Feliz Navidad

For all of you who were worried, Christmas was great!! I enjoyed a grand feast of beef, pork, and chicken from the parilla (the Latin American version of the grill) at the house of Mati's sister. The parilla is no small event. A large fire is stoked on one side of the stationary, built-in grill and as the red-hot coals fall they are pushed to the other side of the grill, under the meat. This makes for very tasty carne asada. Of course we started the evening with appetizers of all sorts. There was chorizo, salivary gland of a pig (very salty), and small cubes of cheese, each melted and flavored on its own depression of a special ceramic dish designed (by a Uruguayan) specifically for this purpose alone. Once it was time for dinner, I was offered pork from a large collection on a platter and I took a fairly generous piece (for my limited meat diet), little did I know that there was also chicken and beef to go around. Needless to say, I ate only the pork. The end of dinner was interrupted by the fireworks at midnight when we all went to the street and participated (with the rest of the city) in lighting fireworks. The street was filled with the smoke and sounds and light of the celebration. After this, we opened gifts and at about 3AM decided it was time for bed but the sounds of the celebration kept on. I enjoyed the Holiday here. The time leading up to Christmas is much more understated than in the U.S. In the U.S., we barely have a chance to be thankful at Thanksgiving before Christmas is being flaunted. Yes, shopping is universal as I experienced on Christmas Eve when I went to the local mall to buy a gift for the gift exchange. The place was crawling with people. It was crazy! But other than this I was not assaulted with Christmas as I feel I am most of the time in the U.S. Here the decorations are small and the Holiday seemed more about getting together and feasting with family than anything else, which I thought was refreshing.

Nothing else like it.

Last Thursday was our first attempt at capturing Upland Sandpipers here in Uruguay. We began by visiting a site where we previously saw birds. When UPSA were still present, we began the task of finding the owner of the estancia. Luckily for us, two of the estancia employees lived in a small shack nearby and they were friendly and talkative. They directed us to the brother of the landowner where we wanted to trap; he lived a mere 5km (more or less) away. We drove to his house, introduced ourselves and Mati set about explaining who we are and what we were doing. After sharing some pleasantries, we were on our way with no problem. The owner was interested in birds and more than willing to allow us access to the land. The night was clear and moonless (until 1AM at least) and there was a slight breeze; perfect conditions. I can not describe to you the sky. There are no words to describe the sky here with all of the stars, the Milky Way, shooting stars and get this, nebuli. It is so dark here you can see nebuli. Amazing. Under this amazing and sometimes distracting blanket of the universe, we captured the first Upland Sandpiper here in Uruguay. For me, there is great satisfaction in tromping around in an overgrazed pasture in the middle of the night carrying a big circular net while another person in front of me searches the ground for sandpipers using a million candle power spotlight. All that is illuminated is the area within the range of the spotlight and everything else is night. quiet and peaceful.

Mi Casa

Here are the pictures of my house in Tacuarembo. And I was right, the area where I am living is a common vacation destination. I fact it is called Balneario Ipora or Ipora Resort. I am living in a resort! The resorts here are public so maybe it is more like a park? This explains the very nice and very large homes and the general upkeep of the area. I am thankful for the views, the peace and quiet, and the well-mannered and well-groomed dogs that are generally friendly and greet me on my walks.

This place is the land of bikes, scooters, and motorcycles. Everywhere you drive you are dodging them on the left and right. In many places people use bikes and scooters because they can’t afford anything else but here near the resort and in Tacuarembo, I think riding them is fashionable. It is a resort town after all and people are here to enjoy themselves on Holiday. The scooters and bikes are fairly dangerous however. The past two days in a row, we saw the aftermath of accidents involving a car and a scooter, can you guess who must have won? The driving here is not stellar to begin with. Most people don’t stop until they are nearly in the middle of the intersection and I’m not suite sure how people tell who is going to continue and who is going to stop but somehow traffic keeps moving along and accidents seem to be rarer than they are common.

New Flash

Did anyone hear about this last year? This estancia happens to be along the road that we surveyed this week. Two young boys stopped to talk to Mati and I (well, mostly Mati for obvious communication reasons) and told her about this event. Pretty crazy.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-08/20/content_603 3939.htm

This is the only information I could find about it in English online. To view the page you have the get rid of the colon after the 6. For some reason blogger puts one in there when I publish the link. If you happen upon something more detailed please pass it along!

