The change in the tropical rainforest climate is as elusive as the speed of hummingbirds, just complaining about the sun exposure, and the wind and rain will come after a while. Caught off guard, I scrambled to protect my gear from getting wet and find a place to shelter from the rain. Fortunately, the rain did not last long, and it did not take long for the clouds to disperse, and the temperature was lower than just now. At this time, the surrounding ground was full of leaves that had just been blown off by the wind, and some of them were illuminated by the sunlight that drilled through the gaps in the woods, and the water droplets on them reflected golden light.
I was pulling out my camera and putting the telescope back on my neck when I suddenly heard Julian Baigorria next to me start making strange movements. He crouched on the ground, his head raised 45 degrees in the direction of a row of large trees, his hands propped up in front of his mouth in the shape of a trumpet, grunting and making rhythmic sounds. He was imitating the cry of burrowing owl.
Stout vines grow over the years, forming labyrinthine ravines on the ground, coiled layer by layer along thick trunks. At this time, the jungle is noisy, and the hum of insects on the ground, the sound of frogs by the pool and birds from above are mixed together.
Julian is my birding guide these days, the owner of argentina's first bird watching hotel, and a Doctor of Biology, although the research direction is to use spiders to control insect pests and increase the yield of yerba mate, he spends a lot of his spare time watching birds and protecting the bird environment. Years of work practice in the Department of Environmental Protection in Buenos Aires and extensive experience in dealing with birds from the age of 5 have made him an expert in the field of bird watching and protecting the environment in which birds live.
Hulian carrying a telescope and concentrating on bird watching This article is all taken by Liu Hua
"Most birds hate and fear owls. At night it dominates one side like a ghost, but its attack power is greatly reduced during the day, especially the small burrowing owl, and once other birds hear their calls, they will come together and release warning calls, expel and even besiege it. Hulian whispered to me what he meant by imitating it, and said it was a tried-and-true method of catching birds. It is especially effective when they are busy coming out to drink water and forage for food after the rain.
I was just about to question whether this method was reliable when I heard a sharp cry from a high place far ahead. As it turns out to be effective, let's put aside the question of whether "cheating" to fool birds is against the professional ethics of biologists, and grab the telescope to find the birds.
The first to appear were two golden-crowned warblers, who flew quickly to the edge of the steep riverbed, camouflaging themselves with the freshly rained river and the color of the dirt on the shore, making themselves difficult to spot. This was followed by three or four small plush-crested jays. In this area, they are relatively common bird species, like to live in groups, have a huge voice, and are almost not afraid of people. Followed by the Red-crested cardinal, which, while slightly inferior to their close relative, the all-red North American Cardinal (the prototype of the protagonist in Angry Birds), is also bright enough to be the color of its entire head.
As the various birds came, Hulian learned more and more vigorously, and his voice became louder and more coherent, and seemed to be more similar to what he had just imitated. At present, the situation is beginning to be "unmanageable", and the birds are gathering more and more, as if they are rushing to open the ladder. The sounds are long, short, anxious, and soothing. I couldn't get too busy, following the sound or following Hulian's direction to find birds, take notes, shoot... In the midst of the chaos, I quickly signaled Tohlian not to learn- I saw too many new bird species, and I urgently needed to stop for a while to digest and absorb.
Attracted to the velvet-crowned blue crow
The place we are in is the Uruguayan National Park (Urugua-I provincial) located in the misiones. It is located in the far northeast of Argentina, bordering Paraguay and Brazil to the west and brazil to the northeast. In the 17th century, the Spanish Jesuits established a Catholic mission in the province of Misiones, and the name "Misiones" that is still in use today was derived.
Today, it is Argentina's most prestigious tourist destination, receiving more than a million visitors a year, and after last year's sharp currency devaluation caused by Argentina's financial crisis, the number of tourists soared by more than ten percent. However, most tourists come to see the Great Falls, one of the three largest waterfalls in the world, and the three-kilometer-wide Iguazu Falls span Argentina and Brazil. Most people visit the Argentine side and the Brazilian side one day, and after admiring the waterfall scenery from different angles, they leave in a hurry.
