Christmas 2023

 Christmas Day has come and gone.  Everyone in the family came which always makes us very happy.  It is especially meaningful to provide the home base where everyone returns to for the family Christmas.  Lots of memories for us all have been made over the years.  Paul and Paula and the girls got here very late on Friday night before Christmas and left very early the day after Christmas.  It’s their shortest visit ever but that is because the girls’ school went until Friday.  They planned to have a warm vacation in Tucson where these Michiganders .could play all the tennis and pickleball they wanted and bask in the desert sunshine.  They were in Berkeley 72 hours and packed in most of their favorite things during that short time.  Arne, Karna, Liam, Elsa and Boba(the dog) were with us for about 24 hours.  It feels now like it was all a dream, a whirlwind, an intense dose of family that was really special. I asked for help this year and Paul took over Christmas Eve dinner so I could relax and go to Christmas Eve service at church.  He made a delicious lasanga.  After dinner, we had a very sweet hour of making music together.  A highlight was a clarinet trio with Erika, Karna and Liam who is learning the clarinet at school played Jingle-Bells.  Some of us had a game of Hearts at the table in front of the fireplace.  Everyone was full of food and happy to be together.  Later we watched “Elf”, a Christmas movie.  I liked its positive sweet story-line.  Christmas morning started late.  Erik brought Bob and me cups of hot fresh coffee to our bed!  (That hasn’t happened since I can’t remember when.). When we got upstairs, Paula and Liam were busy putting the finishing touches of the Christmas cinnamon rolls.  By the time we finished breakfast and gathered for the monumentous task of opening our many presents, it was after 9:30!  Nancy and Larry came by 11 and we still had lots of presents to open. What a time it was seeing the gifts and the delight they brought.  Arne and family always depart right after the presents are opened to spend the rest of Christmas Day with her mom and sister in Millbrae.  Most everyone went a long walk and then as the sun set Christmas dinner preparations began.  The Buche d”Noel Erika and Paula made for dessert was a creative masterpiece.  After dinner, tired out by the excitement and joy of the day and the big dinner, I headed for bed.  It was another wonderful Christmas

Turning toward Christmas

 We had an easy trip home. That is I did, Bob had a few glitches in Montevideo and São Paulo.  Though we were only in Brazil for an hour, I was impressed by three different experiences of respect of elders by Brazilians.  The airport was unbelievably chaotic, there were no signs in English and nobody spoke English but somehow we made it to our gate to our great relief.  The long leg of the trip was from São Paulo to Atlanta - nearly 9 hours.  I managed to sleep 6 hours which made that part, the rest of the trip and our return much more pleasant.  We got home at 12:30 pm Saturday 24 hours after we left Montevideo.  

As I look back over the trip, I am profoundly grateful for it all.  This morning emptying the dishwasher, I thought about all the Uruguayans who supported us, fed us, washed the dishes, made our beds and I am grateful to all of them and their consummate cheerfulness and helpfulness.  We travelled over 3000 km around the backroads of Uruguay, seeing the rural poverty in the north to the excessive riches along the coast.  Our group was fantastic.  We knew each other before we started, but got to know and appreciate each other much more on this trip.  Our leaders were world class birders. Their enthusiasm and helpfulness, their bird stories and love of birds lifted us and carried me at least to new appreciation of birding and its importance.  Being out in nature, on field trips, is one of my most favorite things to do in this world.  What a treat to be able to do it at my age and to enjoy every minute of it.  I loved the laughter we shared, the what’s app group that connected us and is hard for me to let go of.

Since we’re back, Erik has come for the holidays.  We got our tree after church on Sunday. Bob set it up and I decorated it.  It looks beautiful.  Things are mostly in order for the arrival of the Michigan folks on Friday night and then the Palo Alto family on Sunday, Christmas Eve.  I’ve asked for help so I don’t feel overwhelmed or anxious about the meals.  I look forward to us being altogether once again for Christmas.  

