A Day of Birds

Good Morning Kendra,

It is 10:42am in your neck of the woods - but nearly time for a nap down south. Today we chased after pelicans and grebes with great results. To start off with, though, Mom snagged a nice photo of the Cuernos del Paine. She had to work to bring this one in, but it is also the view from our hotel room.

 Then we went for nice walk in the breeze, making it a bad hair day for someone with hair (not my problem). Below you can see a skull next to mom. This is a former Guanaco. We've seen several in the flesh as well. The one below is doing his bit keeping watch over a herd below.

 Our walk included a warning by the Ranger of puma. Judging by all the bones we saw, any puma we confronted was probably already well fed.


Pretty soon birds started showing up in earnest for our viewing pleasure. Actually the flamingos below required us to take another bone-jarring 45k ride to Lago Armaga.

We didn't climb the Mirador Condor as the wind and rain suggested we look for easier subjects. Here we have Wifey Caracara bringing home the rabbit for her man.

We were also excited to discover a new species, or at least one we haven't found in the bird book. 

We spied them while enjoying lunch at a park pavilion next to Rio Serrano. While there, I recorded the following known and unknown species:
1. A family of Upland Geese
2. A nesting pair of Great Grebes
3. Some small black and white birds doing gymnastics through bushes
4.  A duck (driving me quackers)
5. A hawk being driven off by 6. A pair of Black Terns
7. A crew of Buff Necked Ibis
8. A young Puna Ibis
Sweetie, please name the above birds and let us know. I think they are Least Grebes (who would name their kids the Least Grebes?), but mother disagrees.

Last night we asked the local expert about where to bird and he suggested we head back up to Lago Grey (home of the only fresh ice in the park. There he said we would see the elusive finches and seedeaters for which Patagonia is famous. Do you know how small a finch is?  We went big and in our next post, I will be sure to include a few snaps of even bigger beasts they have around here.

Well, this post is pretty full and it is now Wine:20. Until tomorrow, bumpkins.

Daddio.