Costanera Sur Reserve, Buenos Aires

February 27, 2015

In Buenos Aires, we arrived at the Costanera Sur Nature Reserve at about 10:30 am and left about 4:00 pm. Costanera Sur is a 360 hectare (about 890 acre) reserve along the Rio de la Plata within walking distance of the Buenos Aires city center. We walked only a small portion of the five miles of the reserve’s trails, birding its lagoons, ponds, marshes, and river shore.  

The birds were too distant for my little camera to photograph.  I was also too busy looking at birds to take photos of the scene. So I only have a few photos that James took.

That night we had our farewell dinner in one of the restaurants on the ship.  We had a wonderful trip with a great group of people.  I would not mind seeing any of them again. We invited each other to visit and said our goodbyes that evening. We would all be leaving at different times depending on our departure times. Some of us were flying out of the country the next day.  Half the clients were planning to stay in Argentina extending the trip in various ways. I am certain we will see some of them again.

I am also certain that someday we will come back to Chile and Argentina and explore some of the areas more extensively.

Bird List:

White-faced Whistling-Duck
Fulvous Whistling-Duck
Coscoroba Swan
Ringed Teal
Brazilian Teal/Duck
Yellow-billed/Speckled Teal
Silver Teal
Rosy-billed Pochard
White-tufted Grebe
Pied-billed Grebe
Rufescent Tiger-Heron
Striated Heron
Bare-faced Ibis
Roadside Hawk
Harris’s Hawk
Plumbeous Rail
Common Gallinule
Spot-flanked Gallinule
Red-gartered Coot
White-winged Coot
Southern Lapwing
Wattled Jacana
Picazuro Pigeon
Eared Dove
White-tipped Dove
Nanday/Black-hooded Parakeet
Monk Parakeet
Guira Cuckoo
Green-barred Woodpecker
Rufous Hornero
Narrow-billed Woodcreeper
Cattle Tyrant
Great Kiskadee
Tropical Kingbird
White-winged Becard
Red-eyed Vireo
Brown-chested Martin
House Wren
Masked Gnatcatcher
Rufous-bellied Thrush
Creamy-bellied Thrush
Chalk-browed Mockingbird
European Starling
Red-crested Cardinal
Double-collared Seedeater
Rufous-collared Sparrow
Bay-winged Cowbird
Shiny Cowbird
Screaming Cowbird
Hooded Siskin
House Sparrow

Birding Group Statistics

February 2015

There were17 people on this trip, 16 birders and 1 non birder. They were one Frenchman living in Chile, four Canadians, and 12 Americans, one a resident of Great Britain. Our guide, 40 something, was the youngest. The oldest was in his late 80s, the next in his late 70s.  We were among the oldsters in the late 50s to late 60s group. The retired were in the majority; there were 5 working people. 

Of the 16 birders, two were birding guides (one on vacation) and one the “semi-retired” founder of WINGS. Of the truly retired, one Canadian had been a scientific translator and had translated the Peterson guides to French.  In fact, all three had written or co-written birding books and articles.

Three of us, James and I and the 70 plus year old, were the least traveled of the birding bunch. The rest had decades of experience birding on seven continents. Those avid birders had already seen many of the birds we saw as new and, on this trip, were adding missing species to their life list. Three whose stories we heard had started birding as children. There were, of course, some of us who did not spend every vacation and every free moment we could birding, but I think we were in the minority. They were a friendly group, and we learned a great deal from them. 

Montevideo, Uruguay

February 26, 2015

Our arrival at about 10:30 am in Montevideo, Uruguay on Thursday had been delayed by the late departure from Puerto Madryn on Tuesday.  We headed straight to the Montevideo Botanical Gardens.





The gardens was a very productive habitat with the thrushes, doves, Rufous Horneo and other birds commonly seen in southern South American urban parks.  We saw some harder to see birds including a pair of Grey-necked Wood-Rails that strutted across the lawn.


Because of the late start we ate our lunch in the bus, then went along the coast to some nearby pastures and wetlands including Playa Penino, where we saw Curve-billed Reedhaunter, Freckle-breasted Tyrants, and other small birds hiding in the grasses and bushes, as well as the Giant Wood-Rail.

We saw a lot of birds that day.  The total count identified by the group was about 25 more species than mine.

