NYC, Connecticut and Argentina (2 Viewers)

This trip report covers a three week trip which will be split into three parts. the first part - New York City for three days over Easter weekend is done. Then I'll be in what turns out to be a heavily snowy Connecticut for three days, and then the big highlight - a little over two weeks in Argentina.

Saturday morning broke absolutely perfectly - about 4 degrees, a cloudless blue sky and no wind making for perfect birding conditions and successfully negotiating the subway up to 77th Street I headed over to Central Park at about 0715. This was just my second visit to the East Coast after a trip at almost exactly the same period in 2010, when I spent a week in Washington D.C., so please feel free to let me know of an y misidentifications.

The best gen I could find online suggested the Ramble - an area in the lower centre of the park as being the best spot for birding. I was especially keen to try it as an American Bittern had been reported sitting in a bare tree the day before - and that is exactly what I found! For someone used to Eurasian Bittern being a black belt level lurker it was absolutely extraordinary to see this bird perched in the upper branches of a large leafless oak tree with a background of a clear blue sky and the occasional high rise building. In fact the bittern was so cool its worth a post of its own - I'll post separately on the other birds I saw here.

Cheers
Mike

Wow! Stunning! What a great start. If things continue in that vein this could be quite a trip!

Hello Mike,

Good bird!

I think that you may have seen the Bittern in Tupelo Meadow within the Ramble.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur Pinewood :hi:

Many thanks James - I might even score your avatar if my plans in Argentina work out well!

Arthur - My challenge on arriving in Central Park was indeed to find the Tupelo meadow, which I did more by luck than judgment as I discovered that only birders use that name! When I did eventually find it here was a birder on-site staring up into the tree and it was easy from there! Am I right that tree its in is actually known as the Tupelo Oak?

Central Park Pt II
Even before the birds staretd appearing a Grey Squirrel bounced up to me, clearly with a well developed line in panhandling for scraps and posed perfectly -tail at full fluff. I started scoring at an area with a few feeders set up. Northern Cardinals, Mourning Dove, Dark-eyed Juncos, White-crowned and Song Sparrows and a couple of the many hundreds of American Robins in the park that day were ferreting deep in the leaf litter for dropped seeds, while half a dozen each of American Golfinch and Common Grackle were defending the feeders from a nice red male House Finch, and the occasional Blue Jay.

While they unquestionably played second fiddle to the Bittern the woodpeckers put on a terrific show over the two mornings. The horribly mis-named Red-bellied Woodpecker led the charge, posing beautifully as it raided the feeders and worked its way along a dead branch, crown aflame in the morning sunshine. Downy Woodpecker also came in to the feeders and the next morning perfectly illustarted its diminuitive size feeding at very close range along some of the the thinnest branches. The Northern Flicker mixed forgaing on the deck with sitting high to show off its fawn-tinged elegantly spotted breast and black gorget, before and a golden flush to the underwings and undertail as it porpoised away through the trees. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker brought up the rear never coming as close as the others but nevertheless exciting for its posibility for long distance vagrancy.

The second morning the reservoir held Greater Black-backed, American Herring and Ring-billed Gulls, plus a gaggle of Double-Crested Cormorants - I even managed to see the dinky little crests behind each one one bird that was diving nearby, two American Coot and a spread of ducks headed by thirty-odd Bufflehead the majority handsome males in their breeding finery, sixty plus Northern Shovelers, three or four Ruddy Ducks and a couple of Mallard.

Other good birds included a White-breasted Nuthatch, singleton Chipping and Fox Sparrows and my lifer Swamp Sparrow grubbing close to the water at the top of the Lobe. I was also very pleased to find an infuriating Hermit Thrush that was very happy to seen, but not to be photographed. Another ultra rarity across the Pond – Eastern Phoebe was bravely searching for what must have been slim pickings of insects on the wing and was my third lifer in the Park over the two days. I also saw three or four Golden-crowned Kinglets but missed out on Pine, Palm and Yellow-rumped Warblers by just a couple of minutes in each case. The final gift from NYC were a pair of Northern Harriers hunting over the large reedbeds just to the west of Manhattan as the bus headed north.

