The end of Argentina and a good start in Uruguay

I think we are done with photos for a while... my only internet access is at the local cafes (hence my lack of recent posts) where uploading a photo would be nothing short of an arduous project. If I find a wi-fi cafe somewhere near my new digs I´ll be sure to catch you up on the images. I wrapped up banding in Argentina one week ago, Sunday and spent one day walking around the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires (beautiful!) and enjoyed a truly carnivorous meal at restaurant La Estancia. Then, I set back to work in the office and taking care of more logistics for a couple of days. We were set to depart Buenos Aires for Montevideo via ferry on Wednesday afternoon (after hiring a flete [moving truck for hire] to haul all the equiment from INTA to the port) but there were delays (as usual) and we were held up at customs so the trip was delayed until the following morning. In spite of this, I enjoyed my one night stay at the Port du Sol Hostel. Faced with the same logistical issues of having too much equipment for a regular car, I spent hours looking for a rental car and arranging for transport of the equipment to Tres Cruces bus station for shipping to La Paloma after arriving in Montevideo. After shipping everything, I ended up renting truck that is one step up from the battery powered tonka trucks that kids drive around in their driveway... Julian had the task of driving it 200km from Montevideo to La Paloma where we are banding....not a fun trip but it keeps us laughing. Last night was the first effort at banding here in Uruguay at Laguna de Rocha and we were highly successful catching ten birds of five different species!! Amazing!! I (nor my faithful assistants) didn´t go to bed until the sun came up! This is only the beginning and things are looking good......

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!

Back from a break

After a few days of spinning our wheels in Santa Fe, we traveled to Laguna Mar Chiquita to meet Julian and Leandro and get their site up and running with supplies and drop-nets. Peter trained them up on drop-net procedure and knot tying and I went over sampling protocols. Unfortunately we did not catch anything while we were there but Julian emailed to say they had captured a few birds after we left. The site is huge and water levels have dropped substantially since Julian’s last visit. As with any site, a period of adjustment is needed before things really run smoothly.

Maria Elena met us in Santa Fe on Sunday and we loaded up her truck (they rivaled us in field gear/equipment) and headed to Estancia San Joaquin. We toured the estancia which consists of both rice agriculture and cattle pasture. It is still early for the rice to be flooded so there are few birds actually using the rice fields. However to grazed cattle pastures were loaded with T. subruficollis (Buff-breasted Sandpiper) and P. dominica (America-Golden Plovers)!!! What more can I ask for...

…to catch them!!!

Two days of drop nets and a night of night-lighting and nothing to show. I have an amazing team of people here (a group organized by Maria Elena) and I am disappointed that we have not been successful. We are determined to capture los chorlos (shorebirds) and tonight will go out again. Conditions are more favorable with a front moving through which will hopefully will keep the birds hunkered down. Last night was calm and beautiful but didn’t do much to disguise the crunch of our boots in the dry grass. I must have attempted thirty birds coming close on a few but not having a chance on most.

Life is good in Argentina. What a great country with wonderful people. The café con leche is amazing as is the dulce de leche and quince. There is a small hostel, Hostel Parana, nestled in Parana, Entre Rios along the Parana River which provided us lodging for a few nights and is really a gem. Copito, the dog afforded us much enjoyment as well.

Santa Fe

We enojyed a quiet Sunday in Santa Fe and made preparations to rent a car and move out on Monday. However, we were marooned in Santa Fe for an extra day due to a Holiday (Columbus Day!!) yesterday. Everything shuts down here on Holiday. We took the extra time to enjoy Santa Fe and stay out of the hotel room. Santa Fe is quite charming. The archtecture is beautiful and every building has an ornate door. The people are very laid back and friendly. We took the bus to El Quincho de Chiquito, a famous restaurant that attracts famous people like singer Jorge Rojas, and enjoyed a five course pescado (fish) dinner: empanadas, broiled, baked, fried, marinated, you name it! There is a long walkway along the river where we watched sailing races and the local Horneros bulding nests of mud. Good news: I have made contact with my counterparts here and plans are underway! We should be in the field by Friday at Laguna Mar Chiquita!

Crossing Int'l Borders......

