Click on any image for a slide show or scroll down to read the commentary.

With the help of my son I cleared out the shed yesterday, threw all the accumulated junk into the back of the Jeep and drove off to the town tip, the landfill site at Pío Protto, a few kilometres outside San Martín de los Andes.

Photo of Pio Protto landfill site by Patricio Rodriguez

This is an exciting place for birding, albeit one without huge variety. Today I saw the usual Carancho (Caracara plancus), Eng. Southern Caracara, the Chimango (Milvago chimango), Eng. Chimango Caracara,  large numbers of gulls (which I ignored completely today) and of course the vultures.

Black vultures

We see two kinds of vulture in San Martín; the Jote Cabeza Negra (Coragyps stratus), Eng. Black Vulture and the Jote Cabeza Colorada (Cathartes aura), Eng. Turkey Vulture. We see far more black vultures generally, and today was no exception. Other birds are occasionally seen at the tip, but it’s not a place I often go.

Not the prettiest of birds

As I was short of time I decided to take pictures of the black vultures only, and below are a few of these rather ugly yet at times surprisingly graceful birds.

Black vulture comes in to land

The bird above is preparing to land – a nice view of its talons as it approaches its landing point. Below is rather a frightening vision; what is interesting is the layering of the wing feathers, clear enough here but not easily seen in a high flying bird.

Something out of Tolkein or Wagner?

The final picture shows how subtle yet how important the wing tips are to the flying of this big bird, giving it great precision in flight and landing.

Such delicate feathering …