Day 18 - Onward to our Last Adventure

 Last night coming out of the restaurant, there was a big mural on a wall across the street and there was nobody on the street.  It felt to me like walking into a deserted movie set.  That feeling was compounded this morning at breakfast in the large dining room where there was no one besides our group.  It felt like a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie with the mournful music playing. I expected him to pop out of the kitchen and serve us our huevos.  There seems to be no one else staying in this hotel which is set up for crowds of people.  We left after breakfast and drove around the big lagoon to bird on the other side.  It took an hour because the lagoon is so large.  The day was overcast and starting out Alvaro mentioned we might want our bug spray.  We walked to the sandy edge of the lagoon.  I saw a Cocoi heron in a pine tree looking like a Japanese painting.  In the lagoon there were multitudes of birds, especially coots.  As we started to walk across the short grassy marsh, I noticed mosquitos.  And soon there were thick clouds of mosquitos surrounding each of us.  With each step another big group of mosquitos would rise up.  Sharon said it was like walking on the tundra in Alaska. There were tracks of crab-eating raccoons across the mud flats.  We finally stopped as Alvaro spotted a target bird, a bay-capped wren spine tail, a perfectly camouflaged bird for hiding in the Spartina grass.  It’s range is very limited, with its preference for Spartina marshes.  As we looked into the Spartina with its many green stems and brown flower heads, the bird disappeared.  I was thrilled to get a good photo digiscoping!  The expert birders in our group said this was hard core birding and I loved it!  

We drove through rolling countryside looking like Marin County with mountains in the distance.  Our next stop was Bodega Garzon for a wine tour and lunch.  This winery had spared no expense to build a gorgeous visitor center and restaurant and state of the art winery.  It has an Italian oenologist,  fancy French equipment including an optical selector for the grapes and a fleet of robots for who knows what, Uruguayan land and Argentinian money.  We were handed an empty wine glass and different wines were poured at stations throughout the tour route.  Our favorite wine was Albariño.  We all toasted Alvaro as they sound the same in Spanish.  After the tour, we went into the elegant restaurant.  We could choose what we wanted from 3 selections for each course of the meal.  First, the breads came with homemade babaganoosh, humus and pate and wow, were they ever good.  I could have made a meal out of just that.  But then we had a salad/appetizer and then a main course.  My lamb shank was the best I’ve ever had and dessert.  We had a different wine with each course.  It was like a Michelein restaurant with many stars, spectacular.  

Completely sated, we drove on winding country roads for a long time until we reached the coast and there was another stop, by a bridge over a little lagoon with the Atlantic Ocean right there.  We got out and the expert birders were thrilled to see two seagulls.  Oh, they are special and very rare Olrog’s gulls.  They are big black gulls with a tubular yellow bill with black tip. There are only about 7000 breeding pairs in the world and they exist only in Argentina and Uruguay.  After watching the various shorebirds fly in and out, we had the promised Mate tasting.  Rafa set it up, instructing Sharon in how to hold and fill the cup, fill it with the mate leaves and then pour in the hot water.  Then it’s ready to sip.  We each got a turn as the cup was passed around, filled with hot water for each of us.  I thought it tasted like Earl Grey tea.  Clearly this was a bonding experience!  And the photo taken after I’d sipped my mate shows my hair standing on end.

Our hotel is a lovely whitewashed Mediterranean style with each room having a  terrace with a view of the sea.  The light is fading and I’m thinking that it’s the last night of our wonderful adventure.  It’s been so much better than I could have imagined.  We started on this trip already being friends, knowing Alvaro and getting to know Rafa and Fer, I think sharing this experience has made a special bond for us all.   I have made many memories that will always make my heart warm and make me smile.  And we have seen 265 different species and we still have Friday morning birding!  What a wonderful success this trip has been!