....with tons of equipment

14 October

1600 - We actually crammed every piece of equipment into the bus cargo hold. A small one albeit. I can't believe it! 1800- At the border of Paraguay and Argentina all passengers de-board the bus and go through immigration. Not only that but everyone must claim all their luggage and pass it through customs..... ....we have twelve pieces!

Five of which are bundles of iron poles for the drop nets. And the cryoshipper doesn't exactly ease nerves. They wanted to put it sideways through the x-ray. No can do, it is a 'This-Side-Up' type of thing. Not knowing how to explain through the language barrier what was in the 55-gallon blue drum, I made the mistake of opening the cryoshipper and they saw the smoke....that threw them for a loop. A very nice government employee, who spoke english, came out to talk with me and explained that I was supposed to have a letter explaining what everything was (I had a letter in spanish about my collaboration with the Argentine government and that helped immensely but it still wasn't the correct letter). He was so very nice. He let us go through. We were the last through customs with the next bus' passengers eagerly waiting to be allowed in.

1945- Back on the bus with distinct looks from a few of the passengers for holding them up. We ride. There are two very large women in the seats across the isle with a young girl, about 7, without a seat of her own. She road on what was left of their laps. Later, she slept on the floor in front of the seats while the women propped their legs up. Mind you this is a 36-hour trip if going all the way from Asuncion, PY to Buenos Aires, AR.

15 October

0600- We pull into bus station in Santa Fe, Argentina. We are the only two passengers disembarking. We rummage through the luggage to find our twelve pieces. Good, it is all there. Now, we are at the bus station with more luggage than two people can handle even if the hotel is within walking distance. Peter and I take turns standing with it until the locoturias open.

0715- A hostel in Parana, across the river, cannot take us until tomorrow. Two other hotels here in Santa Fe are full. I manage these conversations thanks to the Lonley Planet book. I find a hotel with a room. Now, how to move the gear form the bus station to the hotel?

First step: move from the bus platform to the taxi waiting area by paying an exorbitant amount of money to the luggage handlers because if one helps, all five want to help and all five expect to be paid.

Second step: get it to the hotel. With the help of a willing taxi-driver, find a man delivering flowers with a makeshift trailer on the back of his beat-up, unregistered wagon. Load the trailer with the gear and ride in the taxi to the hotel pay another sum of money to the wagon driver and the taxi driver.

Third step: get the gear inside. Store the iron poles in a office downstairs and take the rest to the room (don't forget to tip the bell man!) and be amsued by the looks you get when you tell them you are planning to stay only one night! 0800- Enjoy a hot shower in your room at the Hostal Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz. Lesson learned: Amazingly through all the barriers, people will assess a situation and be willing to help.

Birds, Birds, Birds

If you don't want to see bird's look no further. We spent a morning mist-netting at the Bahia for training on sample collection technique. It was quite an amazing morning with over twenty species captured. Here are some of the highlights.

White-bellied Seedeater (male)

Striped Cuckoo

Red-billed Scythe-bill (A new record for the Bay)

Pearly-vented Tody-tyrant (one of my favorites!)

Grassland Sparrow (banded, in fact but from where we don't know)

Black-capped Warbling Finch

We are headed out for Sante Fe, Argentina this afternoon. There, we will orient ourselves to the area where will work next week.

El Gran Chaco

Saturday afternoon, we barreled up Ruta 9, which varied between a luxurious two-lane highway with wide shoulders as you would find the the U.S. and a narrow, bumpy, no room for mistakes road. If you ask anyone here, pretty much anything outside of Asuncion is the Chaco, however the vegetation changes markedly as you head north. Outside of the city there are Palm Trees and lush new grasses on the recently burned fields. Further north is dominated by dry scrub forest.

We arrived in Loma Plata, a German Mennonite settlement, much after dark and encircled the dirt road town many time in search of Hotel Mora, modest and clean lodging on the outskirts of town. We checked in for a few hours of sleep before heading out at dawn. The lagoons were still and hour and a half away by dirt road.

The first stop was completely dry. Not a good sign. We passed a few other would be lagoons on our way to Campo Maria, the deepest lagoon. If any of them had water, this one surely would. The property is privately owned by a German Mennonite farmer who grants people access for a small '"park entrance fee".

Indeed, Campo Maria Lagoon held water…..but not much else.

