gryllosblog   Gryllo's (aka Ian Lewis') blog. All things to do with travel, wildlife especially birds, history, architecture and anything else that interests me.

The pampas covers much of southern Argentina, a huge expanse of grassland interspersed with shallow lakes and marshes. From Buenos Aires we drove eastwards towards San Clemente stopping many times on route. Although dark clouds threatened it remained largely dry.

Shallow lakes provided a haven for many wildfowl.

In this shot alone you can see three Rosybill, three Silver Teal, a White-cheeked Pintail and a White-faced Ibis.

Red Shoveler ….

…. White-tufted Grebe ….

..and Black-necked Stilts (closely related to and possibly conspecific with the Old World Black-winged Stilt) were all seen regularly.

Damp grasslands held many birds such as this Limpkin, a distant relative of the cranes and the sole member of its family.

Coscoroba Swans were common both on the lakes and feeding nearby on the wet grasslands.

The huge Southern Screamer, one of three species in their family, are a primitive form of wildfowl. We splashed around in one flooded marsh in the hope of flushing a South American Painted-snipe. In most years this takes several hours to find one or two, this year we flushed 35 within yards of the bus! We didn’t advance any further as the water was coming over our wellies.

Drier areas held parties of Greater Rheas, the South American equivalent of the Ostrich.

Southern Crested Caracaras (Caracaras are related to falcons) were abundant ….

…. as were Snail Kites, this is a juvenile bird.

This Maguari Stork was feeding on the mud of a nearby river.

Passerines in the area including this Brown-and-yellow Marshbird, a member of the Icteridae or New World Blackbirds ….

…. Warbling Doradito, a tyrant-flycatcher ….

…. acrobatic Wren-like Rushbirds (a funarid) ….

…. but the real prize was this tiny tyrant-flycatcher which goes under the wonderful name of Bearded Tachuri.

We also visited the coast at Punta Rasa, seeing the tiny Dot-winged Crake in the saltmarsh.

There were many shorebirds/waders on the beach, mainly migrants from North America. Here a flock of six Hudsonian Godwits join single Turnstone and American Golden Plover.

Hudsonian Godwits winter further south than most Nearctic waders with much of the population going as far as Tierra del Fuego. In a British context they can be separated from our Black-tailed Godwit by their dark underwing. I was lucky enough to see a Hudsonian Godwit in Devon in 1981 I think there have only been three British records, all close together in the early 80s, which probably related to the same bird.

Incredible numbers of dragonflies were flying along the beach at Punta Rasa, probably numberings in tens of thousands. Whether these were migrants or had recently emerged I don’t know. I was surprised that there weren’t a lot of falcons taking advantage of this bonanza, but eight Swainson’s Hawks overhead, wintering birds from North America, were probably feeding on the dragonflies.

As we drove south the marshes gave way to open grassland and scrub. We had several periods of bad weather but most of the time it was hot and sunny.

After a while we arrived at the city of Mar del Plata. I wondered why we went right into the city centre and then headed for the docks rather than take the by-pass ….

…. but all was revealed when we stopped at a beach near the docks where a number of South American Sea Lions were hauled out. We were also looking for Snowy Sheathbills but the only ones we saw were on the far side of the harbour and just appeared as white dots in the scope.

Although this was not a sea lion breeding beach the males were sizing themselves up and fights broke out from time to time.

Olrog’s Gull is a specialist crab-eating species restricted to the north-east coast of Argentina. We saw a few 1st year birds near Punta Rasa but had to drive much further south see see any adults.

One of the key species in this area is the very rare Pampas Meadowlark. Separated from the much commoner Long-tailed Meadowlark by underwing pattern, shape of the bill, underwing colour, shade and shape of the red on the breast and song, it has declined drastically in recent years.

The further south we went the commoner Burrowing Parrots became.

This pair of Variable Hawks were photographed on a roadside pylon. The smaller male is on the right. Once considered two species, Red-backed Hawk (mainly lowlands) and Puna Hawk (highlands), it is now realised that there is a massive amount of variation and that the two former ‘species’ might be merely colour morphs.

On the 28th we had an excellent few hours in the scrub to the south of the town of Las Grutes, seeing two difficult to find funarids – White-throated Cachalote ….

and Scale-throated Earthcreeper.

Another highlight was this Sandy Gallito (a name more reminiscent of a news reader than a bird) here seen performing it strange wing rotating display with its eyes closed. Although this bird looks like yet another funarid it is in fact a large member of the tapaculo family.

The previous day we had found Hudson’s Black Tyrant, a bird restricted to central Argentina, photos were obtained but they were distant. Today we obtained far better views of the very similar White-winged Black Tyrant, which has a bit more white in the opened wing than the Hudson’s.