Day 17 - To the Beach

 After a relaxed breakfast, we headed out for another adventure.  But first we checked out the nesting birds, a hummingbird and whistling herons right by the door of the hotel.  Wherever we go, we see nesting birds.  It is the season of love, as Mario said so succinctly at the beginning of the trip.  The first stop was back to the marsh we’d visited yesterday in the wind to see if more birds showed up in gentler weather.  When we got out of the van, one of our target birds was right there in the marsh not 20 feet from us.  It was a marsh seedeater, a bird with a gray head, white chest and cinnamon belly, looking rather striped.  We all got a good look at it.  Then the hunt started for the sulfur cheeked spine tail and it was an hour I looked and saw nothing.  Very frustrating.  Finally we left and drove to the beach town where we spent the night, La Pedrela.  As we came into town, there were beautiful houses, beach houses.  It is clearly set up for lots of tourists who aren’t here yet because of the economic problems in Argentina and the cool weather.  We ate delicious fresh fish at Grill restaurant that had a wood fire grill in the back with a chef with a black chef outfit with big white buttons and a big smile.  We are enjoyed our food very much especially after the bad food at the last place. We went to the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, where it looked very much like our Northern California beach looking for birds but didn’t see much.  On to our hotel, where we checked in and had a couple of hours to rest.  I immediately took a long nap.  We rode a ways to the biggest lagoon I’ve ever seen, La Laguna.  On the road in we stopped for a Nothura father with a baby crossing the road.  The baby looked days old and hid in a bush.  I hope it survived.  Then we stopped and a miner bird caught the attention of our guides and we chased it out through the dunes to the edge of the ocean.  We got good looks at the little brown bird.  Then we trudged across a mosquito infested skinny grass marsh to look at literally thousands of birds on the mudflats beyond.  There were black necked swans, Coscoroba swans, white rumped sandpipers, coots by the thousands, and many other kinds of shorebirds.  We drove out to the end of the road past fishermen’s dilapidated houses and then walked to the beach and out to the edge of the land where we watched the sunset and the birds.  It was incredibly beautiful and we were entranced.  Alvaro loves this places because of the migrants he sees here, unexpected birds that come.  He spotted what looked like a an osprey but there are no osprey here.  After the sun set and it grew dark, we walked back and drove into town to have dinner at the same restaurant.  Because it was a good restaurant, I ordered an entrecôte, a steak cooked rare.  It was delicious, the best steak I’ve eaten in my long memory.  A treat here in Uruguay I greatly enjoyed!  

Day 16 - A Marsh and a Fort

 We were off to another marsh this morning where there will be bright birds galore.  But first we made a quick trip into Brazil to get gas where it is much cheaper. We’re right on the border and have to go through the frontier town into the Brazil part to get anywhere.  Brazil seems dustier, a bit shabbier and certainly noisier.  And there were many double speed bumps.  Fer took them slowly enough for the front of the bus and then sped up levitating 3-4 inches as the back of the van went over them. . My poor spine didn’t enjoy the jolt.  Back into Uruguay, we drove 45 minutes to the right spot, determined by geo-coordinates I’m sure.  It was tough birding in the strong gusty wind.  Mostly, at first, I only saw large birds: a couple of spectacled tyrants chasing off a much larger predatory chimango caracara and a couple of giant screamers flying in.  The birds would pop up in the blowing tall grass in the marsh then dip down again out of sight.  I saw a scarlet headed blackbird, by now an old friend.  Rafa is always concerned for our safety.  I try not to resist as he treats us as kindergarteners when cars drive by.  Then the show of saffron cowled blackbirds and black and white monhicas began.  Alvaro said we are having the best view of them right now singing and displaying of anyone in the world because of their small numbers and restricted range.  He said he has never seen anything like this mornings’ show in his life.  We watched in delight for nearly a half hour.  When they dispersed, we walked on along the road and came to a bridge where there was a flock of 40-50 barn swallows and white rumped swallows.  You can imagine them swooping and soaring in the strong wind.  I marveled at their skill of catching anything in such a strong wind.  Alvaro with a twinkle in his eye said “Oh they just fly with their mouths open.  It’s like a person on a motorcycle riding with their mouth open, the bugs fly in.”  Whitney said she likes birding in the wind because the birds do such crazy things and the wind keeps it cool and the insects down.  We all got used it and nobody complained.  

We saw a curved-billed reedhaunter down in the tall grass.  And then Rafa started looking for the sulfur bearded reedhaunter.  It’s supposed to be here.  That’s why we came to this particular place on the road by the marsh.  It is very shy and doesn’t respond much to the recorded call that is supposed to attract it.  There were brief glimpses of it but no one saw it well.  With this, we’ve seen all three reedhaunters.  They have a very narrow range in the pampas of Brazil, Uruguay into Argentina, not respecting political boundaries at all.  We all enjoying looking at all the living things we find

: the beautiful flowers blooming all through the country in this late Spring time, the insects, the reptiles and frogs and toads.  Gauchos even went by on their horses.  All in all, we spent 2 1/2 hours walking a mile on this country road.  

We’re back at the hotel for lunch and a rest.  The pace of this tour is very easy.  We leave to bird in the morning at 8, not 5 like most birding trips.  We get a nap time every afternoon.  We’ve toured four wineries.  And still we’re seeing more birds than the recent comparable trips but who’s comparing?  Rafa.  