The lagoon is a huge network and there is hardly a bird in sight on the water. From the observation tower, we spot a few stilts and yellowlegs and enjoy watching the Monk Parakeets feeding on the sand. After setting up camp we split up into pairs and explore the shore of the lagoon. We saw 3 Pluvialis (American-Golden) and a flock of 8 C. fuscicollis (White-rumps) and a lost cow. Not even the customary flamingos were calling this lagoon home.

In the evening we again watched the lagoon for signs of activity from the observation tower. We observed tons of songbird activity (I only wish I had time to publish a list! Birder's take note this is the time of year to visit the Paraguay Chaco!) and nearing the last light, saw a flock of 25 Calidris spp. flying N to S to our east. This was good but not enough to justify staying for the week. Though lacking in shorebirds, we enjoyed nightfall as the nighthawks, nightjars and potoos made their presence known. There really is no night like a night in the Chaco. The sounds were amazing, indescribable and fascinating. In addition to the nightbirds above, we were allowed terrific looks at a Pygmy Owl and heard the South-America Screech-owl. It is amazing that the lagoon held such little life while the surrounding forest held so much.

Arriving back to camp, we came upon a tarantula hawk-wasp making short work of a Giant White Knee Tarantula (Acanthoscurria geniculata)! Creepy yet amazing!

Discouraged, yet impressed by the bird life of the Chaco, we headed back to Asuncion yesterday. There are still no birds in the bay. Tomorrow we will make a trip to Misiones before heading out to Argentina where I hear shorebirds have arrived.

The First Outing

Late this morning, after learning the truck would not be ready until tomorrow morning, I convinced Peter to go out and about. Our first time navigating and interacting with folks in the city without a chaperone! We walked partway and decided to take a taxi the rest of the way to 'el centro'. Arriving downtown, we checked out the nearest bookstore for maps of the city (to find our way home) and of the country (to navigate to the Chaco). We spent most of our time wandering through the line of outdoor booths set up in the city park buying souvenirs and gift for friends and loved ones. We visited one of our favorites restaurants, Lido-Bar. They have the best fresh made jugo (manzana, durazno, tutti-frutti, pina, pera) and empanadas around! We indulged in an empanada de pescada (fish) and I had jugo de pina. At the Lido-Bar we determined how to get home, laying out our newly purchased map on the bar-top that curves irregularly around the entire room and encircles the area where the waitresses are. We walked a bit out of town, then hailed and cab and were dropped at our local supermercado Lambarde. A most enjoyable time.

Off to the Chaco?

Yesterday we made preparations for a journey to the Chaco Lagoons. The Chaco region is 280 miles north of Asuncion, mostly on paved roads but the last part is unpaved. Characterized by an arid climate, we hope to find shorebirds at one of several lagoons. After running a few errands in the morning, Peter and were left to the task of getting grocceries for the trip. We thought the local supermercado Lambarde might not fulfill all of our desires so we went bigger and farther, to STOCK. We loaded up on veggies, pasta, cheese, bread and beans the essentials for any field outing. The jugo de duranzo (peach juice) I am saving for desert, it is sublime! We took a 15-gallon cooler with us and filled it to the top with our groceries and began the journey home, only a mile or so. I must say that Paraguayans are much the same as Americans in there reaction to anything out of the ordinary. You should have seen the looks Peter and I got as we loaded our groceries first into my large waist pack and the rest into the cooler. It was great teamwork getting it all home. Sorry, no picture available for this one, use your imagination! The last few days have been defeating. No birds anywhere. You think that would leave lots of time for exploring the city but not so. I kill most of my time tackling logistical issues like where to live and how to get money and preparing reports in my makeshift office. On a day to day basis the logistics are often not finalized until late morning and then in is lunch. Lunch is daily from 12-2 in the office. Before you know it, the day is gone. We haven't quite figured out how to get ourselves around yet either. We are still dependent on the personnel of Guyra Paraguay for this. Though with a good map I think Peter and I are ready for an excursion.