My Bird List:

White-tufted Grebe
Pied-billed Grebe
Neotropic Cormorant
Cattle Egret
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
White-faced Ibis
Harris’s Hawk
Southern Caracara
Chimango Caracara
Giant Wood-Rail
Gray-necked Wood-Rail
Red-gartered Coot
American Golden Plover
Southern Lapwing
Black-necked Stilt
Kelp Gull
Common Tern
Snowy-crowned Tern
Sandwich/Cayenne Tern
Royal Tern
Picazuro Pigeon
Eared Dove
White-tipped Dove
Monk Parakeet
Green-barred Woodpecker
Rufous Hornero
Freckle-breasted Thornbird
Small-billed Elainea
White-crested Tyrannulet
Curve-billed Reedhaunter
Cattle Tyrant
Great Kiskadee
Tropical Kingbird
Brown-chested Martin
House Wren
Rufous-bellied Thrush
Creamy-bellied Thrush
Red-crested Cardinal
Long-tailed Reed-Finch
Black-and-rufous Warbling-Finch
Saffron Finch
Great Pampa-Finch
Rufous-collared Sparrow
Tropical Parula
Masked Yellowthroat
Yellow-winged Blackbird
House Sparrow

Valdez Peninsula

February 24, 2015

We walked off the boat onto the dock at Puerto Madryn early in the morning. We drove for about an hour to go into Valdez Peninsula Nature Reserve. On this day we saw the most mammals on the trip. We saw about 50 of the elegant, wild relative of the llama, the guanaco, whose only image I took was on a sign. 

After a brief stop at the visitor's center, we went to Puerto Piramides. From the lookout we observed a group of Snowy Sheathbill roosting on a shelf below. About the size of a pigeon, this white, short-tailed, pink-faced scavenger and predator breeds in Antarctica. In the other direction we looked down on a sea lion colony and nursery.

During the morning we also visited Punta Cantor and Punta Delgado stopping to scope for elephant seals and the birds that can be seen along the coast of the peninsula.  On the road Fabrice demonstrated the advantage of having a younger (40 something) guide by jumping out of the bus, running after and nabbing a Big Hairy Armadillo for us to photograph.

We saw several Mara, a rabbit-like mammal with long legs and a face like a kangaroo.

Other mammals and birds seen closely and from the bus were Lesser Rhea, South American Gray Fox, and Burrowing Owl.

We drove back to the visitor's center at the narrow neck of the club-shaped peninsula to eat lunch at their picnic tables. We had good weather, a little wind.

We were back at Puerto Madryn and on the ship at about 3:45. We had planned to do more birding in the late afternoon as the ship left the harbor.  However, when it was time to go, a strong wind prevented the ship from doing its sideways maneuver away from the dock.  It was not until night that it was able to get under way.  

Mammal List:

South American Sea Lion
Elephant Seal
Guanaco
Mara
Common Yellow-toothed Cavy
Humboldt's Hog-nosed Skunk
South American Gray Fox
Big Hairy Armadillo
European Hare

One reptile: a Black and White Tegu


Bird List:


Lesser Rhea
Elegant Crested-Tinamou
White-headed Steamer-Duck
Great Grebe
Neotropic Cormorant
Magellan/Rock Cormorant
Imperial Cormorant
Turkey Vulture
Cinereous Harrier
Chimango Caracara
Southern Lapwing
American Oystercatcher
Blackish Oystercatcher
Snowy Sheathbill
Brown-hooded Gull
Dolphin Gull
Kelp Gull
South American Tern
Royal Tern
Burrowing Parakeet
Burrowing Owl
Common Miner
Southern Martin
Patagonian Mockingbird

Others saw:

Darwin's Northura
Variable Hawk
Black-chested Hawk-Eagle
Southern Caracara
American Kestrel
Tawny-throated Dotterel
Sandwich/Cayenne Tern
Austral Negrito
Correndera Pipit
Mourning Sierra-Finch
Rufous-collared Sparrow
Long-tailed Meadowlark
House Sparrow

The Atlantic Ocean

Monday and Wednesday
February 23, 2015 and February 25, 2015

On Monday we were at sea between the Falklands and Puerto Madryn, Argentina.  On Wednesday we were traveling from Puerto Madryn, Argentina to Montevideo, Uruguay.  The days on the Atlantic were pretty similar.  There was not the cold upwelling of nutrients like the Humboldt current of the Pacific Ocean and less birds to look at.  We spent a lot of time staring at the water and chatting, and a few birders took time off to indulge in the amenities onboard, such as, yoga classes, the gym, massages, and manicures.  