After our rest we walked over from the hotel to El Fortino de San Miguel, a fort built by the Portuguese in the 1700’s.  We looked for birds as we walked.  At one point, we came to a lovely dell with overarching trees all secluded.  Rafa put up his speaker with the Screech owl call and we sat and watched many many different birds come in.  It was a really good show for a bunch of birders.  Best was the chestnut backed tanager which has an iridescent aquamarine belly.  After nearly half hour, we had enough and walked up to see the fort.  It was fun to discover the fort.  Its walls were covered in orange lichen and glowed in the angled light of the golden hour.  We wished we could see inside the walls and voila, our wish was granted as we came around a corner and there was a way in and it was open for 15 minutes.  Walking back, it felt like we’d been lollygaging along, not pushing to see birds and yet we saw 57 different species in just a couple of hours.  I love the relaxed pace and seeing so many birds.  Another wonderful day!

Day 15 - Into the Marshland

 We left the Estancia with the beautiful old buildings early.  As we waited in the van to leave, the new owner came and chatted with us.  She is an American from St. Louis.  She’s been here just two weeks. She and her husband bought the place and moved to Uruguay.  Such courage.  We drove south, out of the beige rolling hills and grassland into flatlands in the South.  After about 3 hours, we stopped by some rice fields.  I counted 8 wood storks, all solitary.  There were multitudes of shore birds—plovers, yellow legs, sandpipers all of whom had migrated here from North America.  It felt like we were in the Central Valley of CA.  The best moment was when a Harrier hawk came flying in low and the shore birds all rose up ahead of him and formed a mix flock.  I love how they all turn and swoop as one organism.  So many birds rose up, it was amazing because we’d all been looking just there and seen very few birds.  Alvaro estimated 3000 pectoral sandpipers, 300 white rumped sandpipers, 70 golden plovers and 40 lesser yellowlegs.  Moving on to another site, we saw nice marsh birds—a spectacled tyrant (a blackbird sized black bird looking like it is wearing a pair of yellow goggles) and a double collared seedeater.

We came to the hotel, a heavy dark stone fortress in a grassy field.  There was a big area of white sheets drying in the wind, looking like a field of peace flags.  I’ve never seen laundry as I entered a hotel.  There was a gaggle of Uruguayan women working behind the desk, all talking.  Each of us was assigned one to escort us to our room.  The place had the feel of a strange Ahwahnee like place with a spooky feeling of the Adams Family.  We ate in a large dining room.  I ordered an open face sandwich which turned out to be the most food any of us ordered—it was a steak with on bread with ham and cheese then, olives, pimentos, and tomatoes.  Way too much food.  We had a couple of hours off in which we took a nap and I worked on the blog.  There was no internet in our last place.  At 5 we met up to go out to the marshes again. You can tell we are close to Montevideo now, there is traffic and there are many giant windmills.  The world here is alive with birds.  Everywhere we stop, there are so many to see.  Partly it is because there are more birds here, but mostly it is because our guides and companions are such good birders.  I have the feeling if Bob and I were alone, we’d see very few birds.  The sky was full of flocks of ibis.  At our first stop, Rafa played the call of a Yellow chinned spine tail and voila, it appeared just like that.  We were all standing in its territory.  It was a pretty rufus bird that sat out and sang and sang.  I couldn’t help but like it.  We noticed a house wren on a thick fence pole and watching it, another wren flew out of an opening in the pole and the first wren hopped into the hole.  They were nesting.  Not all the birds here are nesting.  The migrants are molting.  A snail kite flew over with an apple snail in its beak.  It is a large black bird with a little white on it.  Then a Coscoro Swan flew over.  It is a very large white bird with a little black on its wing tips.  We saw Guinean pigs by the side of the road.  This is where they come from.  There is so much to experience.  I cannot think of another place or another thing I’d rather be doing than this.  

Day 14 - A Rainy Day of Birding

Day 14 - A Rainy Day of Birding

We had a simple breakfast, missing Hanno, who sadly has seriously injured her back and left by 8 am.  As we gathered, I looked around a bit.  This place is perhaps the most beautiful place we’ve stayed.  There is a chapel which was built in 1780.  Whitney has a room just off the chapel with a loft to sleep in.  Sharon has a room in that building with a really really old stone wall in it.  Our room is above the meeting/dining room.  It has a fireplace, a king size bed on raised platform, and a red plush sofa.   And right in the middle of the courtyard is a big swimming pool.  Just as we were about to leave there was a huge downpour of rain.  Uh oh.  