In fact, in addition to the famous Iguazu Falls, the province of Misiones is also a bird watching paradise in Argentina and even the entire Americas. The 11,000-square-kilometer nature reserve stretches like a green channel from the Iguazu National Park in the north to the central mountains. If you're lucky, you'll occasionally see toucans or hummingbirds on the well-equipped trails of the Iguazu National Park to see waterfalls, but most of the time they don't like to be disturbed by the noise of tourists and the noise of small trains, preferring to hide in the tall, densely wooded and sparsely visited areas right now.
I arrived in Puerto Iguazú in the heavy rain the day before yesterday, and the bird watching hotel where I was supposed to stay was temporarily changed to another hotel near the town of Iguazu because it was blocked by flooded river water. Over the years, as bird watchers have come here, there have been more and more small nature-themed hotels located in the wilderness and with the concept of environmental protection. The advantage of living in the town is that it is more convenient to eat and shop (if there is only one street counts) and to see the big waterfall, the disadvantage is that it is far from the bird watching location and you have to leave before dawn.
The road from the airport to town is lined with dark green tropical trees, and the grass and trees are full of emerald green against the crimson soil like rust. It is said that because it is rich in iron, the earth will take on such a color.
As we approach the city, the scenery is more and more like Southeast Asia, with low-rise houses and one resort hotel and golf course on both sides of the road. Motorcycles and old pickups flash by, and dark-skinned locals are often seen gathering at simple roadside stalls, women dressed in flowers and greenery, men shirtless or wearing tank tops and shorts, sitting on the bench eating barbecues and drinking beer, very leisurely and enjoying. When the car turned off the main road, it drove on the rough stone road without asphalt and washboard, and I instantly felt like sitting on a massage chair, and I was upside down a little confused, and I really couldn't understand why the same Argentina, the capital city, built the subway in 1908, and there is still such a road here.
The road leads to the jungle in the fog
In addition to the common signs such as turning and giving way, you can always see all kinds of animals painted: coati, cougars, jaguars, tanuki cats... Drivers are not only reminded to keep an eye on the curb and slow down, but also forbid honking. "Before, a lot of people were speeding and occasionally bumping into animals crossing the road. Later, the national park invested in the installation of many warning road signs, and the traffic police often measured speed here to issue tickets. Now we drive carefully here, and rarely find animals in traffic accidents. The driver said that in recent years, more and more large animals have appeared because people are more friendly and kind to them.
"The big animals would occasionally drill out of the jungle to cross the road but wouldn't come to me because it was too close to the city. Coati always runs around to rummage through the garbage and can't get away. But it's much easier to see birds, and there are more than five hundred species of birds here, more than the species of birds in all of Europe combined. "The hotel host, Ms Emily, told me on her way through the courtyard full of fruit trees to my room.
The heavy rain of the night knocked the roof of the room loudly, but I still slept well, and woke up again, and it was already bright and the rain had stopped. I ate breakfast at a long wooden table under the trees in the yard, and with the exception of charred artisan bread, all the food was readily available from the courtyard. Plump avocados, snow-white guavas with a white and pink appearance, and Shakya, which has a peculiar smell and is extremely high in sugar, are all hanging from the trees in the yard.
The big harvest of food is of course also loved by birds. A hotel helper came up to me and spoke a Spanish, as if to state something urgent, and seeing that I didn't understand it, I switched to the words: "Toucan, toucan..." and pointed in the other direction of the courtyard. I suddenly understood that she was talking about a toucan, a bird that is special and can only be seen in the tropical regions of South America. I quickly grabbed the telescope and walked quickly with her. Looking in the direction of his finger, I spotted a red-brested toucan on a small avocado branch, swept the canopy around it, and saw another male bird on a hidden thick branch. After waiting for a while, the male jumped twice, turned around on an unobstructed branch, revealing his face, his eyes looking at my telescope, and a bright red strip on his chest was also visible. It doesn't seem to be afraid of people, opening its mouth to make a low cry, revealing a cute natural expression, and the look reminds me of Uncle Goro's hungry appearance every time in "Lonely Foodie".
