*White-bellied Seedsnipe, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)*

WHITE-BELLIED SEEDSNIPE HAD FOUND ITS WAY ONTO MY BUCKET LIST. I first read about it in the Croom Helm Shorebirds identification guide way back in 1986. Four weird, apparent shorebirds, plus Magellanic Plover tagged onto the end of the book, after Ruff, however, I didn’t expect to find myself working my way through the seedsnipes all these years later. This enigmatic bird usually requires a hike above the tree line in Patagonia’s far south and even then, owing to its cryptic plumage and the fact that it is usually well into its breeding cycle by the time people look for it around Ushuaia, it can be tricky to find. White-bellied Seedsnipe does not spend the Austral winter on the mountain tops, instead, they descend to the rolling Patagonian steppe grassland to the east of the Andes, where they present a different challenge to locate in a vast, rather uniform landscape. I had searched for to the northeast of Punta Arenas last autumn but was thwarted by an unexpected river crossing, deep, water-filled, rutted tracks and ultimately a collapsed cattle grid. This year’s first visit down south was a bit late to expect to find one on its wintering grounds, so I didn’t have much hope, but why not try anyway? The Lesser (or Magellanic) Horned Owls I wanted to recce for the Wild Images tour start next morning were dealt with very quickly, so I had some extra time. Not far away, the endless stony shore of windswept Laguna Los Palos, north of Punta Arenas is my goto spot for Magellanic Plover and it is also an occasional site for the seedsnipe, among some other interesting shorebirds. 13,000 steps and double figures of Magellanic Plovers later, just when I was resigning myself to a hike up a mountainside in Tierra Del Fuego, a loud piping call came from a shorebird that flew up about ten metres in front of me. It landed not much further ahead… and had a white belly and chainmail-patterned wing coverts. WOW! White-bellied Seedsnipe. I wished I had someone else to share the sighting with but on the other hand it was nice to enjoy it alone in a wild, wide open landscape. What a privilege to see one at sea level as well.