Cheers
Mike

Tupelo tree, Central park and North America

Nyssa sylvatica, the Tupelo tree you mention is also called black tupelo, tupelo, or blackgum (= not an oak); also called by some in Central Park the Sarah Elliott tree because the leaves turn orange starting in early July (peak: October) because Sarah's hair was orange particularly in her later years...She was a long-time birder/naturalist in the park. See attached photo from 31 Oct. 2015 of the Tupelo tree where the American Bittern was perched for two consecutive days.

Robert DeCandido PhD
www.BirdingBob.com

Always interesting to see what people from the other side of the world find interesting enough to photograph.

Gray squirrel was definitely unexpected.

rdcny said:

Nyssa sylvatica, the Tupelo tree you mention is also called black tupelo, tupelo, or blackgum (= not an oak); also called by some in Central Park the Sarah Elliott tree because the leaves turn orange starting in early July (peak: October) because Sarah's hair was orange particularly in her later years...She was a long-time birder/naturalist in the park. See attached photo from 31 Oct. 2015 of the Tupelo tree where the American Bittern was perched for two consecutive days.

Robert DeCandido PhD
www.BirdingBob.com

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As a former New Yorker, I always loved this tree.

As a one-time visitor ...I absolutely love it too KC!

Many thanks for the further info on the Tupelo tree Bob - it was a pleasure to meet you last Saturday morning.

Grey Squirrels are very different to HK squirrels - fluffier tailed, and very much tamer Jeff. It may be just a rat with a furry tail, but I'm certainly not too proud to get any animal this close through the lens.

Cheers
Mike

My next instalment is a quickie - covering the woodpeckers I saw over the two days as described in my previous post.

Our grey squirrels are the tamest I've seen anywhere in the world. They're very fond of the garbage tips in my apartment complex. My sister sometimes has more of them than birds at her feeders.

My favorite grey squirrel story actually happened outside N. America. I was at the Ueno Park Zoo in Tokyo and walked up to a small cage. Rather than looking at the animal inside it I went right to the ID label: "North American Grey Squirrel" What? Then I looked at the squirrel in the cage. Stunned, I think I actually said "It's a freaking squirrel!" out loud. 3

Hello Mike,

All good New York birds, or as the locals seem to say, "New Yalk boids." The phoebes are migratory birds but turn up reliably each year. Bird watchers own nomenclature for locations in the Park has defeated me: The Captain's Bench, Muggers Rock, the Swampy Pin Oak, and Warblers Rock are not listed on official map. The captain, an ex-mariner who complained about bird watchers, and the swampy pin oarki are long gone; Central Park is very safe and I have hardly ever see a warbler at Warblers Rock.

The northern harrier likes wetlands, where I saw one, only once, in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. I also spotted my only merlin there.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur :hi:

Apologies for the delay in making the next update - the days were pretty full, but now I'm home things should progress faster.

We next spent a couple of days in Connecticut for some dental treatment, which thankfully was a lot less unpleasant that it might have been. Farmington is a small town on the western edge of Hartford with lots of open spaces, woodland, a river and some meadows which over two more cold, clear mornings delivered a few more birds, including a couple of early migrants.

I did ok for raptors, with a Cooper’s Hawk making a brief fly-by, a copulating couple of Red-tailed Hawks, and best of the lot a fine adult Bald Eagle made a single pass as it cruised downriver just above treetop level. The riverside woods were full of Song and White-throated Sparrows, American Robins, plus four Eastern Phoebes, a trio of Tufted Titmice. I was pleased to finally pick up a Yellow-rumped Warbler in a patch of field-side reeds, that also produced the first of 50-odd Red-winged Blackbirds, half-a-dozen Brown-headed Cowbirds.

Other additions included two each of Northern Mockingbirds and White-crowned Sparrows in another hedgerow, a riverside gravel pit that held a couple of Canada Geese, three pairs of Wood Ducks and a Mute Swan (introduced). A trip into town to shop delivered a single drake Ring-necked Duck on a reservoir, and it was great to finish my first morning in style with a pair of impressively large Wild Turkeys roosting some 10 feet off the ground in low riverside trees.

