Just got back from a great week in Rio Grande do Sul. We went there principally to see the wintering migrants and some sea birds.
Lagoa dos Patos, RS.
After a good flight from São Paulo we stayed overnight in Porto Alegre and the next day headed straight for Tavares along the Mostardas peninsula and found the road to be variable, in some places full of pot-holes in others newly laid. The road now goes all the way down the peninsula to São José do Norte where the ferry goes across to Rio Grande.
Elis and I sorting out the pipits!
Anyway, the birding was great just along the highways, highlights being; Blue-and-Yellow Tanager; a very obliging Plumbeous Rail; Spotted Nothura; Red-crested Cardinal, common but lovely; many Limpkins, Bare-faced and White-faced Ibises; Chimango Caracara; Maguary Stork, a magnificent beast and happily relatively common in the area; many White Monjitas; Greater Rhea; Bay-winged Cowbird; Brown-hooded Gull; Long-winged Harrier, a fantastic bird seen at short range, probably the most attractive harrier in the world; Speckled Teal; Spot-flanked Gallinule and Brown-and-yellow Marshbird.
Plumbeous Rail.
Maguary Stork.
Greater Rhea.
Spot-flanked Gallinule.
We stayed at the Hotel Parque da Lagoa, www.hotelparquedalagoa.com.br which had been recommended to me by Edson Endrigo, it was very comfortable and the price just right. The added bonus being that the owner, Batista, also offers a service to visitors using his Landrover to reach places ordinary cars cannot go, he also has access to land where he knows the owner, that otherwise would be off limits to visiting birders. His service is not cheap, and for a couple it is a bit steep (low season R$400.00 a day) but for a group of up to 8 this would be very reasonable.
Me with Batista and his Landrover in front to the Hotel Parque da Lagoa.
This bunch of Guira Cuckoos was roosting close to the pousada.
So, the next day we went out with Batista along the track to the beach via the Lagoa do Peixe. Plenty of birds around like Correndera and Yellowish Pipits; a few Rufous-chested Dotterels; Southern Screamers; displaying South American Snipe; both White-faced and Bare-faced Ibises; Snail Kite and Savanna Hawk. I was surprised to see Greater Yellowlegs here at this time of year, but as I understand it some wader species stay on the wintering ground for their first year.
Correndera Pipit.
Chilean Flamingos.
South American Snipe.
Savanna Hawk.
At the lake itself we were treated to a flock of Chilean Flamingos; Yellow-billed Tern; groups of Coscoroba and Black necked Swans, two of my target species for sure as were the Red-gartered and White-winged Coots; Yellow-billed Pintail; Collared Plover and a pair of White-tufted Grebes.
More Chilean Flamingos.
Coscoroba Swans. The one second from the left looks for all the world like a pedalo in a town park!
Black-necked Swan.
A flock of Red-gartered Coots.
Collared Plover.
Passing the lake we entered the sand dunes, here we added Plumbeous Rail; Spectacled Tyrant, a superb bird and no mistake; Austral Negrito, sadly we only saw one and not a male, but still an interesting bird which led us to our first Common Miner!
Enjoying a Common Miner... if that is possible?
At the beach we found American Oystercatchers; Trudeau’s Terns in a small flock loafing on the sand; a couple of South American Terns; more Collared Plovers and some Brown-hooded Gulls.
American Oystercatcher.
Yellow-billed and Trudeau's Tern.
Loafing Trudeau's Terns with a pair of South American Terns.
Along the beach where the lake meets the sea via a small channel we came across some more interesting species which included a Grey Plover and a couple of Hudsonian Godwits. Here we also had our first Great Grebe, a bit distant, but very impressive nonetheless; Two-banded Plovers, a small group together. A Magellanic Penguin corpse on the beach on the return was a bit of a downer, still need that!
Two-banded Plovers.
We lunched with some of Batista’s friends, good home-cooked grub and very good value indeed, and afterwards headed for the Lagoa dos Patos through property belonging to another of Batista’s friends. It was getting a bit late by now, so the only new species we added was Wren-like Rushbird which eventually showed really well.
Sunset over the Lagoa dos Patos, RS.
I have to say that all in all I was rather disappointed with the numbers of wildfowl around. I asked Batista about this and he said that in recent years the numbers have been down. He put the blame squarely on the burgeoning hunting tourism that is occurring down the coast in both Uruguay and Argentina.
Yet more Chilean Flamingos doing a flypast for a flock of pedalos... I mean Coscoroba Swans.
