Buenos Aires - Day 6 - More walking, more birds, more eating, more drinking

In order to get me to shut up about Costanera Sur Mrs L actually came with me to the reserve this morning. We had a lengthy breakfast and then caught the bus together before walking the entire stretch of Los Lagartos, me eagerly pointing out this bird and that bird. By way of comparison this netted 48 species in just over an hour with someone largely uninterested in birds and dragging me onwards by pretending to run away, whereas birding sessions three times that length in terms of time and distance covered increased the total species count by only 20. What would you rather do? All I am saying is that in the interests of matrimonial harmony you could do the shorter version a couple of times, perhaps even a couple of times as a couple, and come away having seen pretty much the same as if you had birded it much more intensively. 

Galerias Pacificos

We exited the reserve at the top of Los Lagartos and walked to the Galerias Pacificos as Mrs L wanted to visit a few clothes shops there, plus it's a rather grand old building. In the end she bought nothing, but I nearly came away with a very lovely dark green linen jacket that was just ever slightly too tight, some kind of construction defect no doubt. We vowed to look for similar fabric once back in Europe as Mrs L is skilled seamstress, but nearly a year later we still haven't found anything green with quite that same blueness to it. We had lunch there too - it was a salad day, but we added on calories with white wine and took lots of stupid selfies with which to embarrass the children. Most are unfortunately not suitable for publication, but here is one with me modelling the hat I bought at the street market a day or so after we arrived. Cheap and cheerful. And ridiculous, but most hats are that.

This is the food-court view. Bon appetit.

Clearly in tune with the colours of the season

After lunch I bade my beloved goodbye and dashed northwards to Costanera Norte, full name Reserva Ecologica Ciudad Universitaria. It's a fair old way on several buses and I did not arrive at the ideal time, but my research had been spot on and despite the heat of the day Rufous-sided Crake were indeed extremely easy here, scuttling about under the bridge that leads from the University into the reserve. You just lean over the edge and there they are. I heard more of them than I saw, but got great views of two birds together.  Would that I had not wasted half an hour on an invisible one at Costanera Sur which I could now retrospectively tick. I had a good few hours birding this much smaller reserve, tracing and retracing my steps in search of new birds for the trip, before heading back into town to meet Mrs L for drinks. Highlights included Bran-coloured Flycatcher, Sooty Tyrannulet, Sulphur-bearded Reedhaunter and Sooty-fronted Spinetail.

All buses seem required by law to have this territorial dispute clearly highlighted.

Back in town we headed for a new cocktail bar to whet our appetites. I'd booked a very nice restaurant in Recoleta called Oviedo on the basis of two facts. One, it had a very extensive wine list and two, we were now confident that the credit card refunds to take us to the much more advantageous FX rate would definitely come good, i.e. see item one. In short it was excellent and I ordered what in Peso terms was an outrageously expensive bottle of wine from Zapata. I have close to zero experience of Argentine white wine, and very little knowledge of red either, but this was excellent but unfortunately very over-priced in the UK. When in Argentina however.....