We rode quite a while on the highway, then on bumpy back roads into a Protected Area (the closest thing Uruguay has to a National Park).  Walking down the grassy old road, we noticed lovely yellow Morea-lily like flowers.  Then there were two trees with a gazillion birds in a bird party.  The first was modest, a very visible Glaucous Blue Grosbeak and a Parula going in and out of her nest in a long tangle of old-man’s beard lichen.  At the tree with so much going on, I saw occasional birds really well, like the rare White-Browed Warbler singing.  At one point, I saw out of the corner of my eye a small yellow flash streak across the road, low down.  Alvaro immediately called out it was a white-browed warbler.  I asked him what he saw when I saw so little.  He said it isn’t what he saw or that he saw much of anything different than I did.  It’s gestalt.  His brain just knows what it is from knowing what’s expected, what birds fly low and so on.  He just knows from years and years of experience.  Amazing.  We leave that spot, everyone exhausted from following all the activity and walk on down the road.  A straight billed reed-haunter (great name) was spotted in a scrubby tree, not in the grassy marsh where it is expected.  Alvaro told us Carlito (Charles Darwin) described it, I wonder if it was on his Beagle Trip that included the Galapagos. I was so enthralled I didn’t even notice everybody left.  When I did, I turned around and saw the group creeping slowly forward in exaggerated movements reminding me of the Pink Panther.  They were walking very quietly so they made no noise on the gravel road.  I joined in and wondered what the heck was happening.  Turns out they were sneaking up on an armadillo.  I saw it just before it began scurrying off.  Now it began to rain in earnest.  Twelve Yellow-cowled blackbirds were spotted by a black and white cow in the grassy meadow.  They flew back and forth across the road so we all could admire them.  They are super rare and this place is one of the few, maybe the only stop, they can be found.  They are mutualistic with Black and White Monhicas, which we also saw nearby.  The Monhicas sit on top of the tall Eryngeum plants as sentinels, letting the lower Yellow Cowled Blackbirds know if there is any danger while the blackbirds flush out all sorts of insects the Monhicas eat.  All wet and happy, we got back in the van and rode quite a way further into the grassland to a built up protected area.  The spotty nature of birds came across.  Walking down a path we saw almost nothing, while walking back there was a bird party—we must have seen 12-14 different species.  The rain let up but I thought how much more exciting and interesting it was with the rain.  I felt lost in time and space.  This is truly a vacation.

And yet there was more.  We went to a local woman, Angelica, a friend of Rafa’s for lunch.  She also greeted us with a kiss.  The whole place and experience reminded me of Foula, in the Shetlands.  The remoteness, the low cut grassy fields, the wind, the birds, the friendliness of the locals.  She cooked a wonderful lunch for us—so fresh with vegetables, salads, homemade bread and chicken and steak breaded and fried.  And the homemade desserts topped it off:  homemade flan with coconut and homemade dulce de leche; rice pudding with meringue made from eggs from happy chickens and fruit salad.  Life is good and I’m grateful and enjoying every minute. 