I did see some birds in smaller numbers on the Atlantic Ocean that I had seen on the Pacific Ocean:  

Magellanic Penguin
Southern Royal Albatross
Snowy (Wandering) Albatross
Black-browed Albatross
Southern Giant-Petrel
Slender-billed Prion
White-chinned Petrel
Sooty Shearwater
Great Shearwater
Wilson's Storm Petrel
And a mammal, Peale's Dolphin

I also saw some new birds on the Atlantic Ocean:

Yellow-nosed Albatross
Manx Shearwater
Brown Skua 

Penguins at Volunteer Point

February 22, 2015

The largest penguins here were the King Penguins.  A large group of them were massed in a rocked off portion of the colony.  That was the only place we could see the young King Penguins, and there seemed to be at least two ages of young.

Many of a second, smaller species of penguins, the Gentoo, seemed to be in a state of extreme molt with feathers everywhere. 

Below are a pair of young hassling their mom to feed them.  You notice the mom is a little gray.  Her feathers are worn. Her young have fresh black feathers.

My favorite were the Magellanic Penguins.

Both James and I took photos of the penguins and the scenery at Volunteer Point.  It was a beautiful day for photography.

Volunteer Point, Falkland Islands

February 22, 2015

In the morning after the wait to get off the boat and a half hour ride on the tender, our group arrived at Port Stanley, Falkland Islands and met four four-wheel-drive pickups.  We were in the middle of a convoy of such pickups all transporting cruise passengers to Volunteer Point.  The driver was an very interesting British-Falklander.  He told us that he and the four other drivers in our group were all backup drivers with their own vehicles who worked when the transport company needed more vehicles, such as, when a cruise ship came in. Without a cruise ship, he said, there might only be one or two vehicles that go out there on an occasional day.

After about an hour on paved road, we were another hour plus on rough non-paved non-roads. Though we were not in the front of the pack, we found that our group had an advantage over the other vehicles. The driver in the lead car was the farmer who leased the land we were driving on, knew the property very well, and was determined that we would be the first to get to Volunteer Point. And, we were.

We parked, grabbed our binoculars and cameras, and just wandered around for a few hours.  From the parking lot we saw Gentoo Penguins.  We could hear the chorus of the King Penguins in the near distance.

We had the place to ourselves for about half an hour, then the other passengers came to enjoy the show.

We wandered and took photos in the grassy area for over an hour, then went over to survey the scene at the beach.

It was a cool, cloudy day at a place that is often cold and windy.

We had made a few birding stops on the way to Volunteer Point and did again on the way back to the ship.  We got back to the boat about 4:00 and birded from the deck in the evening as we went back out to sea.

Species List:

Upland Goose
Kelp Goose
Ruddy-headed Goose
Falkland Steamer-Duck
Crested Duck
King Penguin
Gentoo Penguin
Magellanic Penguin
Black-browed Albatross
Southern Giant-Petrel
Slender-billed Prion (released 40 from deck)
Sooty Shearwater
Great Shearwater
Grey-backed Storm Petrel (in hand)
Turkey Vulture
Rufous-chested Dotterel
Blackish Oystercatcherr
Brown Skua
Kelp Gull
Dark-faced Ground-Tyrant
Chilean Swallow
Austral Thrush
Long-tailed Meadowlark

Others saw: Yellow-billed/Speckled Teal, Soft-plumaged Petrel, Magellan/Rock Cormorant, Imperial Cormorant, Variable Hawk, Southern Caracara, Two-banded Plover, Magellanic Oystercatcher, Snowy Sheathbill, Dolphin Gull, Correndera Pippit, White-bridled Finch, House Sparrow

Cape Horn and the Atlantic Ocean

February 21, 2015

We were on deck about 7 am. We could feel the Antarctic from the south. It was the coldest on deck on the whole trip. Between 8:00 and 9:00 am we sailed around Cape Horn Island.  Too busy watching birds to take photos. 

We then headed east to the Atlantic Ocean, then northeast toward the Falkland Islands.

I saw:

Southern Royal Albatross
Snowy (Wandering) Albatross
Black-browed Albatross (1,000 +)
Gray-headed Albatross
Southern Giant-Petrel
Cape Petrel
Slender-billed Prion (100 +)
White-chinned Petrel
Sooty Shearwater (2,000+) 
Great Shearwater
Wilson’s Storm-Petrel
Imperial Cormorant (1,000 +)
Chilean Skua
South American Tern

Other birders identified:  Kelp Goose, Magellanic Penguin, Northern Giant-Petrel, Black-bellied Storm-Petrel, Common Diving-Petrel 

Ushuaia

February 20, 2015

According to the Log of the Cruise, last night we had cruised back through the Straits of Magellan, then along the fjords predominantly through the Magdalena, Cockburn, Brecknock, Union, Ballenero, O’Brien and, finally, the Beagle Channels.