Woodpeckers again performed well, with Northern Flicker, Red-bellied and Downy Woodpeckers all giving close views and a massive Pileated Woodpecker exploring the branches of a tree close overhead providing an excellent highlight. And finally, two Tree Swallows perched on a snag above a frost-bound field looked somewhat bemused and clearly unimpressed at having jumped the gun on the arrival of spring.

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK said:

We next spent a couple of days in Connecticut for some dental treatment,

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That's a long way to go for the dentist - seems to me a poorly concocted excuse to do some birding in the US :-O
Argentina for a haircut?

Amazingly the dental work required is cheaper in the US - and that includes the flights! Frankly early April would not have been my choice of timing, but that American Bittern was a bird I'll always remember and was therefore totally worth it!

And I came back from Argentina with a beard!

Cheers
Mike

Dentistry completed we next headed to Argentina for a two week trip that included ten days in the northwest around Salta and the high Andes, a couple of days in Iguazu, and finished with a few days in Buenos Aires.

After a trouble-free flight we landed in Buenos Aires and spent the best part of the day first realizing that many places did not accept credit cards, that cash was a necessity and that without US dollars the cheapest way to secure Argentine Pesos was to withdraw cash with a credit card. The limit is just 3500 pesos (US$170) and in addition to whatever your own bank charges, the bank with the cashpoint also charges somewhere between 120 and 210 pesos per withdrawal. Never has cash been so expensive! On the upside foreigners are not charged the 21% VAT on accommodation that the locals must pay, but there are differential charges for entry to National Parks (particularly Iguazu). Uber, which is supposedly illegal, but seems to operate OK in Buenos Aires, adds surcharges for distance and busy periods, and so may not be cheaper than regular taxis.

We stayed for just one night in the shoebox Duque Boutique Hotel in Palermo, and on the way from the airport I picked up my first Chimango Caracara, Southern Caracaras and Southern Lapwings along the roadside. 30 minutes sat on a park bench trying to figure out how to get cash cheaper also delivered good views of Rufous-bellied Thrush, the first Horneros and the hefty Picazuro Pigeons.

The day was rescued by a truly magnificent pair of steaks, which we completely failed to finish at a restaurant called Don Julio in the same district. We were delighted to discover that everything we had heard about Argentine steaks was true, although we later learned much depends on where and how the cows are raised (grass-fed on original pampas around Buenos Aires). So good was the steak that it was still impossibly buttery soft and flavourful when eaten cold the next evening on our flight to Salta!

First time visitor warning No 2. The published check-in baggage limit on most internal flights is a miserable 15kg! The exception is LATAM (23kg) , and in practice Aerolineas Argentinas did not charge us extra for bags of 17kg and 18kg on our flight from Salta to Iguazu. But the low cost airline Andes has a nice trick of charging for anything over 15kg, and then extra again if you only find out your bag is overweight at the airport! They also tend to cancel without notice. We took the advice to avoid them, despite their significantly cheaper fares. Our flight to Salta arrived in the evening, allowing no time for birding, but I did finally start to score the next morning during a walk around the garden of our hotel, the beautiful and quirky Castillo de San Lorenzo.

The San Lorenzo district of Salta lies on the edge of foothills covered in the Yungas cloud forest habitat that stretches along the eastern edge of the Andes south from Bolivia. The low trees around the garden held dazzling Tropical Parulas and Brown-capped Redstarts (the latter in full song) and the heftier Two-banded Warblers, along with plain headed and chatty House Wrens and the quieter, darker Mountain Wrens. Also common were the vireo-like Common Chlorospingus, and the heavier Golden-billed Saltator and Mottle-cheeked Tyrannulet, with its phyllosc-like wingbars.

I could not identify the parakeets flying high overhead in flocks of twenty to fifty, but lower down Blue-and-white Swallows helpfully landed in the top of the large eucalyptus in front of the Castillo. The stars of the show were the groups of Plush-crested Jays – I especially enjoyed the gang rummaging on the compost heap and a shyer pair of Crested Oropendolas – largish black birds with long straight ivory coloured bills and yellow outer tail feathers. A shy Grey-cowled Wood Rail was by far the largest rallid I’ve ever seen, while a Stripe-headed Brush Finch lurked in the undergrowth behind the swimming pool. Adding in the pale blue Sayaca Tanagers, the White bellied Hummingbird and the bee-sized Slender-tailed Woodstar made for a wonderful introduction to the richness of the Yungas forest.

