Anillos Los Chorlos!!!!

After much frustration (and anxiety on my part), we finally captured shorebirds and focal species to boot! The original team of four Argentine biologists switched out last Tuesday and a fresh group of three women joined us at Estancia San Joaquin. After training with “yard birds” we split into two groups. The day group goes out with Peter to drop-net and the night group goes out with me to nite-lite. The drop net is a net raised 4 feet parallel to the ground. It is dropped remotely using a trigger line. It has proven successful in a variety of habitats including wetlands and dry uplands. When we nite-lite we use a 100,000,000 candle power spotlight with 12V bulb with external battery and throw net to rove around the fields, rice and cattle pastures alike and look for birds. Birds have no eye-shine and we are looking only for shapes. In the last couple of nights the moon is full and too bright for nite-liting so we are adjusting to work during the day in the rice fields for the next week. Both groups have been successful but capture numbers are nothing like migration. Here we are happy to catch one or two birds in each group. On migration you can get up to twenty a day!! Here it is a whole other ballgame. So far, the totals are: P.dominica-2, T. subfuficollis-7, C. melanotos-6, C.fuscicollis-6, C. collaris-5. We have only five days left here. Heavy rains have completely altered the conditions and we are scrambling to adjust. Enjoy the pics!