We met at 8:00 am at the bow mostly to photograph the scenery as we approached Ushuaia.


 





About noon we walked off the ship onto the dock and met our bus.



Our first stop was the Ushuaia dump. The dump was swirling and noisy with caracaras (including our first and only White-throated of the trip), gulls, Chilean Skuas, and a few Black-chested Buzzard Eagles.

After about a half hour at the dump, we drove to Tierra del Fuego National Park spending the rest of the afternoon in the forest.  We observed flocks of small birds, the exotically named but friendly Thorn-tailed Rayadito, Black-chinned Siskins that reminded me of Lesser Goldfinches at home, and the aptly behaved White-throated Treerunner, but there was no sight or sound of the Magellanic Woodpecker, the big bird we were searching for.





Before we left the park we did have a young beggar, a Chimango Caracara, close enough to photograph.


We had pleasant sunny weather all afternoon despite the dark and cloudy morning.

My Birds for the Day:

Kelp Goose
Spectacled Duck
Crested Duck
Great Grebe (a pair with 2 young)
Black-browed Albatross
Southern Giant-Petrel
Imperial Cormorant (1000 +)
Black-faced Ibis
Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle
Southern Caracara
White-throated Caracara
Chimango Caracara
Chilean Skua
Kelp Gull (2000 +)
South American Tern (100 +)
Austral Parakeet
Thorn-tailed Rayadito
White-throated Tree-runner
Austral Thrush
Patagonia Sierra-Finch
Rufous-collared Sparrow
Black-chinned Siskin

Others in the group saw:  Upland Goose, Turkey Vulture, Black Vulture, Southern Lapwing, Dolphin Gull, Tufted Tit-Tyrant, Chilean Swallow, House Wren, House Sparrow

Punta Arenas

February 19, 2015
In the night the ship had entered the Straits of Magellan and in the morning was docked at Punta Arenas.  We met early, half an hour before the first tender to port was expected to leave, were all in the first tender, and met a vehicle on shore.

This is the inside of the tender.



A view of our cruise ship from shore with imperial cormorants in the foreground:

Our first stop was Tres Puentes Marsh in the city.  We would look at four kinds of cormorants and gulls on one side of the city street, then run across the street to look at flocks of ducks. An example of city birding:



Back on the bus we drove out of the city to explore the Patagonian steppe. As we drove we saw lots of Lesser Rheas.



At Laguna de los Palos we clearly saw in the distance the gray back and bubble gum legs of the Magellanic Plover.

 

 

A group of happy birders  were back at the ship at around 4:00.

A Note:  All photos for today’s post were taken by James.

Bird List:
Lesser Rhea
Upland Goose (800 or more)
Kelp Goose
Ashy-headed Goose
Flying Steamer-Duck
Flightless Steamer-Duck
Spectacled Duck
Crested Duck (100 +)
Chiloe Wigeon
Speckled Teal
Yellow-billed Pintail
Red Shoveler
White-tufted Grebe
Silvery Grebe
Chilean Flamingo
Magellanic Diving Petrel (One in hand)
Neotropic Cormorant
Magellanic / Rock Cormorant
Imperial Cormorant (500 +)
Black-faced Ibis
Andean Condor
Southern Caracara
Aplomado Falcon
Red-gartered Coot
Southern Lapwing
Two-banded Plover
Blackish Oystercatcher
Magellanic Oystercatcher
Magellanic Plover
Chilean Skua
Brown-hooded Gull (100 +)
Dolphin Gull
Kelp Gull (100 +)
South American Tern (100 +)
Dark-bellied Cincloides
Austral Thrush
Patagonian Sierra-Finch
Rufous-collared Sparrow
Long-tailed Meadowlark

Other birders saw:  Black-crowned Night Heron, American Kestrel, Peregrine Falcon, Eared Dove, Scale-throated Earthcreeper, Buff-winged Cinclodes, Austral Negrito, Blue-and-white Swallow, Chilean Swallow, House Wren, Austral Blackbird, House Sparrow.
Also seen was a Bottlenose Dolphin.