Montevideo

The Sociedad Zoologica del Uruguay hosted a meeting at the Universidad de la Republica from Thursday to Saturday and we returned to Monetivdeo for this event. I went to one day of talks but knowing that I couldn’t communicate much with anyone, owning to my lack of Spanish skills, I didn’t hang around much. Instead I worked on my manuscript, went to the neighborhood feria with Griselda (Mati’s mom), walked at the beach, etc.

The ferias are pretty cool here. There are many different types of ferias but all are open air markets set up in the street or in a park. Some last for weeks at a time (such as the artisan feria I mention later) but others are open for only one day. The latter is usually the case of the neighborhood ferias that mainly sell fruits, vegetables, cheese, meats, cleaning supplies and little bit of anything else you might think of. Each neighborhood has a feria of its own but the cool thing is that if you miss the one for your neighborhood you can visit the feria of a nearby neighborhood later in the week. There is only one day, Monday, that there are no neighborhood ferias. Each of these neighborhood ferias is open for one day. Each vendor pulls up by whatever mean they have (very old VW vans are common), opens shop, and then closes down at the end of the day. I assume that each vendor works a series of different ferias on sort of a rotation. In any case, I like these and wish there was something like it in the states. The closest thing we have is a farmers’ market and as you know these don’t travel to your neighborhood, you travel to them and they are usally open one day per week. So if you don’t have transportation or you are busy on that day, forget about it. Here anyone can go to a feria any day of the week (except Monday or course) and buy their food and other goods from local folks and enjoy the walk, too.

Saturday was the birthday party of Mati’s niece (Paulina, 2) and nephew (Mateo, 4) at La Casa de Kien, a place made entirely for children’s birthday parties (Kristen you would like this place!). The kids played in an indoor play area, dressed up in costumes, batted at a piñata, opened gifts, and danced all afternoon. All of this was as orchestrated by two folks whose job it was to entertain the kids so the adults could hang out themselves. What an idea! Do these places exist in the US?

After this, Mati showed me around the Cuidad Viejo. We visited the Mercado de Puerto, a famous old building that was renovated into numerous restaurants under the same roof that target tourists. After witnessing the Brazilian drummers and dancer and many intoxicated people, we strolled along the streets, enjoyed café and happened upon the Uruguayan Navy Band giving a performance in the Plaza Zabado. We walked through the Plaza Independencia, where a huge statue of General Artigas celebrates Uruguay’s liberation from the quarreling countries of Brazil and Argentina. Eventually, after much waiting at a bus stop and a little more walking, we ended up at the Feria de Ideas, a month long outdoor arts, books and music fair. It was a little pricey (by Uruguayn standards) but worth the unique items found. Maybe one will end up in your hands when I return;)

To round out the night, I enjoyed fireworks as part of the Festival de Las Luces held every December. Think of it as the 4^th of July in December. No Uruguayans aren’t celebrating their date of independence per se however it is summer and there were fireworks.

The Roads Less Traveled

For the four days in Tacuarembo (Friday - Monday), we searched areas where previous surveys by Aves Uruguay determined Upland Sandpipers (Batitu) were present. I don’t know who or how these areas were picked because it looks to me like there is UPSA habitat just about everywhere.

There are two main roads that we use to get out of town. The first is Rt. 26 and the second is Rt. 31. Both go west out of Tacuarembo; 31 out of the NW and 26 out of the SW side. If you go far enough on either you will reach Argentina via Salto (31) or Paysando (26). These roads are paved but of varying quality. 26 is wider with a nice shoulder but 31 is windy and narrow. To get to the areas where the UPSAs are we have to drive one and a half hours on the paved roads and then turn off the main paved road onto what is essentially a two-track winding through the grassland. Fences on either side of the two-track mark the boundary of public access.

The first the day, Friday, the road simply puttered out. We had been following a faint two-track that we periodically lost and found again than finally disappeared all together. We could see a two-track to our right but since it was on the other side of the fence it was private. Given the lack of towns and desolation of the area, I can see how some of the roads go unused and cease to exist without anyone taking notice. They are, in a sense, ‘roads to nowhere’. The area is so vast and empty; grassland and nothing else.

View Larger Map

There are stands of trees on the horizon, an exotic species planted for lumber; they are very straight and tall. Small stands are also planted to provide shade for the cattle and sheep and gauchos, much as they do in the US. The sun can be absolutely searing in the afternoon. Where there isn’t a stand of trees, the cattle and sheep huddle up together under any scrap of shade they can find; small native trees with tiny leaves. You would think that all of their bodies huddled together would create more heat than the shade would neutralize. But there they are, huddled.