The next day we were on our own, it absolutely poured with rain, and, having been raining all night, we now appreciated the value of Batista’s Landrover, there were many places we simply couldn’t go with our hire car. We were unable to retrace our steps from yesterday, so instead tried a new location at the Lagoa Mostardas. The track was passable but the birding a little disappointing due to the rain, every time we stopped the rain seemed to get heavier, we did have a bit of a walk but added no new birds until we came across a dapper Rusty-collared Seedeater and then a small flock of Rosy-billed Pochards flew by.
The lighthouses are rather small around here!
We headed for Mostardas and took the track at the back of town towards the beach. The first part is straddled by Pine plantations and thus very boring but this gave way to more natural looking scrub that held Diademed Tanager; a female Ultramarine Grosbeak and Bran-coloured Flycatcher.
Marshland in the rain.
The scrub opens out into marshes with an extensive reed bed, here we had a close encounter with one of the most beautiful birds I have seen, the Many-coloured Rush-Tyrant. At this point the rain served us well, it was raining too hard to get out of the car, so I used playback through the open window, three birds came from some distance away and sat in the reeds just feet from us, I may be wrong but I felt that had we not been in the car they may not have come so close.
Wow! Many-coloured Rush-Tyrant.
This track too was rather treacherous, and when we got to the end of the mud and the beginning of the dunes I decided not to risk it, but when I saw a bus drive by and head into the dunes towards the beach I felt a bit of a wuss. So we followed. As it happens we saw very little new, just a Plumbeous Ibis and more views of the Spectacled Tyrant. The rain increased and when we got to the beach we found a cafeteria open so we had some lunch to wait for the rain to stop. Some hope! The bus left and it continued to rain. On the return journey, it had been raining so hard that we almost got lost in the dunes as the car and bus tracks had all but disappeared; however we finally made it back to the mud road and then heaving a sigh of relief, tarmac!
Elis braving the lashing rain and howling gale to check out the (empty!) beach.
The next day we headed south along the new road which was a pleasure to drive after the stress of the previous day’s off-road experience, the weather was better too but we didn’t add much to our list along the way, just Silver Teal and White-faced Whistling Duck. We did see a couple of passerines namely a White-crested Tyrannulet that I tried desperately to string into a White-bellied (the yellow, and not white, belly was a bit of a sticking point!), and Tropical Parula, both in a small copse by the side of the road.
Southern Screamer with two young.
At São José do Norte we had our first Grey-hooded Gulls around the harbour area on both sides of the crossing along with the now familiar Brown-hooded and our old friend the Kelp Gull.
Brown-hooded Gull.
Jeremy’s notes talk of a great wetland just outside Pelotas, we headed there but to our dismay the road along which Jeremy had passed all those years ago was now being turned into duel carriageway. There still seemed to be a lot of birds around like Southern Screamers, Ibises, Maguary Storks, Black-necked and Coscoroba Swans, but finding somewhere safe and convenient to stop to look at them was a problem. So we decided to head north towards Porto Alegre again and from there head to the coast for some sea-watching.
Still more Chilean Flamingos.
We passed the night at Tapes adding Black-crowned Night-Heron to the list and the next day headed for our destination passing along the way a medium sized lake with at least eight Great Grebes on it! At another point we stopped by a reed marsh and had some stunning views of Scarlet-headed Blackbirds.
Great Grebes.
Scarlet-headed Blackbird.
In the afternoon we arrived at Capão da Canoa, our destination, and headed to the sea. Immediately I saw albatrosses gliding over the waves and got unnecessarily excited, but they were too far out to identify with certainty so we headed for the pier.
The view from the pier looking back at Capão da Canoa, RS.
Once installed there the birds were closer and it was possible to confirm the identity of the albatrosses as Yellow-nosed Albatross. This is the first time I had ever seen an albatross in flight with my own eyes. My only other albatross tick was ‘Albert’ on the Shetlands, and he (or was it a she?) stayed resolutely put on the rock for the entire time I was there. A few Trudeau’s Terns flew by and a number of White-chinned Petrels, plus Brown Skuas. The wind was obliquely onshore and we had great fun for several hours watching these interesting birds, particularly the albatrosses of which there were many.
We passed the night in Capão da Canoa and the next morning headed for the sea again, but the wind had turned around and was offshore and there was not a seabird in sight!
View to sea from the pier, note lack of seabirds!
We drove back to Porto Alegre taking the ‘pretty’ route that turned out to be rather less than pretty with all the roadworks that were going on, but we did have a highlight when we stopped at a reedy area and pulled a Curve-billed Reedhaunter out of the bag.
Curve-billed Reedhaunter.
Then it was back to the airport, back to São Paulo and back to work!
Can’t wait for our next trip, possibly Chile in December, or the Amazon again before that, who knows…
All photographs on this page © Rick and Elis simpson.