Day 13 - A Long Day of Travel

• Leaving the lovely Posada, we were on the road by 8 AM, heading South.  For a time we were right on the border with Brazil.  Gas is cheaper in Brazil, so we went to the other side of the road and got gas.  Interesting that the junk food for sale at the Gas Station was different in Brazil, much more chocolate and no healthy nuts at all.  By 10:30 we arrived at the Bodega Cerro Chapeu.  As usual we were all warmly greeted with a kiss and a handshake by our hostess Mileni and her partner, a fine fellow in a black chapeu whose name no one knows.  Hanno hurt her back early this morning and can’t walk so had to stay in the winery while we all went on a walk to a forest where we birded.   Back at the visitor center, we headed off to the Bodega where the wine is made.  But before we saw that, we got to see a nesting Seriema (the Terror bird). Its fierce eye watched us watching it.  It is a really big bird that usually when not nesting hangs out in cattle fields nearby the winery.  The winery bodega was in an elegant open air building lined with three stories going into the earth of steel oak-lined fermentation tanks.  In the center was a glass pod which looked like a spaceship control center but was a lab.  We could see the equipment used to test the wine. 
• Back to the visitor center, built only 7 years ago.  It too is elegant and beautiful.  We were escorted upstairs into the tower with windors all around and treated to a fabulous lunch accompanied by 6 different wines.  Good thing I didn’t drink all the wine!  The meal was an Asado, meaning barbecue, which I think is the national dish of Uruguay.  When we arrived several hours earlier there were two fellows barbequeing the meats over a wood fire.  First we were served small sausages with a delicious Chardonnay wine which we all liked.  Then came the Sweetbreads with grilled orange half so the juice could be squeezed on the meat.  Soon after came the Blood Sausage and the “Orange” wine which was a peachy colored rose wine.  Dry and nice.  I didn’t try the meat.  Alvaro explained that in his family they would all get together on Sundays, starting early and then eat Asado all day long.  Next came the main meal, barbecued lamb and steak, beautiful delicious salads with figs and star fruit and greens.  The meats we’ve had have all been cooked until dry, gray and hard.  I discovered if I cut my little piece of lamb in tissue paper thin slices, it was tender and delicious.  Somehow during this part we were served at least 3 different red wines.  I actually lost count here.  Finally came the dessert: a scoop of brown ice cream, with dribbles of reduced Tannat wine over it and pieces of barbecued pineapple.  I thought the pineapple was a perfect recall of the barbecued woody flavors we’d been eating. And with this we had a delicious sparkling white wine.  By now it was after 3 pm, we’d been eating for 2 hours!  We made our way to the store where Bob insisted on buying me a Christmas present.  I wanted to go to the big marker of the border just out on the road to get our picture taken.  A very friendly Uruguayan man was there and took our pictures, calling us to get closer and friendly.  A nice reminder.  At 3:30, very full and sleepy we got back in the van, and began a 6 hour ride to our next stop.  Mostly it was through the Treinta y tres Department (like a State, I gather).  It celebrates the 33 rebels who crossed the river from Brazil to win the battles for Uruguayan independence. It was the longest ride we’ve had- 7 1/2 hours.  I am grateful Uruguay is a small country!  At 9:30 pm we pulled off the highway and went through three gates before we got to the Estancia El Proyecto near Quebrada de Los Cuervos (crows ravine, actually referring to vultures, not crows).   In the dark, we were shown to our very large room.  I immediately went to bed, happy for the large comfortable bed to stretch out in. 
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Day 12 - Evening.. The Hunt for the Orange Breasted Thornbird

 Usually when we go out, we don’t have a “target bird.”  This evening was an exception.  After a bit of preliminary warm up birding we headed south on the highway for several miles to a place Rafa knew.  We were looking for the Orange Breasted Thornbird.  It’s shy and skulky and hard to see.  I told Rafa that if we found it, we’d all dance for him.  We pulled off the highway to a small narrow driveway marked by two great big whitewashed tractor tires planted in the dirt.  A dog saw us and ran up to the van barking menacingly.  Rafa told us we had to walk along the highway for a while single file paying attention because he looks out for us and thought it was dangerous.  Funny because we’ve seen no traffic since we left Montevideo, where two thirds of the people of Uruguay live.   We walked to an abandoned dirt road to a grassy marshy area where Rafa had seen “our target bird” previously.  We lined up, as we do now, all peering into the bushes as Rafa and Alvaro played their calls and song to entice the birds to show themselves.  We waited.  I waited breathlessly.  Nothing.  We waited some more and nothing.  We moved along to view the bushes from a different perspective.  More calls.  Nothing.  So we moved on to a pond where we spotted a big river otter.  It was an excitement for us.  We entertained ourselves for quite a while watching the big otter as he moved around diving here and there the pond.  Rafa said spotting river otters is hard and this was a good find, but it wasn’t a substitute.  We walked back past the bushes where the Orange Breasted Thornbirds were supposed to be, but weren’t.  Back at the van, the guys decided to go on to another site a few miles down the road.  We pulled on to another dirt road with a marsh on the left and scrub on the right.  The light was getting dim and very angled.  Whitney spotted a red head blackbird far off and we all honed in.  Not expecting anything, Rafa played the Orange Breasted Thornbird call and heavens to Betsy, one appeared!   It wasn’t shy at all.  It came close to look for the bird that it thought was calling.  Two came.  A pair of Orange Bellied Thornbirds?  They were very rusty and roundish birds.  We watched them until the light was almost gone and we’d all had good looks.  We’d found our target birds.  Did we go back to the van?  No, the birding was good so we walked on, seeing other birds.  Alvaro had heard a crake and a tinamou.  Whitney thought she saw a Reed Haunter (a small wren like bird).  Bob got some Screamers (large gray birds, bigger than geese with red on the face and big crests) in the scope.  We only stopped when we could no longer see anything.  We walked back to the van where Rafa videoed us all doing our celebratory dance for Alvaro.  It was a lifer for him.  It was a very successful hunt.  We’ve now seen all four species of thorn birds in Uruguay.  And then as a nightcap to our glorious evening birding adventure, we saw a Fork-Tailed Nighjar on the road returning to the Posada for dinner.  What a treat to be a part of such a successful hunt!

