Southern Argentina Dec 01—12, 2007
Posted by Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty is the senior author of A Guide to the Birds of Colombia, and the recently published Birds of Venezuela, both by Princeton University Press. Other credits inclu...Related Trips
Preparing the list of birds and mammals recorded on our 2007 Southern Argentina trip, I think of birds and mammals and roadsides with wildflowers. I think especially of a male Lesser Rhea with striped chicks in tow as it attempts to vault a fence, of rare Yellow Cardinals, an Austral Rail, condors against snowy mountains, tinamous with crests, penguins dotting a desert landscape, cormorants and seabirds patrolling cold Beagle Channel waters, waterfowl gathered on cold lagoons, canasteros clinging grimly to hard-scrabble shrubs, black-tyrants gamely perched atop low bushes, and tiny Austral Negritos defying the laws of physics as they perch and flutter on the ground in gale-force winds. I remember also those Patagonian winds everywhere, and the coldest and cruelest winds of all at Río Gallegos, but what would Patagonia be without a little wind. Patagonia's long, spare coastline with penguins and elephant seals, and Two-banded Plovers and Kelp Gulls patrolling leaves a lasting impression, as do the lonely scrub steppes of Calafate, great glaciers, and seven thousand years of human history in the cold waters of the Beagle Channel.
This is a trip like no other—a little more tiring than some, perhaps, because of the great distances, and usually with only a small number of birds each day, but what a place it is. From the edge of the spiny chaco deserts at the start of the trip to the grasslands and scrublands of the far south and the dark and mysterious Nothofagus forests of Tierra del Fuego, these are regions almost larger than life, filled with hope, history, and romance, and today occupied mostly by small Argentine towns and long narrow roads that seem almost incidental to the great expanses of land in between.
A list of birds tells part of the story, and does not, by itself, necessarily make a successful trip. There were stories to tell and retell, sights to see, Hector's three choices for meals (chicken was always one of them), some fine Argentina steaks and mixed salads, and Chris even sampled one of the orange Darwin's mushrooms (Cyttara darwinii) on Tierra del Fuego (the rest of you at least looked at them). Some of you also sampled a good portion of the Argentine wines and beers ever bottled, and learned to love sticky croissants, cafe con leche, corn flakes, and ham and cheese for breakfast. Who, also, could forget those daily rations of Pehuahe peanuts, Sara joining the Buenos Aires song and dance troop, Santiago's smile, Coke Zeros and ice cream at truck stops, refilling water bottles, shaggy dogs large and small, agua con gas (and sin "gas" too), Marsello's well-meaning over-exuberance, and all the splendid habitats as we traveled ever southward and simultaneous backward through spring. I hope you enjoyed the trip in all its manifest variations and will come again to see the rest of Argentina. And tell your friends too.