On Monday, the longest and hottest day, we passed through three small towns, Arerunga, Vera, and Cerro Bandera. This was one day where the roads were in better condition, presumably to allow passage of goods to the towns. These towns are like no other, they are primitive, with no electricity although one of them had solar power. We stopped in one, Arerunga, because Mati wanted bananas. I thought the chances of finding anything fresh were slim. In fact, the first we placed we stopped, that was still on the main highway, had no bananas. To my surprise, the woman went out back and reappeared with six small bananas. I wish I had a picture of the place. It looked like a saloon from an old western. I was a large room with very tall ceilings but it was dark inside. There was a counter that went almost the whole length of the place. The food stuffs, mostly non-perishables were stacked where the booze would have been. It was here that we also acquired forks that we had forgotten. We planned to eat leftovers for lunch and I had come up with many creative ways of eating them without a fork but at the mention of us not having any, the woman once again disappeared out back and reappeared with two forks for which she refused any payment. She was giving us her personal forks! And we are not talking about people who have much. This was incredibly generous but true to form for those that have less.

We were also treated to three water crossings, quite possibly the only water we will see in this arid environment. We crossed the first at Arerunga (of which I don’t remember the name), the next was Pasao de Guayabo (Gwa-sha-bo), and the last Pasao de Tapado. We lunched at the last one, acting much like the cows and sheep crouching next to the water in what little shade we could find.

Birds of Uruguay

Here's a sampling of the birds seen thus far. I'll continue to update as I get more photos. PS- This slide show is a nice little gadget I found on Picasa web albums. Snazzy indeed!

Tacuarembo

After a brief stay in Montevideo after my arrival, I headed to Tacuarembo with Matilde (Mati) and Luciano (Lucio) on Thursday. We have a 4-door Chevy Corsa at our disposal thanks to Eleven Rent-A-Car and my credit card. Tacuarembo is a 5-6 hour drive from Montevideo on Rt. 5. I didn’t get to see much along the way because it was convenient for the owner of the house we are renting (aka the landlord) to meet us a night; so we arrived promptly at midnight (quite a different schedule here) to the gas station on the south side of Tacuarembo. Fernando, driving a nice four door pick-up that anyone who does field work and is confined to a Corsa drools over, then led us to our house on the north side of Tacuarembo. It is a modest house with two bedrooms, a bathroom (with hot water, yay!), and a parilla of course. Somehow he managed to squeeze in beds for six! This will come in handy when everyone is here at the same time in January. The house is comfortable with three of us so I imagine space will be at a premium in January. There are no screens for the windows here which doesn’t make any sense to me since the windows and doors are open 90% of the time; there is no AC or central heat so you need the breeze for climate control. Instead you can buy these small blue pads containing insecticide (pyrethroids) that you slide into an adapter that plugs into the wall and emits a steady bug repellent throughout the night. I’d rather have a mosquito net but forgot to pack it.

The surrounding area is quite pleasant. There are tall trees (most non-native, of course) around all of the houses and most of the homes are for vacation use and are very well maintained. Dogs and horses are common in yards and in the road. There is lake, El Lago de la Juventude, picnic area, playground, and campground all at the entrance to the neighborhood. On a walk one morning, there were two tour buses parked at the picnic area/playground and I assume this must be a popular destination for weekend getaways.

It is gorgeous right now, the beginning of summer, and all of the flowers in the gardens are in bloom, hydrangeas, bougainvilleas, and more. The days are long, especially when coming from the contracted winter days of the north. Dawn is about 0630 but the daylight stretches into the 2100 hour. At the beginning of the week, the temperature was manageable but at the days progressed, the temperature continued to increase. And it will only get hotter. Out in the field, there is no relief. No shade, nothing, just you and the grass and the gravel road. I don't have pictures of the house yet (for those of you that are interested) but when I return on Sunday I will take some and post them.

Mas tarde.