Day 12 - Friday around Posada Lunarejo

La Cochina es may buena aqui!  The breakfast was a delicious as the previous meals.  Sitting at the old large table on the creaky chairs, we ate and laughed and enjoyed ourselves over coffee.  After breakfast at 8 AM we got in the open anir old 1953 Russian safari truck to head to the river and nearby forests.  It was a beautiful clear blue sky and moderate temperature.  Going through the grasslands, we saw the gaucho from yesterday enchanting us again with his costume and horse with a braided tail and the romance he carries. And there were hawks:  a white tailed hawk, a crane hawk being mobbed by kestrels (Alvaro thinks as we watched it dipped below a tree and then reappear, it actually went into the kestrels nest and grabbed a baby kestrel.), a Savannah hawk (large with broad cinnamon wings and a short stubby tail)l and a wood stork (which isn’t a hawk but is very large).  Up and over the hills we went arriving at a large fast moving river where we saw a couple of kingfishers.  We went up a little patch into the forest serenaded by a white fronted dove.  We went through a fence to try find the dove but it flew.  We saw a beautiful Varied Ant Shrike and a White Wing Becard, different birds but looking somewhat similar to me with their dark gray wings with white bars.  Both were beautiful..  We spent a long time in the forest looking up, straining our necks in our forest birding.   I was entranced  by a huge spider web and a climbing fern.  We walked up the dirt road and went into another patch of forest which had been visited recently by many cows who left their squishy poops for us to avoid.  Looking up,                                               we had quite a show of birds in response to Rafa’s recording of a screech owl.  (Of note was an Ultramarine Grosbeak and the Squirrel Cuckoo). After about an hour of the recorded call, a real Screech Owl showed up.  Back at the Posada, our lunch was again amazing and fresh.  

Day 11 - To Posada Lunarejo

 We left Bella Union after breakfast and travelled southeast stopping for birding along the way.  The first stop along some rice fields was for a large flock of Coscorobia swans.  Large white birds with red beaks, they were easy to see.  On an electricity pole at the edge of the road, there was a firewood gatherer.  It was a nondescript brown bird to my eye described by its apparent behavior.  I wondered how it would start the fire?  Further along by a large pond and field with many many cattle, there was a pair of firewood gatherers and a nest made of sticks.  In the grassland, there were many many rheas and again I wondered, this time what a collective of rheas might be called?  A rotary?  A rumble?  We watched a short billed pipit flying up and catching insects then returning to the rock in the grass.  

We followed along the border with Brazil and the landscape changed from the rolling hills we’ve traveled through for days to hills as we left the basalt shield we’d been on.  Everything is very green.  A short way off the highway on a dirt road was our next home-Posada Lunarejo, a bright orange building surrounded by grass.  It is quite beautiful with flowers all around.  Lunch was huge.  We sat down and were served a plate of cole slaw and two slices of breaded eggplant.  I was hungry so I ate every bite.  Then came the next full plate—roasted vegetables and two chicken cordon blue rolls.  Then rice pudding with homemade meringue.  A serious nap followed.  On our sunset bird walk, we saw many birds in the fields.  There are gauchos!  Two gauchos rode by leading a horse.  Later there was a moto-gaucho (one on a motorcycle) herding 8 cows.  In the evening, my digiscoping improved and I was very happy getting photos of a kestrel, a cliff flycatcher, a roseate spoonbill, diadem tananger.  After dinner we went out owning, looking for a long eared tufted screech owl, but alas no luck.  It was really fun to walk out in dark.  I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing than this.  And it is so nice to stay in beautiful surroundings and to be served three delicious meals a day.  What a trip!!!

