Birding in South America

A Spokane Audubon Society Presentation

Hear Spokane Audubon Society member Kim Thorburn share stories from her travels in South America, exploring the landscapes, cultures, and birds shaped by extreme climates.

South America holds great charm for January’s speaker, Kim Thorburn, long-time member of the Spokane Audubon Society (SAS). She loves the people, the places, the languages, the politics, the endless summer when the sun leaves our northern latitudes, and of course, the birds.

Kim and her husband Terry have traveled widely in South America, with which she first became acquainted as an exchange student in Asunción, Paraguay. She will share her outdoor explorations of places, wildlife, and vegetation guided only by her husband’s reading of the map.

“The bottom of the world has unique beauty that may not be the first we think of when considering the Western Hemisphere’s southern continent,” Kim said. “Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and the lake districts of Central Chile don’t have the eye-popping dazzle of the tropics, but delve into the regions’ varied landscapes and the attraction is apparent.”

Kim notes that species numbers and variety don’t match the more equatorial regions of the continent. But the birds in the higher latitudes of southern South America, carved by extremes of weather and geography, show remarkable adaptations.

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