28 August 2017 – Ituzaingó – A slow day …

Anó Chico, a new bird for me.

It rained heavily all night, and was still pouring when I got up for breakfast. Rubén, the owner of Cabañas Tío Lucas (where I am staying) took me on a wet drive along some tarmac roads to see the beaches on the river Paraná, and to a couple of birding spots: a heronry and a bit of woodland known as Zanjón Loreto (the second looked very promising if it ever dries out here). Then back to the cabaña, where I made some coffee and worked on my talk for the FAAPI Conference at the weekend.

Lesser yellow-headed vulture – common in these parts

This concentration was broken by a huge lunch cooked by Rubén, who cooks the main dishes while his wife makes the deserts.  By about 15.00 it had stopped raining, and I first tried to get to the Isla Apiré, in the river Paraná and a short distance away where there is said to be extensive wild life. As there may well be, but I had no way of finding out; the lancha was full and there was no other way to get there until too late in the afternoon to make it worthwhile.

Gray monjita

So, I got in the car and drove out of town till I found the Reserva Santa María, with walkways and an observation tower looking onto the a mixture of grassland and wetlands. The sun was out by then, and I did manage to get an hour’s birding in, on what has been an otherwise wasted day. Plenty of big birds, but it was very windy and I think most of the smaller ones had hunkered down for the day.

well camouflaged, a red-winged tinamou

Back to review the day’s photos and type up these notes, until Rubén arrived with another huge meal – I can’t go on like this. I do have a programme for tomorrow, visiting Cambyretá (back in the Esteros de Iberá), so an early night’s sleep is called for, with fingers crossed for a full day’s birding tomorrow.

Giant wood rail