After a very comfortable overnight flight from LHR - EZE (being upgraded to Club and having a flatbed certainly helped) I was ready for the day ahead. I eventually found my driver who would drive me to the Hotel Plaza Roma based close to the Costanera Sur reserve.
I arrived on site about midday which allowed over six hours of birding. Within ten minutes, I had surpassed my 2000th world bird (IOC), this being the superb Rufescent Tiger-Heron. I had been in contact with Steve from Norfolk and duly met him near the entrance to the reserve, and although tempting to gain his South American knowledge by birding alongside him for the afternoon, I decided to go at it alone, though knowing I would bump into him later on in the day.
The reserve was excellent and birds were just everywhere, despite the constant flow of people along the figure of 8 path system.
I managed to see 71 species today, and with this being my first time to South America, a fair percentage of these were new.
Tomorrow morning I will fly down to El Calafate to start my Patagonia adventure.
Highlights only are as follows:
White-tufted Grebe
Great Grebe
Southern Screamer
Black-necked Swan
Speckled Teal
Silver Teal
Lake Duck - 2
Stripe-backed Bittern - 1
Rufescent Tiger-Heron
Maguari Stork - 1
Harris's Hawk - 2
Crested Caracara
Rufous-sided Crake - 1
Giant Wood-Rail - 1
Plumbeous Rail
Spot-flanked Gallinule
Limpkin
Nanday Parakeet
Glittering-bellied Emerald
Chequered Woodpecker
Green-barred Woodpecker
Small-billed Elaenia
Bran-coloured Flycatcher
Spectacled Tyrant
Streaked Flycatcher - 2
Fork-tailed Flycatcher
Creamy-bellied Thrush
Golden-crowned Warbler
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue-and-Yellow Tanager - 1
Double-collared Seedeater
Saffron Finch
Narrow-billed Woodcreeper
Chalk-browed Mockingbird
Fork-tailed Flycatchers
Glittering-bellied Emerald
Green-barred Woodpecker
Rufous-sided Crake
Rufous Hornero
Rufescent Tiger-Heron - my 2000th species of bird
Giant Wood Rail - showing the rufous hindneck