At the hotel, when none of use were willing venture very far, we were confined to the hotel itself or a few adjacent dining places, Don Vito (fast food empanadas) and Tio Tom (not really sure how to categorize this one). Leti took me to a fabulous vegetarian restaurant, in the mall food court no less! Just up the road from the Guyra Paraguay office is a restaurant, Prime, with a buffet containing various items including those sin carne. I did have my fist taste of South American wine here in Paraguay albeit from Argentina. Arne and his wife invited us for dinner and served a mellow 'fine red table wine'. We have another bottle to try, this of '“fine white table wine' but we are lacking an operational wine bottle opener. Five utility tools between the Peter and I and not a corkscrew on one of them. Peter discovered the best tasting beer though, Pilsner Negra’, a genuine Paraguayan product. (Dad, it is too bad I can'’t bring the bottles back for you!).The pictures are of my new pad. The house is actually pretty huge, too big for a decent photo of the whole thing at this point. There are ten or twelve bedrooms like mine on the second floor and a hallway with six of seven full bathrooms. The downstairs has many rooms, kitchen, offices, places for research, a library and common rooms. The place was only acquired recently and is still coming together. I just got word that the truck needs repairs and it will not be done until noon tomorrow. We are suspended again! Wish me luck in getting to the Chaco! I feel that excursion coming on today!

Cash Payments, Foreign ATMs, and the First Plan “B”

What a day….. after checking out of the hotel and using up most of my cash reserves because they don’t accept credit card payments, I was on a mission to find an ATM. Finding an ATM wasn’t that difficult but finding one that would give me cash was! I couldn’t figure out if I was using the wrong pin number (I only have two and I knew at least one was correct because I used it the day before) or if the system decided to lock me out for some freakish reason. What I knew that I could not withdraw money from an ATM in Asuncion, Paraguay. That is a pity because the apartment landlord wanted cash payment in full upon move in. Now that left me between a rock and a very hard place. No money means no shelter and with the lack of places accepting credit cards, not much else either.

After determining that one of my banks set a ridiculously low withdrawal ceiling (which was promptly increased) and the other had to activate my card for use in Paraguay (and Argentina and Uruguay…Neilson take note!) I still had no cash for 48-hours. Various options immediately sprang to mind including throwing up a tent in the yard of Guyra Paraguay. Alas, not to worry, I am in good hands here, the people at Guyra Paraguay knew of a researcher working here in Asuncion who has a large boarding house with room. He graciously offered Peter and I rooms in the boarding house and I have to say after only a few hours, I enjoy the place much more than I would have a swanky, diplomatic apartment. We can walk to the supermercado and prepare our own meals of salad, bread and vino instead of trying to order off a menu that neither one of us can comprehend!

Moral of the Story: Make sure you notify your bank and activate you credit cards and ATM/debit cards to be used abroad!!! What a headache if they don’t work!!

If you would like to see larger version of any of the photos, you can click on them and view then in a new window! You will get a kick out of this one taken Sunday.

We Caught Birds!

I must admit, I am a bit tardy with this post. Keeping up with a blog is hard work! We caught our first birds on Friday! It took a long time but at the end of the day we went home with 1 P. dominica, 8 C. fuscicollis, 3 J. jacana, 1 A. lutescens (Yellowish Pipit), 1 P. coronata (Red-crested Cardinal). Seven of the fuscicollis were caught with the drop-net at the same time. My excitement from this day has waned however since we have been unable to spot any birds on the flat in the past two days. I don't know where they have gone or if they have not arrived yet but there certainly are not at Bahia de Asuncion.

Saturday we spent more time finding metal post for the drop-nets, another exciting excursion around the city, and indulging in the traditional touristy activities downtown. I finally got a meal that wasn't just bread and cheese or meat, that was a relief! That afternoon, we tried the bahia again armed with our new magnificent post for the drop net but we went home defeated. This morning we went out again, very early. It was Brett's last day here in Paraguay and I wanted to send him home with good feelings and with a few more shorebirds banded in South America. Unfortunately, again we were shut out. We trekked to other inlets of the bay looking for habitat and rattled our bones on the dirt roads that criss-cross the sandbar to no avail. Brett is on the plane destined to for Kansas tomorrow afternoon and Peter and I are on our last night here at the Hotel Baravia. Leticia helped me find an apartment for the remainder of our time here in Paraguay. The hotel is getting muy expensive and the apartment, though expensive for Paraguay will save some money. It is very nice, and very safe. Did I mention it was very nice?! Just before I left the U.S. I received the final release version of National Geographic's Handheld Birds, a project that I worked on last year (see link at left). Thus I ended up bringing a Palm Pilot with me to South America, something I thought was completely unnecessary but brought along anyhow. Looking up words in the paper dictionary is giving me fits and I decided to I download a Spanish-English dictionary to help with my language studies and so far it is proving very useful. Wish me luck! Ciao!

