ARGENTINA WITH FIELD GUIDES.2. COSTANERA S, BUENOS AIRES
Costanera S is one of the more famous urban birding areas in the world. It is situated in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires, between the centre of the city and the Rio de la Plata, and it was started up almost accidentally, when a planned urban extension did not materialize and the marshy area remained in its half-natural state. Water management is not quite optimal, however, and the area is now much drier than before and has lost some of its glory for waterbirds. It is , however, still, a wonderful place to get a first impression of the bird fauna of Argentina, as well as a much beloved local park for the inhabitants of the city.
I arrived in Buenos Aires 1 1/2 days before the start of the Field Guides tour, something I often try to do, when there is much time difference, to avoid to more or less miss the first days because of jet lag. I arrived at our hotel in Cordoba Str. on Saturday morning, after a long and complicated flight from Holland via Newark and Washington , but I was nevertheless unable to sleep, and soon decided to see if I could find Costanera on my own, and rather sit and doze on a bench there. It turned out to be just a shortish walk (although crossing a n umber of very busy roads) to the entrance near ‘The Obelisk’, a slender and very tall skyscraper, one of many in the area, forming the backdrop of the Costanera wetlands. The Costanera is in very frequent use by the locals, esp. now in the weekend; there were any number of joggers, cyclists, families on a picnictrip and people (often couples) on a Sunday stroll; the area is closed for cars. The birds have become thoroughly accustomed to all the visitors; they are often very tame and many species also scrounge around the picnickers, even though feeding the animals is expressly forbidden. The main scroungers are the very numerous Eared Doves, flying often in large flocks, the cheeky and slender Chalk-browed Mockingbirds, the ubiquitous Chingolo (the dapper Rufous-collared Sparrow), and the glossy Shiny Cowbirds, indeed as shiny as the African Glossy Starlings. The only Red-crested Cardinal I saw this day was also scrounging among the picnickers on the shore of the Rio de la Plata. The elegant and noisy Hornero, Argentinas national bird, is also very unafraid of people, but it is less of a scrounger; its curious oven-nests are very much a feature of the landscape here.
This landscape, by the way, is far from pristine: a large part of the vegetation consist of alien and imported species. The marshes are golden with flowering Yellow Iris Iris pseudacorus, whole slopes are covered with Tropaeolum, and both among the herbs, and the trees and shrubs there are many well-known ‘faces’: Lantana (unfortunately, as it has become a pest many places), Ricinus, Sambucus, Sarothamnus, etc etc. In fact, I saw only a few plants in flower that I suspect of being indigenous. Pampas grass Arundo dominates large areas, and there is now very little open water left; i saw practically no wading birds at all. Where there was a little open water—mostly covered with duckweed Lemna—there were Fulvous and White-faced Whistling Ducks, and here and there the conspicuous Rose-billed Pochard. A pair of Black-necked Swans had a half-grown cygnet, while my first ever Coscoroba Swans (really looking like animated bath-ducks) had a very small young. No grebes or coots to be seen at all here (but see below), although there were some Moorhens; later I found a few Great Grebes and a single Red-gartered Coot on the otherwise rather barren Rio de la Plata. Neotropic Cormorants were regular here, and this Saturday I saw first six Kelp Gulls and later 3 Brown-hooded Gulls; no gulls at all on the Sunday
In the air the doves and Picazuro Pigeons absolutely dominated, but Great Egrets regularly cruised over, I saw a few Chimangos and a Southern Caracara, and on both days a single Long-winged Harrier hunted over the marshland, immediately recognizable as a harrier by its way of flying. There were also swallows, of course, here mostly the some House Martin like White-rumped swallow, but also Grey-chested Martins, earlier my first Argentinian bird on arrival at the airport. Monk Parakeets galore, and also some Nanday Parakeets
A lot of the time this first day I sat on a bench, half dozing and watching the doves, cowbirds, mockingbirds and Baywings. A surprise was the unexpected appearance of a Giant Wood Rail, clearly completely at home here, who actively chased away the smaller birds; one does not expect rails to be so conspicuous. Other tame birds on these lawns are the Monk Parakeets and the Rufous-bellied Thrush, as well as, to my surprise, the Great Pampa Finch.
In the trees and bushes there are many enticing songs and calls, but most of them I don’t manage to locate–too sleepy. Masked Gnatcatchers are nimble and always active and remind me strongly of our European Long-tailed Tits. Several times I hear and see the ‘benteveo’, the colourful and unafraid Great Kiskadee. And here are also Tropical Kkingbirds, the suiriri real, as I learn from a local birding gentleman, with whom I converse via the latin names of the birds.We also find the Carduelis magellanicus, the Hooded Siskin, a nice bird that will follow me all over the country. Two males fight so intensely that I almost can pick them up from the path at my feet.
At another of my jetlag benches a Golden-breatsed Woodpecker is energetically chiseling out a nest-cavity in a tree trunk; every time I watch them, the female is hard at work, while the male sits nearby and ‘supervises’! In this same tree I suddenly see a bird that ‘ought not to be here’, a colourful Plush-crested Jay. (When I tell David about this the next day, he says: Was not it a Guira Cuckoo? I hope he upgraded his opinion about my birding knowledge at least a bit later on!)
Altogether I find some 50 birds during these first two days, doing what in fact I love best: slowly getting to know the common birds of a totally new area. A few among them stick out: the acrobatic Solitary Cacique, with its stark white bill and its ‘tut tut tut OOWAAH’ calls , the unexpectedly colourful Blue-and-yellow Tanager, the Black-and-Rufous Warbling Finch, the first of a plethora of colourful ‘finches’ on this trip, and of course the local hummingbird, the Glittering-bellied Emerald, always a bonus for Europeans.
We return to Costanera S with the whole group four days later for a few hours. There I learn several things: clearly the throngs of visitors in the weekend do make a more difficult to see some birds—and also the Cavies who now run around several places , but whom I did not not see at all in the weekend. The other point is how great it is to have leaders who know exactly what to look for, and how to show it. This way I now see Pied-billed Grebes, Spot-flanked Gallinuls, Red-fronted Coots and Freckle-breasted Thornbirds. But there is nevertheless something very special in walking around on your own, and finding your own birds.
Wim Vader, Tromsø Museum
9037 Tromsø, Norway
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