Feb 26
Arriving in Córdoba at 06:40, I got a much-needed coffee and went off to find out how to get to my intended destination. I ended up on the 09:30 bus to La Pampilla, which passed through a rainstorm before stopping at a little roadside restaurant for a snack/bathroom break.
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View from the restaurant
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Loaded up on food, the bus carried on and I got the driver to drop me off right at the entrance to the Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito. I sat down for a quick lunch, and just as I was finishing a dense fog rolled in and the wind picked up, reducing visibility to near-zero. I decided to make my way down the road into the park anyway, as I was quite used to birding in dense fog from my time on the islands in Nova Scotia! It didn't take long to find my targets; both Olrog's and Cordoba Cinclodes, right along the road (
<10m -="" .="" a="" accustomed="" after="" and="" area="" behind="" but="" cinclodes="" city="" cordoba="" covering="" didn="" ditching="" down="" endemic="" entrance="" field="" find="" fog="" for="" fortunately="" grass="" grown="" had="" here="" href="https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27832564" i="" in="" into="" it="" long="" me="" my="" near="" nova="" of="" olrog="" pack="" park="" proper.="" quite="" rest="" road="" rock="" s="" scotia="" seasons="" several="" small="" sort="" southern="" species="" stayed="" t="" take="" targets="" the="" this="" time="" to="" two="" walked="" west="" with="">https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27832564).
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My view of Quebrada del Condorito...
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Olrog's Cinclodes
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Cordoba Cinclodes
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Since it didn't look like the fog was going to burn off any time soon and it was quite windy, I headed back to the highway to wait for a bus. Various travel guides say that this is an official bus stop, and it isn't difficult to get a bus to the city from here. This proved not to be the case though, as over the next hour, three different buses passed by me without even tapping the brakes (and I was waving to get their attention...). As I was pretty cold by this point and getting wet from the fog, I gave up on the buses and stuck out my thumb. Ten minutes later, a delivery driver named Diego kindly offered me a lift. It turned out he worked in Mina Clavero but lived in Villa Carlos Paz, and was heading home for the day. We chatted on the hour-long drive to Carlos Paz (adding a Stripe-capped Sparrow on the way -
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27832563), where he dropped me off a couple blocks from the bus station (he lived near it, luckily!). There, I caught the next bus into Córdoba, then got a cab to Hostel Alvear (160p for a dorm bed), where I ended up staying a few days and living off the express Carrefour (grocery store) next door.
Running trip list: 733 (AR: 623)
Feb 27 and 28
These two days were a write-off for birding, as I spent my time catching up on laundry and sleep, used the hostel computer to finish writing and submit my grad school application, hung out with people from various countries, and did some research on my remaining target birds and how I might be able to see them without spending too much more money.
Running trip list: 733 (AR: 623)
Feb 29
Having completed all my to-do's, I finally decided to check out, and walked to the bus station where I caught the 11:30 bus out to the airport. I had figured out online which car rental company was the cheapest, and by paying the 12% airport tax I avoided having to find my way out of downtown Córdoba, a city with 1.5 million inhabitants. From my time on the buses here I was very glad I spent the extra money to avoid this hassle! By 13:00 I was on the road, in a little manual-transmission Chevy Chexa, which I'd paid a few dollars more to get unlimited kilometres on. I made a beeline to Laguna Mar Chiquita, where I birded the RN Lomos de los Indios near Miramar (
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27913883). The trail to the observation tower is pretty short, and I spent most of my time walking the edge of the marshy areas south of the tower. Dinelli's Doraditos proved easy to find (this lake is one of the only places in the world to see this species), and Gray-hooded Gulls were abundant. Those two were my main targets here, but I also added White-cheeked Pintail, South American Painted-Snipe and Olive-crowned Crescentchest (heard-only) as lifers. While walking the marsh, I heard a Dot-winged Crake calling, and eventually managed to get a quick look as it peeked out at me from the reeds! This species is quite rare, with a few scattered records across north-central Argentina on eBird.
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Gray-hooded Gull
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Grayish Baywing
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After covering the Miramar area, I headed west, trying to check a few other viewpoints over the lake without much success. I stopped in Villa del Totoral for dinner before carrying on to San Jose de las Salinas, passing through several large thunderstorms on the way. At 22:30, I arrived, and headed down Rd 100 west of town to find a quiet place to car camp for the night. Out on the salt flats, I was quite exposed, and due to the heat (28C plus humidity), I was unable to fall asleep. I stayed up watching thunderstorms rage all around me in the distance, however it thankfully didn't rain and I couldn't actually hear any thunder - just saw lightning flashing like a strobe light for several hours, at a rate of 1-7 bursts per second! Sometime around 02:00 I finally drifted off to sleep.
Running trip list: 739 (AR: 631)
Mar 1
I was up before sunrise, hoping to take advantage of the relatively cool morning air. A Spot-winged Falconet across the road from my campsite quickly became my first new bird of the day, and my 2500th lifer! I birded along the road from my camping spot near the first gate to the second road on the right, which had been listed in one of the trip reports I found for the area, adding Black-crested Finch and seeing quite a few other Chaco species (
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27913810). On this road, I walked out to the salt flats and wandered around for a while along the edge, eventually getting distant looks at a Salinas Monjita. I wanted to go closer to get a better look, but I had been keeping an eye on an angry-looking storm on the horizon that was getting closer, and the wind had suddenly picked up. Taking a moment to judge the speed of the storm, I decided to head back to the car, with a plan to return to the flats once the storm passed. It turned out I made it just in time, as the moment I reached the car, the sky opened and I was in the midst of a heavy downpour.
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Spot-winged Falconet - bird #2500!
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The road out to the salt flats
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Keeping an eye on the storm
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Sitting there for a few minutes, I realized that the dirt road was turning into a mud pit, and that my car likely would be stuck if I waited too long. I headed back to the first gate, where the road was a little firmer, just barely making it through the now-muddy road. There I waited out the rain, which ended up taking an hour. Venturing out, the road had turned into a mud pit and the side tracks out to the flats were completely flooded. Running out of time and with no viable paths to try again for the monjita, I decided to head out a little earlier than planned. This turned out to be a good decision, as the road was quite soft and my little front-wheel-drive car struggled to get back to pavement. Once on the highway, I made it most of the way back to the city before an accident near Jesus Maria meant that everyone had to take a long detour down some back roads. My hour of buffer time was quickly eaten up, and I ended up getting back to the airport to return the car about five minutes late. Luckily they waved this off, and after a smooth return process (the guy at the counter couldn't believe I'd driven over 700 kilometres in 24h!), I caught a bus to the terminal in Córdoba, where I got dinner and hopped on the 21:00 bus to Campana (near Buenos Aires).
Running trip list: 742 (AR: 634)
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