{"id":2799,"date":"2017-08-27T23:05:48","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T02:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/?p=2799"},"modified":"2017-08-27T23:14:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T02:14:28","slug":"trip-through-northern-argentina-and-paraguay-day-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/archives\/2799","title":{"rendered":"Trip through Northern Argentina and Paraguay \u2013 Day 9"},"content":{"rendered":"

26 August 2017 \u2013 Mercedes \u2013 Mburucuy\u00e1 – And the heavens opened …<\/em><\/p>\n

Woken in the middle of the night by phone call from reception asking me to please register the woman in my room. Explain there is no woman in my room. A couple of minutes later a soft knocking at the door and a slinky, expensively dressed female is there smiling at me. I explain to her as I had to the receptionist that there must be some mistake, and closed the door on her. About ten minutes later the phone rings again, this being reception telling me what I already knew, that there must have been a mistake. Finally, I get to sleep; strange dreams we need not go into here.<\/p>\n

Back to the birding.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Well, if this is a cow and the white birds are egrets, my money is on them being cattle egrets<\/p><\/div>\n

Got up early and loaded the car, which was on the other side of the Plaza. As I walked back a large bird crapped on my head \u2013 not too worried, as this is said to bring good luck. We\u2019ll see.  Stomach and then petrol tank filled, I set off for the Mburucuy\u00e1 National Park, to the west of the Iber\u00e1 Reserve.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Roadside hawk, unsurprisingly a frequent sight by the roadside<\/p><\/div>\n

I set off to torrential rain, with lightning crashing frighteningly all around the car, but after an hour or so it began to clear as I made my way around the bottom and then the left of the Iber\u00e1 wetlands. Another glorious road for birding, with wetlands on either side full of birds, and I did stop for a couple of easy shots, but I wanted to get on to Mburucuy\u00e1 National Park.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Female snail kite: lots of these flying low across the hedgerows and ditches<\/p><\/div>\n

Which I did, entering the park on a difficult road, mostly loose sand but heavily rutted where service vehicles had passed in wet weather. It was a tough and very slow 30 km as I was in my rented Chevy Corsa, and as I was arriving at the park it began to rain. I couldn\u2019t turn round as it was too narrow and rutted so I had no choice to go to the end where a ranger told me to get out quick as the granddaddy of storms was about to break.<\/p>\n

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Crab eating fox, shot through windscreen. Sadly going in the wrong direction<\/p><\/div>\n

I did see two crab-eating foxes (yes, really) and a female pampas deer in all the rush but didn\u2019t manage to get photos as they all disappeared before I could get a lens on them except this fox trotting away from me which I shot through the windscreen. Another reason for returning.<\/p>\n

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A yellow-headed caracara (Milvago chimachima) – a lifer for me<\/p><\/div>\n

Discretion being the better half of valour and all that I turned the car round and started back. Hightailing it was out of the question, and in about ten minutes the storm broke: an electrical storm, even more frightening than earlier in the morning. Same road, except now the loose sand had turned to slippery mud. For once I had a reserve plan as I knew the ranger would be returning in a few hours but using all my skills and savvy (I wish!) I slid and slithered the 30 km or so back to the safety of the gravel road (ripio). Never have I been happier to see gravel road!<\/p>\n

At which point, as if to make a point, the rain stopped and the sun came out so I spent a couple of hours driving and walking around the town\u2018s different entry and exit roads. Plenty to see there birdwise, and the National Park (which looked great, what I saw of it) can wait till a second visit.<\/p>\n

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Comical looking guaira cuckoos – they seem to be very sociable birds<\/p><\/div>\n

My accommodation for tonight is a caba\u00f1a with room for five so looks like I screwed up on the booking but it\u2019s very comfortable to rattle around in, with some acceptable beer in the fridge. Food can be phoned in, which I did because I was tired and didn\u2019t feel like going out again. Lovely river fish with boiled cassava and potato in a herby sauce \u2013 vary tasty, followed by some unidentifiable crystalised tropical fruit.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow to Ituzaing\u00f3, where I re-enter the Iber\u00e1 Reserve at Cambyret\u00e1. Fingers crossed for better weather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26 August 2017 \u2013 Mercedes \u2013 Mburucuy\u00e1 – And the heavens opened … Woken in the middle of the night by phone call from reception asking me to please register the woman in my room. Explain there is no woman in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel-2","category-trip-ne-argentina-and-paraguay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2799"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2811,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799\/revisions\/2811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}