Perfect Strangers

Montevideo, finally. I am taking in views of the ocean from Mati's 7th floor apartment and of the city from the 7th floor of the Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Uruguay. The trip here was long; I missed my connection to Montevideo from Miami due to delays caused by bad weather up north. Somehow, my bags made it on that original flight which means the plane was still there and waiting when I arrived at the gate. Oh well. I and another misplaced passenger embarked on a journey to find a place to stay overnight (international flights are typically scheduled once per day, if that) which ended up to be a seedy place north of the airport where the shady desk clerk charged more than he promised on the phone. But I was happy to have a bed. The following day began in a void between hotel check-out time (11 AM) and flight check-in time (6PM; take note: check-in begins 5 hours prior to your scheduled departure, not a minute before). The Miami Airport is one big mess of people and luggage without enough space to maneuver. The Information Attendant was friendly enough to reveal several coveted quiet places in the airport to which I and my fellow displaced traveler fled. There, we intersected with another traveller, waiting for a flight to none other than.... Montevideo (different flight, same destination). Together, we broke out of the airport and hopped on a bus headed for South Beach. This took an excrutiating amount of time but along the way we picked up another misplaced traveller on his way to Chile. The four of us enjoyed a late lunch in the heart of Art-Deco architecture in South Beach and touched the wide, sandy shore before heading back to the airport. Upon check-in, I was granted a seat in the far back, the way back, the cave of the plane: row 43, located conveniently between the lavatories. No way was I going to sit between two toilets for 9 hours. A quick check online indicated plenty of available seats in much better real-estate to which I upgraded. I enjoyed a pleasent vegetarian dinner of curried chickpeas and rice, arrived intact, was not harrassed by customs (even with my four bags of equipment). I am looking forward to the drive to Tacuarembo tomorrow and maybe the first glimpse of a wintering Upland Sandpiper.

Cueva de Guachara

The 8th Neotropical Ornithological Congress had been going on for three days... We were mainly confined to the grounds of the hotel and beginning to feel a little claustrophobic. The conference planners sensed this potential for restlessness and planned a fantastic field trip experience for mid-week. I embarked on a full day trip to the Cueva de Guacharo and surrounding mountains for birding extraordinare! We left the hotel at 5 A.M. (Planned departure was for 4:30 am but remember nothing happens on time here:). We stopped at one wetland area where we saw water tyrants, neotropical cormorants and striated herons and then were off for the highlight of the day, to see Guacharos, an endemic night bird also known as the oilbird. Guacharos live in caves throughout the Guacharao National Park in northeastern Venezuela. They are a strictly nocturnal bird, exiting the cave at dusk in search of fruit, their main diet. There is one cave that is open to the public. The cave is ginormous (gigantic and enormous) and over 10 kms long. Guided by the light of gas lanterns used by the park rangers, we could only walk in ~1200m but the experience is nothing that can described in words. Huge stalactites and stalagmites and the cacophony of the Guacharo calls to from their roosts on the walls of the cave accompanied us on our walk until we entered the Cuadro de Silencio (silence room) reached through a narrow entrance too small for the Guacharos to navigate. In addition to a loud, low squawk the Guacharos also use a type of eco-location, though much slower than a bats, to navigate in the blackness of the cave. A truly amazing experience.

Revisiting South America

Just a quick note that I'll be heading to Maturin, Venezuela next week to showcase the preliminary results of my research and the 8th Neotropical Ornithological Congress ,http://www.nocvenezuela.org/en/index.cfm. I'll try to share the experience via photos and blog. I recently visited the website of a field site I used in Uruguay, the picture of Laguna de Rocha (Rocha Lake) is breathtaking, see for yourself http://www.lagunaderocha.org/

The Numbers Are In!

Here is the final tally of shorebird capture in South America. The blood samples remain in Buenos Aires since the airline (Continental) denied me access to the plane with the cryoshippers (http://www.chart-ind.com/litfiles/11550825.pdf). So I continue to wait as patiently as possible for my colleague to ship them back to me. There is a whole lot of work and stress in those barrels, not to mention my Master's thesis. After I get all the samples back on US soil, I'll embark on a final field season this northbound migration in TX and then be in the lab for the summer analyzing my samples. Whoopee!

