This is the first of several blogs covering a trip to Southern
Argentina with Ornis. Photographs are mostly mine taken with a Sony RX10iv bridge camera. For me it is a good compromise between weight/price and quality. First sightings of birds I'd not seen before are in red.
Introduction. Having turned 70 the awareness that I’ve many more years of birding
behind me than the uncertain number ahead has focused my mind on the birds I’d really like to see.
One of those was Hooded Grebe, particularly as I had turned down the opportunity
to look for it with Matt Eade in November 2016. he was successful though not without great effort (Matt’s blog here). When Nick Preston
asked me if I fancied joining an Ornis Southern Argentina tour with Hooded Grebe the main focus I only hesitated
long enough to clear it with Megan. In August 1990 Nick and I spent four weeks in Argentina with Gary Edwards and Michael Grunwell (friends I've long since lost touch with). We saw a lot but inevitably missed birds throughout the country, me with more outstanding than Nick who had subsequently visited Paraguay. For
me two birds stood out and checking eBird I discovered that both had been seen regularly
around Bahia Blanca where the Ornis tour started. We decided to go out a day early,
always sensible to cover for unexpected delays when heading somewhere a bit out of the way. Nick booked our flights and
a car for our first day and I came up with a basic plan.
Thursday 14 November 2024. I caught a bus from the bottom of our road into Brighton
in good time/a cold half hour wait for the 13:55 National Express Coach to
Heathrow. I arrived soon after 16:00 and soon found Nick who’d come down from
Redcar by train. Gordon Beck (ex Sussex now Yorkshire) was also on the trip,
going out early although staying a day in Buenos Aires. We left Heathrow soon
after 22:00, Nick and I almost at the back of the plane, an A350. I spent most
of the flight watching Special Ops: Lioness, pure escapism.
Friday 15 November 2024: After a two hour stop in Rio, described by our travel
agent as a touchdown, we arrived at Buenos Aires International Airport around
midday (GMT – 3hrs). Clearing immigration and collecting our bags we caught the
transfer bus ($9) for the hour-long journey NE across the city to the Jorge
Newbury Airport. Our internal flight to Bahia Blanca wasn’t until 19:25 and we
were too early to check in so we crossed the road and spent a couple of hours
looking at the sea from the Cristobal Colon monument. It acted as a sun dial
providing limited shade if one moved with the hot sun. Birds seen included Picazuro
Pigeon, Eared Dove, Southern Lapwing, Neotropic Cormorant,
Snowy and Great Egrets, Crested and Chimango Caracaras,
Monk Parakeet, Rufous Hornero, Cattle Tyrant and Chilean
and Barn Swallows. Our flight
was on time, leaving about 19:30 and arriving at 21:00, soon after sunset. We
picked up the car and Nick drove to Balneario Chapalca, on the western shore of
Laguna de Chasico, 110km by road from the airport and supposed to take under two hours. The journey took almost three, not helped by heavy rain showers, roadworks and in places solid traffic on the Bahia Blanca ring road. The final third was on a rutted dirt
road, fortunately dry, that had us stopping several times for Scissor-tailed Nightjars. We
saw about 14, mostly males, and Barn and Burrowing Owls. We
arrived at Balneario Chapalca soon after midnight, parked under a tree near the
entrance and were soon asleep.
Saturday 16 November 2024. We were up at first light having slept fairly
well. We had parked opposite a deserted campsite in light open woodland which looked ideal for Scimitar-billed Woodcreeper, my main target,
but over three hours in the area including walking back down the entrance road to the start of the woodland, along a
trail through more enclosed woodland and around the village to the edge of Laguna de Chasico failed to find any. eBird is very
good at a ‘site’ level but often not for specific locations as the pin for half
the woodcreeper sightings was in the middle of the lake! We returned to the car and the nearby woodland but the campsite was being strimmed so we thought we’d try a
different route through the village to the lagoon. Halfway round, while watching an American
Kestrel robbing Monk Parakeet nests, we got talking to a couple of
interested locals. I asked if they’d seen any woodcreepers and showed them our
field guide. Yes they were often seen by the entrance, 100m from where we’d
parked and where we'd been looking! We quickly returned to concentrate on the
campsite area and halfway along the western side flushed a Burrowing Owl
and an almost certain Spot-winged Falconet, the latter I knew from eBird had been seen here a month
earlier but felt our chances were very slim. We were following it up, getting a
brief perched view, when I noticed an interesting looking large bird feeding on
the ground 100m away at the bottom of the campsite. Expecting it to be a flicker I
couldn’t contain a very rare profanity – F***ing h*ll it’s a Scimitar-billed Woodcreeper! We watched a pair of woodcreepers for an hour and disturbed the falconet again seeing it fly into an open acacia type tree and rapidly climb up the trunk where we had prolonged
views of the falconet. We had time for a final visit to Laguna de Chasico where 20 Silvery
Grebes, 1000+ Wilson’s Phalaropes and several Burrowing Owls
were the highlights. It was then almost two hours drive back towards Bahia Blanca
(at least 24 White-tipped Plantcutters along the dirt road) and an