Beyond the garden I added Fawn-breasted Tanager, and the similarly-coloured but bizarre Rusty Flowerpiercer, complete with upturned bill. A Stripe-crowned Spinetail creeping up and down the trunk was dramatically different from the Azara’s Spintail, which lurked in the undergrowth like an oversized prinia, and fuelled my absolute confusion about the enormous diversity both of and within families of South American birds. Even more confusing was how similar it looked to the Buff-browed Foliage-gleaner, to which it is not at all related. The same tree also held what I think is a Slaty Eleania (alternative opinions welcome) and one of the many Great Kiskadees that are all over Argentina.

Cheers
Mike

Next day we took a day trip south to the wine country around Cafayate, which apart from the stunning views of cactus and canyon country produced four roadside Burrowing Owls several hundred White-faced Ibises and Cattle Egrets and a dozen or so Buff-necked Ibis in the roadside fields south of Salta, and a couple of flocks of Burrowing Parrots and twenty or so Andean Condors drifting around a high ridge above Alemania as we started the descent towards the wine-growing region of Cafayate. Stops on the way there and back delivered a deep red male Hepatic Tanager and a humbug-striped Ringed Warbling Finch, a Tropical Kingbird, a Blue-and yellow Tanager and two different Red-tailed Comets, shimmering green hummingbirds with long ruby-coloured tails. A Bay-winged Hawk being scolded by Great Kiskadees enlivened lunch in Cafayate’s main square.

A slower day in Salta the next day still delivered a few new birds – with Hooded Siskins in streetside trees and handsome cinnamonCliff Flycatchers fly-catching from one of the higher buildings respectively.

Cheers
Mike

Sounds like a great trip - I love the casual passing reference to "twenty or so Andean Condors" as if it is an everyday sighting!

Well unfortunately it was a passing reference as it was a drive-by sighting. On a general tour to see vineyards and rock formations there's no way to get the driver to stop for mere birds.

The pic of the juvenile bird was taken at well over a kilometre at a view point where I just happened to get lucky. ||

Cheers
Mike

Some "great grippers" there Mike! Especially that long-winged Jackdaw (Andean Condor) looks particularly so!

You've now got me thinking!....a "big apple" pedicure, might now be on the cards. :t:

Thanks Ken - any excuse will surely do!

The highlight of the visit was a three-day drive north into the altiplano region of the Andes. We started with an excellent section of Yungas forest between Salta and Jujuy which, before it had even started delivered a pair of Guira Cuckoos, two Buff-necked Ibis and a solitary Whistling Heron, plus a probable Wood Stork around the northern end of the Campo Alegre reservoir..

The forest itself added more to the list, with Greater Black Hawk, Rufous-browed Peppershrike, Black-backed Grosbeak, and Dot-fronted Woodpecker heading the cast. A reservoir just before Jujuy produced Snowy Egret and Pied-billed Grebe, but we drew a highly disappointing blank at the stakeout for Torrent Duck on the access road to Yala lagoons to the NW of Jujuy.

A shopping stop in Purmamarca delivered another goodie in the shape of a flock of Mountain Parrots, and the dazzling White Monjita – a pure-white flycatcher with black wings - provided another roadside highlight, along with a first grey-backed Patagonian Mockingbird.

We stayed at the wonderful Vinas de Uquia lodge at around 2,600 metres. Having navigated across the riverbed and past the organic veggie garden we parked by the huts and walked up the back among the cacti, finding a fly-by Red-fronted Parrot, Brown-backed and Patagonian Mockingbirds, Glossy-Black Thrush, the tiny, crested Yellow-billed Tit-Tyrant, White-winged Black Tyrant, and Rufous-bellied Saltator, a Black-headed Sierra Finch, and in near total darkness a pair of White-tipped Plantcutters. I also found a good-sized Hare and a small gerbil-like creature with a long black-tipped tailwhich I think is a Degu,but I would be delighted with any correction.

Cheers
Mike

That cactus is excellent!!! :-O:-O
Should make it into their national postcard!!