We flew out to Buenos Aires on Friday 28 September, arriving at the Ministro Pistarino airport the following morning after the long 13 hour flight down virtually the whole length of the Atlantic Ocean. During our time in the city we stayed at the Novotel for four nights, which was centrally located and very handy for restaurants and the main tourist attractions. I had stayed in this hotel during the 2010 SCAR conference and found it very comfortable, so it was the obvious place to be based on this trip.
After resting for a while and then having lunch we decided to go down to the Avenida Doctor Transversal Achaval, which provides excellent views over part of the Costanera Sur wildlife reserve, which is one of the world’s best urban birding areas. The street is very lively and entertaining in its own right, but also allows you to get good photographs of the birds in a wetland part the reserve and also around the many food trucks on the street.
The food vans and discarded food were drawing in Guira Cuckoo, Monk Parakeet, Yellow-billed Cardinal and even Woodpeckers and were sitting on the edges of the rubbish bins and the wall at the edge of the reserve.
In the surrounding trees we had Common Starling, Greyish Baywater and Monk Parakeet.
During our time in the city much of the water in the reserve was covered in weed making it difficult to tell whether the birds are on the water or solid gound.
On our first full day in Buenos Aires (Sepember 30) we took a trip on a hop on/hop off bus around the city, which allowed us to see the major historical sights, as well as giving us the chance to walk around some colourful areas. The most interesting was La Boca, which is a lively Bohemian area with street performers, artists and many tourists. The photos below are from our time in La Boca.
