Buenos Aires - Day 3 - A birding excursion

Whenever we go on a trip a deux, Mrs L concedes to one morning or a full day of birding. It is a tax of sorts. As Buenos Aires was primarily a city break and we didn't have a car, I decided to hire a local guide to take us a bit further afield. Not cheap by any means, but you get to see more than you would by yourself and you can deduct the price of hiring a car, fuel, lunch - all the things you would have had to pay for anyway. Most people head north to Otamendi or Ceibas but I'd been to those areas before, albeit a long time ago, so I decided that we would go south, to Samborombon, as there were more potential lifers in that area.

I'm not saying this was our taxi, but our one made this one look good.

At the appointed time on the morning of our third day we met Andrés outside our hotel and jumped in a taxi he had hired for the day. Not just any taxi either, a particularly knackered and clapped-out black and yellow taxi that ran on LPG, the first such engine I'd ever encountered.  It made a very peculiar noise and was a bit juddery. We headed south out of Buenos Aires almost exactly 50 miles before making our first birding stop on a side road near the village of Veiytes at around 8am. There were birds everywhere. Huge flocks of White-faced Ibis overhead, Southern Lapwing all about, a Maguari Stork, and a small pool with Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs. I got my first views of Spotted Nothura (with many more heard), and Great Pampa-Finch, Grassland Yellow Sparrow, Pale-breasted Spinetail and Firewood-gatherer were seen well. Sadly there are no photos of this day at all, which I am a bit surprised by as usually I will take a few landscape photos on my phone along the way - that's what all good bloggers do. Oh, wait.

After an hour here we drove another 20 miles to another side road near the small town of Veronica. This was a two hour stop, driving slowly down the road and parking up when we encountered something of interest. The real target here was Bearded Tachuri which proved very hard to nail down but did eventually give excellent views on a fenceline. I remember Fork-tailed Flycatchers being everywhere, a real South American bird to remind you of where you were. We also managed views of Short-billed and Correndera Pipit, and Grassland Sparrow - another new bird even if not much of a looker. That said nothing was going to come close to the Many-coloured Rush-Tyrant really.

A further 20 miles to the south we finally hit the coast, the start of Samborombon Bay, and drove down the coast stopping a various locations that seemed promising, although birdy progress was rather diminished by a very stiff breeze that seemed to be keeping the small stuff low. At the mouth of the Samborombon river we added a load of waders to list, along with Coscoroba Swan and Chilean Flamingo. A bit further on at the niftily named Rio 15 we stopped by the bridge for a quick look about, but by now it was blowing a gale and barring a few Swallows and Neotropic Cormorants we didn't really pick up very much. This this was the furthest south we went.

Retracing our route alongside the bay we carried on and around the top alongside the Plate Estuary, almost exactly opposite Montevideo in Uruguay. Our final stop was at Punta Indio, a small settlement on the coast with a bit of low level agiculture. This was a decent stop, adding a lifer in the form of b, Chotoy and Spix's Spinetail, Yellow-browed Tyrant, Chivi Vireo and Rufous-capped Antshrike. Checkered and Green-barred Woodpeckers were in the trees, and we got nice views of both Glittering-bellied Emerald and Gilded Hummingbirds.

We probably headed for home at around 4.30pm, but by now our clapped-out gas-fired taxi was beginning to have real issues with the fuel lines or some other critical part. The driver swore it was the ignition, and kept stopping to take the key in and out, but even as a non-mechanic I could tell that this wasn't the root of the problem. We literally bounced back to Buenos Aires, the car stuttering all the way, giving out just when you reached a sensible speed and nearly shuddering to a halt before picking up again. For a while Mrs L and I wondered whether we would in fact make our dinner reservation that evening, or indeed Buenos Aires at all, but the car just about hung on to get us there. I don't fancy its chances in the long run though.

We had seen 91 species, less than I thought we might get, and only a small number of the targets that I had hoped for - just seven, whereas I'd seen 11 by myself the previous day in a couple of hours before breakfast. The wind had really hampered our chances I suspect, but sometimes birding days just don't go according to plan. I could tell that Andrés was a bit frustrated also, but it had been good to see a bit of the countryside around Buenos Aires and add a bit of diversity to the trip. Certainly a good number of the species we had seen wouldn't have been possible in the city, even in Costanera Sur.

We made our dinner reservation in good time. Steak night again at La Parilla Brigada, and this time with wine! The restaurant's signature move is being able to cut the meat with a spoon which they duly did. Looking back, whilst it was a good meal, the place really was rather a tourist trap, with an absurd amount of football memorabilia covering every available surface. Yes, even the ceiling.