	Table 2: Species and Sample Totals for South America
	Species	Captures	Plasma				Footwash				Tox Feathers					Iso Feathers					Reference				Exposure
			PY	AR	UY		PY	AR	UY		PY	AR	UY		PY	AR		UY			PY	AR	UY		PY	AR	UY
AMGP	P. dominica	47	1	4	41		1	4	32		1	4	33		1	4		41			1	1	26		-	3	16
BASA	C. bairdii	1	-	1	-		-	1	-		-	1	-		-	1		-			-	1	-		-	-	-
BBSA	T. subruficollis	24	-	7	16		-	8	16		-	8	16		-	8		16			-	-	15		-	8	1
COPL	Ch. collaris	16	1	5	-		-	1	-		-	1	-		1	14		-			1	8	-		-	7	-
COSN	G. gallinago	3	-	-	3		-	-	-		-	-	3		-	-		3			-	-	3		-	-	-
LEYE	T. flavipes	6	-	2	4		-	2	4		-	2	4		-	2		4			-	2	4		-	-	-
PESA	C. melanotos	42	-	21	21		-	21	21		-	21	21		-	21		21			-	8	-		-	13	21
SAPS	N. semicollaris	5	-	2	3		-	-	-		-	-	-		-	2		3			-	-	3		-	2	-
SOLA	V.chilensis	6	-	-	4		-	-	3		-	-	3		-	-		4			-	-	-		-	-	6
STSA	C. himantopus	6	-	-	-		-	-	-		-	-	-		-	6		-			-	6	-		-	-	-
TBPL	C. falklandicus	4	-	-	-		-	-	-		-	-	-		-	4		-			-	4	-		-	-	-
WRSA	C. fuscicollis	85	6	45	30		3	35	28		3	32	26		6	47		28			7	40	24		-	7	8
		245	8	87	122		4	72	104		4	69	106		8	109		120			9	70	75		-	40	52

The table is a little hard to read without the lines that appear in excel but you can make your way through it!

Sunrise over the Atlantic in La Paloma. This was often the view I saw as we pulled into the house after a night of splotlighting. This particular site was one hour + drive away but was a very good site. From the area where we had to leave the car it was another 1-km hike to where to birds roosted but well worth it. -----------------------------------------

This is another, more accessible site and much closer to the bunk house. This piece of land (above) divides the Atlantic Ocean from the Bay and was usually chock full of shorebirds. During the week the numbers fell a bit due to the heavy amount of people traffic going fishing or recreating in other ways. This area is designated a National Park (Guardeparques) in Uruguay and there was a very nice blind set in the sand dunes. This worked well for bird banding (below). We could run two teams banding and two teams spotlighting though the area was hardly large enough for so much spotlight activity.

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Finding a vehicle that will accommodate 2m long iron poles and 55-gallon drums that contain cryoshippers in addition to more equipment and 6 people is no easy task. The first objective was always to get the gear from the port of entry to the destination. That always took creativity. Here in Latin America the bus system is amazing though!!! After hauling everything in a caminoetta taxi and a rental car (always rent a car with a pass through from the trunk) to the bus station, we were able to ship everything from Montevideo to La Paloma for a ridiculously small fee. Then, on the first try we rented this small truck. Not bad for the bed that could handle all the eqiupment but in the end it had engine trouble and traded it in for the magnificent Fiorino (on the right in the photo below). That truck/car hybrid could handle anything and the space in the back was great for processing birds, there was huge amount of room.

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In Montevideo I enjoyed my only vegetarian meal. It was OK. Though Latin America really does excel at meals containing meat. One of my favorites things is the Chivito. Perhaps you know of this sandwich. You can get it al plate (w/o bun) or as a sandwich. It goes like this: a thin piece of steak with bacon (only in the really nice restaurants) ham, cheese, a fried egg (over easy if done correctly), lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise. Mmm, mmm. It has been a good standby. Otherwise, I enjoyed whatever came out of that pot you see Neilson stirring.

Back to Civilization

We wrapped up capture in the rice fields with a bang: on friday morning we caught 5 Pectoral Sandpipers, 2 White-rumps and later in the night after taking in all of the nets and othe field equipment, we lost our sanity and went nite-liting and caught 5 Golden-Plovers! That was great. The remaining skeleton crew of Matilde, Julian and I are all so tired and ready to sleep for days. We drove back to Montevideo this A.M. to return a rental car and now have to take care of all those tiny logistical issues before Julian and I depart for Buenos Aires on the ferry tonight. I am ready to return to Buenos Aires for a few days, investigate export and import permits and shipping and head back to the states. I promise pictures this week! Chao!

La Coronilla

Again, I apologize for the lack of photos since I am writing from an internet cafe but I tell you, Uruguay is beautiful! Imagine Kansas with the ocean coast....We were very succesfull capturing shorebirds on Laguna de Rocha and packed up once more and headed north, just 25km south of the Uruguay-Brazil border to a sleepy coastal town, not yet awakwened by the tourist season, La Coronilla. Across from the town there is an Estancia with rice agriculture where we have already been successful, capturing 6 Pectoral Sandpipers and 2 American Golden Plovers this morning!!! I hope the trend continues. The shorebirds love the newly flooded rice and swarm like ants. Just one more week in the field, I hope to make the most of it. I will try to post some photos once I reutrn to Beunos Aires next week. Chao!!

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.