"It's not often seen." Emily, who was always busy, came up to me at some point and asked me to quickly take a picture of the toucan with my camera and share it with her. "I want to put it on the hotel's website and on Instagram, so that maybe it can attract more weird people like you who like to look at birds with binoculars." She said.
The red-breasted toucan that many people are familiar with
On his third day with Hulian bird watching, he said the river had receded somewhat and that his modified four-wheel drive pickup could barely get through access to his bird watching hotel. Today I can finally live there.
It's more than two hours' drive from Puerto Iguazú to today's destination, and instead of taking a direct shortcut, we went south along Route 12 and then east on Route 19, giving us more time to stop bird watching along the way. After walking for more than half an hour and stopping for the first time, I discovered a new breed and saw a small woodcreeper in the distance, tapping patiently on the trunk with its long beak, and walking up in search of food. We have not left the tree for a long time, because it is too far away to see the details of the predation, and we can only guess that it has a good harvest. The little bird here has no intention of leaving, and there is a chirping sound behind him from far and near. It was the great kiskadee on the other side of the high-voltage line tower, a small bird that was not afraid of meat and fierce prey. The birds are common in Argentina, seen almost all the way from south to north, and we didn't spend much time on them, walked around for a while, found an open place to stop again, intending to stay here for a while longer.
Just after the telescope was propped up, a male ruby Tanager appeared in the eyepiece, standing on a high treetop, the ruby crown made it look noble, and the donnafinch gracefully jumped slightly, changed its body posture, announced the territory with a loud voice, and began to sing in a complex tone, which was a signal of courtship. Despite his hard work, he didn't see a female flying in or calling in response for a long time. Julian believes he may need a long wait.
In the stop-and-go walk, we passed a small town called Wanda, a yerba mate tea plant that stretched for hundreds of meters, and a red brick yerba mate processing factory, and even these places with more traces of humans did not prevent us from seeing birds. At the entrance to Wanda Town, famous for its mining industry, three burrowing owls stand on the lawn of the roundabout in the middle of the road, and this guy who is only 10 centimeters tall is one of the few owls that are active during the day, and they are round and round like a ball, and they look round and cute compared to those who are huge and powerful.
In the yerba mate field, three tan squirrel Cuckoos are dragging their long tails around the branches of short trees, because of their habit of flying very rarely and jumping between the branches most of the time, they have this image name. "This cuckoo nests and incubates the eggs themselves, rather than laying the eggs in another nest and walking away." Seeing that I had misunderstood, Julian immediately "rehabilitated" this native cuckoo. On the red brick wall of the yerba mate factory, three snow-white Woodpeckers quickly fell and flew away. We couldn't see their details clearly, let alone photograph them, and we didn't see them back for half a day, so we can only express regret.
Burrowing owls on the lawn
After lunch on the main street of a hardware-shop-lined town, turn onto Highway 101 and walk along the potholed and rust-colored later dirt road for a while, passing several narrow bends that are almost imperceptible and flooded sections at both ends to reach karadya Birding Lodge, a bird watching chalet hotel deep in the Dense Forest of Monogatari.
If you hadn't walked inside until you saw the house, I'm afraid no one would have thought of living here. Eleven years ago, Hulian, who had been picking up a telescope for bird watching since the age of five, bought this dense jungle of more than 100 hectares, with mountains and rivers. And it took nearly a decade to build.
"When I was young, I often saw people catching cage after cage of birds and then selling them to people as pets at the market. Every time I saw this, I felt very sad, and then I bought a few with a limited amount of pocket money and let them go. Julian said his childhood experience was an important reason for his future environmental work. Animal smuggling poaching was rampant in the Puerto Iguazú area, brazil's border with Argentina and Brazil. Fortunately, with the establishment of national parks and the improvement of laws, this illegal activity is becoming less and less, and "the number of precious birds and animals has rebounded every year." He said this with a look of relief.