Bahia de Asuncion

We went to Bahia de Asuncion on Thursday (28 September) to see if there were any shorebirds to catch. The day was gray and misty similar to NE Ohio weather. The Bahia was very high and the ground very soggy, where standing water was absent, because it stormed, a wonderful storm, the entire night. We saw 2 T. subruficollis (BBSA), 2 P. dominica (AMGP) and a host of C. melanotos (PESA), Tringa spp. and C. fuscicollis (WRSA), all target species. There were also C. himantopus (STSA), H. mexicanus (South American Stilt) and the endemic C. collaris (Collared Plover) present. Other interesting birds included P. simplex (Large-billed Tern) and S. superciliaris (Yellow-billed Tern). The flat of the bahia was full of small worms, presumably what the shorebirds were feeding on. The drive to the Bahia is very short, it is next to the city. The road that leads to the banding site is lined with shanties of very poor people. Garbage is sometimes piled up next to the road or behind a shanty. There is a very bad smell from the area. Many, dogs, chickens and pigs roam in the road. Along the edge of the bahia there is tons of trash, shoes and glass bottles among other things. It is very different from the rest of Asuncion, which is very nice overall. In the afternoon (after lunch and siesta) we went shopping for more supplies. The first shop had equipment for "cowboys". There were all kinds of saddle blankets, cast iron cook pots and branding irons. It was magnificent! This is were I got rubber boots. The next place was a steel factory to find posts for the drop nets. I have not seen anything like this is the U.S. We had a hard time finding what we needed but ended up with a couple of pieces of steel that were mis-stamped and the name of another place to try. Spanish is giving me a headache! Everytime I want to say something, french comes to mind. I had no idea that so much of my seven years of french classes were still with me!

Buenos Aires to Asuncion

I met, Peter, my volunteer field assistant in Houston and we embarked on the plane to Buenos Aries together. Nine and half hours, many miles and a magnificent lighting storm over Columbia we arrived and were greeted by Maria Elena and two of her staff biologists, Andrea and Julietta, who shuttled us off to their office in Castelar (a part of Buenos Aires). The cryo-shipper was held up in Houston and did not make it on the flight with us but no worries, it arrived the next day. All of the other ear arrived safely and we cleared customs in no time even with our plethora of baggage! The day was spent planning with Maria Elena for our sampling time in Argentina to begin on 21 October. Thanks to help from Daniel Blanco (another Argentine biologist with Wetlands International, www.wetlands.org) we bagged what would have been an 18-hr bus ride from Buenos Aires to Asuncion for a 2-hr plane ride and a room in the Hotel Diplomat in downtown Buenos Aires. We arrived in Asuncion, Paraguay today where we met up with Brett (my major advisor) and the very helpful staff of Guyra Paraguay. Visit their website if you can read spanish or just look at the pictures, http://www.guyra.org.py/index.htm. We set off tomorrow to take care of more logistics and look around Bahia de Asuncion, the bay next to the capitol city, one place where we will catch shorebirds!!

Final preparations

My visa arrived from Paraguay, phew! I was getting worried that not only would I not have the visa but that the embassy would still have my passport when it was time to fly! The cryoshippers arrived from Alaska this week also. These are large metal containers with an absorbent core. The core absorbs liquid nitrogen and can stay cold for up to three months! They are packed in a 55-gallon blue plastic drum. I just hope we can make it through security. The airline nor TSA could give me any guarantees though I have exception letters from the manufacturer. Other things are rolling right along, even the packing, ugh! Thanks to a big help from Dad, I managed to squeeze all the gear into eight (yes, 8!) containers to be checked as baggage on the plane. Brett, my major advisor, took four of them today on his way to Paraguay. The picture is the field truck packed with the gear I used in Texas this spring at Anahuac NWR (http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/texas/anahuac/index.html). I sense your disbelief. Obviously things have been streamlined.... A LOT! Wish me luck. I'll relax once I am on the plane.

Join me...

Join me as I navigate through temperate South America weaving my way from Paraguay through Argentina and into Uruguay as I follow migrating shorebirds for my master's research in Biology. I will do my best to keep this blog updated so that all who are interested in the events, successes and blunders of my travels can be entertained.