estuary to the SW at General Daniel Cerri. There we were soon watching a superb Crested Gallito calling at us from the top of a nearby bush. It was the
first of four or five seen along the first km section of the track out to Puerto Cuatreros. Also in the area were 10 Olrog’s
Gulls while 8 Roseate Spoonbills flew over. We left at about 17:00
and were back at Bahia Blanca airport with the car returned to coincide with the
arrival of the rest of the group – Eric
Shaw from Maimi, Magnus Aurivillius and Rhodalyn (Lyn) Capalad from Sweden and Gordon Beck making a very manageable six with Nick and me. Our Ornis guide was
Chris Venetz (barely older than my son Josh!) with top Argentinian Guide Hector
Slongo and driver extraordinaire Pedro Chiesa (driver, van owner, very knowledgeable
about all things Patagonia). They all proved to be absolutely excellent and
combined with an easy-going group made for a very enjoyable trip. We piled into Pedro's minibus 'Lily' and were driven into
town, dropped our gear and immediately drove to some nearby cliffs inhabited by
many Burrowing Parrots. After a night on a plane and a night in the hire
car a decent meal and a bed were very welcome. Other birds seen today were a flying
away Spotted Nothura, running away Elegant Crested
Tinamou, 2 Chiloe Wigeon, 2 White-cheeked and 4 Yellow-billed
Pintail, 2 Glittering-bellied Emeralds (the trips only hummingbirds), 2 Picazuro and 10 Spot-winged
Pigeons, 4 Picui Ground Doves, 40 Chilean Flamingos, 15 White-backed
Stilts, Hudsonian Godwit, 20 Lesser Yellowlegs, White-rumped
Sandpiper, 8 Burrowing Owls, 2 Golden-breasted Woodpeckers, 250+
Burrowing Parrots, 8 Rufous Horneros, Stripe-crowned Spinetail,
2 Brown Cacholotes, Suiuri, Bran-coloured and 6 Scarlet
Flycatchers, 4 White Monjitas, 2 Spectacled Tyrants. the trips only Streaked Flycatcher, Greater
Kiskadee and Tropical Kingbird, 5 Crowned Slaty and 10 Fork-tailed
Flycatchers, 2 Southern and a Grey-breasted Martin, 3 Chalk-browed
and 6 White-banded Mockingbirds, 15 Rufous-collared Sparrows, 2 Long-tailed
Meadowlarks, 4 Shiny Cowbirds, 4 Greyish Baywings and a Grassland
Yellow Finch.
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| Stripe-crowned Spinetail in early morning light at Balneario Chapalca |
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| White Monjita at Balneario Chapalca |
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| Crowned Slaty Flycatcher at Balneario Chapalca |
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| Picui Ground Dove at Balneario Chapalca |
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Brown-chested Martins at Balneario Chapalca
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Grassland Yellow Finch at Balneario Chapalca
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Fork-tailed Flycatcher at Balneario Chapalca
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Spot-winged Pigeon at Balneario Chapalca
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| Burrowing Owl at Balneario Chapalca |
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| Scimitar-billed Woodcreeper at Balneario Chapalca |
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| Scimitar-billed Woodcreeper by possible nest hole. It didn't go in but was keeping a wary eye on me |
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| a stunning bird but it was its habit of feeding on the ground that was much of its appeal |
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| Spot-winged Falconet at Balneario Chapalca |
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| showing a wing spot |
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| a real bonus as although I knew there had been a sighting at Balneario Chapalca a few weeks before we arrived I thought our chance of actually seeing one was very remote |
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| it was new for Nick too, nice as he'd agreed to my jaunt despite not expecting anything new from it |
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| Chilean Flamingo at Laguna de Chasico |
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| Wilson's Phalaropes at Laguna de Chasico |
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| more Burrowing Owls at Balneario Chapalca |
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| female White-tipped Plantcutter from the dirt road south of Balneario Chapalca |
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| distinctive Golden-breasted race of Green-barred Woodpecker near General Daniel Cirre |
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| noisy male White-tipped Plantcutter at the start of the Puerto Cuatreros track |
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| female Spectacled Tyrant from the Puerto Cuatreros track |
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| Rufous-collared Sparrow, common but stunning when seen well |
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| Crested Gallito from the Puerto Cuatreros track |
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| another stunning bird on our first day |
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| White-banded Mockingbird from the Puerto Cuatreros track |
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| the same or another male White-tipped Plantcutter on our return to the car |
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| Glittering-bellied Emerald near the Burrowing Parrot colony. We had earlier seen one at Balneario Chapalco, the only hummingbirds we were to see in Argentina |
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| Burrowing Parrots in Bahia Blanca |
