burrows. These birds are highly gregarious, colorful, and loud, very loud. These birds are also monogamous, and lifelong breeding pairs excavate burrows into the faces of cliffs along the ocean, with tunnels of burrows extending up to 250 cm into the cliffs.

I wandered down the beach for maybe 3 km photographing birds, pairs hanging out on the cliff, birds on the wing, lots of birds, hundreds, thousands, it was very cool. The weather was great, plenty of sun on the southeast facing cliffs, and beautiful parakeets everywhere. I enjoyed what would turn out to be my last time exploring the wildlife of South America. Experiencing this huge colony of parakeets was great, an unexpected wonder. 

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