Day 10 - Around Bella Union

 Breakfast at the hotel was special for me because of the fresh smoothie we had.  The Uruguayan women had pride in the breakfast they prepared for us.  There was a hand-painted sign in the breakfast room saying “Today’s Good Mood is Sponsored by Coffee.”  The coffee here is dark and strong and really good.  Bella Union is the first place we’ve been where poverty is evident.  The houses are very small, many like shacks and most not kept up.  People have put-put motorcycles and we see women with children riding them as well as men.  The business area seems deserted.  It could be we’re just not seeing the good areas.  Most of what we’ve seen of Uruguay seems decidedly middle-class.  We headed out to the fields again and stopped at a crossroads of two rural dirt roads.  As soon as we got out, the birds started appearing and it never let up.  Overhead, astrounding numbers of eared doves flew over.  Alvaro counted and timed them for 5 minutes and estimated there were 12,000 eared doves flying over per hour!  I asked him why these doves are so plentiful?  Like Passenger pigeons in the U.S., these doves are particularly suited to the Uruguayan fields and scrub.  We watched a Greater Euphonia poop sticky mistletoe seeds out.  Funny, how that is exciting when we’re birding.  There were Salvators—Great and Grayish.  A Double collared Seedeater sitting on a nest about 2 feet off the ground in a purple flowered plant.  We watched a Pearly Vented Toady Tyrant whose name is bigger than it is.   All the while the sound of rumbling thunder teased us.  Rain was predicted but didn’t come.  There was a Blue Black Grassquit - a dark smallish bird than kept popping up and fluttering it’s wings - displaying for choosey females.  It’s called “Johnny Jump Up” is Chile.  Just at the end of this time, two different species of Wood Rail appeared, thrilling me, at least.  We went to another more urban spot to look for a White naped Xenopsaris (really).  And Alvaro immediately spotted one that we all followed for a long time.  He was thrilled, so it must be rare.  A Blue Tufted Star Throat hummingbird and a a pair of Crown Slate Flycatchers and their nest with two babies excited us.  We watched the parents feed the hungry babies.  It is after all the Season of Love and it’s consequences.  Rafa told me I wave my binoculars around too much, that I should look for the bird with my eyes and not put up my bins until I’ve got it in my sight.  I thanked him and he said he’d help me.  A nice lunch at the same restaurant out at the edge of town.  I haven’t seen another restaurant here.  We’re resting now in the heat of the day.  We’ll go out birding again at 5.  

The afternoon was a birding bonanza.  It started quietly at a pond looking for rails and so on.  Soon our guys called out a Plumbeous rail which though shy at first put of a show for us.  It was beautiful, dark gray and brown with bright orange legs and a bright green beak with turquoise at the nose and a red patch underneath.  At one point looking at it, all I could see were the legs and beak, all the rest being perfectly camouflaged.  Driving along we saw fox being attacked by two Chimango Caracaras.  It was bad for the fox.  It escaped and we followed as it walked along.  A bit later by the sugar cane fields there was a pond.  The birds were called out fast and furiously.  What was exciting was that Alvaro  spotted a little blue heron.  Rafa exalted that this was the first sighting of this bird in Uruguay.  It was a real important first.  Rafa saw the bird was odd but just left it at that.  A real lesson from Alvaro: carefully look at every bird.”  For me, I was thrilled seeing a snipe fly over then land while I was watching.  I got a really good look at 3 bare faced ibis and watched them all take off.  Many birds flew over us but what thrilled me were the large  wood storks fly overhead.  They reminded me of all the paper storks in mobiles in Denmark.  We spent a long time trying to call out a crake,.  It came near but was so stealthy all we could see were the cattails moving.  After half hour of trying, Rafa called out, “I hate you!” To the bird.  It thought we were through, but there was one more stop.  We drove into a sweet rural village to see the only Red-Rumped Caciques in Uruguay, all in this one particular tree.  We watched the hanging nests and Alvaro told me about their extreme sexual dimorphism between the male and female.  And then just one more thing to look at: roosting buff necked ibis roosting on a really tall antenna.