We talked and walked slowly. In the middle of the road, a lizard more than a meter long appeared shaking, and Hulian stopped the car, patiently waited for it to pass, pointed to the lake on the right and told me that the water source that had been brought in partly solved the problem of drinking water for animals, and that occasionally water birds came to feed on it, and mountain lions often came there at night to drink water.
Wait for the lizards to pass by
Julian proudly proclaimed on his official website for bird watching tours that Karadya Birding Lodge was Argentina's first truly eco-friendly bird watching hotel, which also began as a childhood wish to live with birds and not disturb their lives at all. Build houses from recycled wood, recycle biogas to generate electricity, purify rainwater for drinking, recycle garbage, so that all waste can be recycled... Every conceivable environmental initiative is applied here. "Although we built three houses, our carbon emissions are almost the same as when we were empty." Hulian gave me a long list of boring numbers, and the rigorous momentum of the scientists was completely unstoppable.
Of the three buildings, in the middle is Julian's home, where he lives with his wife and two daughters, who are also biologists, and the other two, one is the main building with six rooms and public facilities such as a living room, a small library, a video room (where there are often some bird-watching themed exchange activities), and the other is a three-story single-story bird watching wooden house that rises like a bunker – I will stay tonight.
Red wooden house in the jungle
For the first time in my life, I saw hummingbirds so close in a garden full of melons and cannabis. The Gilded hummingbird hovers less than two meters high in the air with its bronze lustrous wings at high speed, and its long bright red beak probes into a hanging bell begonia flower to suck nectar. I was thrilled by the encounter, and although I had seen it a few times before, the hummingbird's fast-forward speed and long distance made me never see it before. Now that I was close at hand, I was motionless, even exaggerated, holding my breath to reduce my movements, for fear that the pocket bird of less than five centimeters in front of me would be frightened and run away. Fortunately, it has been, and with the constant movement and displacement, the color of the feathers is constantly changing. "Patiently walk inside, there may be a chance to see the Black-breasted hummingbird, the purple-crowned hummingbird is the star who does not easily appear.""
We walked along the jungle for a while, regrettably not finding the black-breasted hummingbird, but seeing a few long-tailed manakins with bright feathers. One of the males wears a rose-red crown and is sapphire blue throughout. After a while of brewing, as if it were warming up, it began to come alive, spinning and dancing, and we realized that this was about to begin a complex and exaggerated courtship ritual, only to see it jump vigorously and spin one foot. But the green-backed female gazed absently, unmoved by the courtship behavior in front of her. It seems that this courtship operation will end in a futile failure.
Before evening, I had moved into the separate three-story wooden house, followed the narrow staircase inside the living room on the first floor, and rolled over on the large bed on the second floor to look out the window, and the line of sight was exactly at the same level as the canopy, and a giant falcon (Caracara) flew over, landed on the tree near the window, looked out the window for a while and flew away, and further away, the herds of Black vultures kept circling in the air. I took a nap, and even in my dream appeared all kinds of birds newly recognized today, until I was awakened by a knock at the door of Hulian.
A giant falcon you meet on the road
I followed it up to the open platform on the upper floor of the bedroom. This small square space is the best view in the whole jungle, with unobstructed views of the surrounding tree canopy and distant mountains. When we came up, two red-crowned, black-bodied, black-striped Lineated woodpeckers with black and white stripes on their bellies had been on a branch not far away.
The striped woodpecker is busy
Smaller but more colorfully colored males peck trees at high frequencies of more than two strokes per second. At this time, when we were at the most leisurely time of bird watching, Hulian and I sat in chairs on the terrace, drinking beer and watching the woodpecker couple busy in the trees. They are like members of Hurian's family who have been living here for more than a year. "At first I had to imitate their cries to get them out, but then I didn't have to, and as soon as I came up, they came out. It's really like a family living together, very tacit understanding. Julian took a sip of his beer and was able to say. In the tree, the woodpecker continued to pound the trunk, "Boom, boom, boom..." A rhythmic sound echoed in the air high above.