September
12, 2015
To the south
of the city of Santa Cruz in the center of Bolivia is Lomas de Arena regional
park, a perfect place to see some interesting birds at the start of our tour.
The dregs of a late cold front that passed through yesterday (windy and hours
of drizzle) persist this morning as a light overcast and delightfully cool
temperatures. It can be really sunny and hot here, and bird activity remained
high.
This
White-banded Mockingbird just barely shows its namesake in this frontal shot.
It didn’t
seem warm enough for butterflies, but this metalmark Melanis aegates, the White-spotted Pixie, was abundant on road,
getting moisture and minerals from fresh cow dung.
This is Danaus erippus, the Southern Monarch,
formerly considered the same species as our migratory one. It appeared to be
warming up in the mid-morning sun.
A few
participants were lucky to see a pair of Red-winged Tinamous cross the sandy
road, but I think everyone saw this small deer Mazama gouazoubira, the South American Brown Brocket, before it
dashed away.
It had
clearly been a wet dry season. It can be rather parched and dry this time of
year – early spring, but well before the summer rains start. A sign of the wet
winter was this blooming Aristolochia sp.,
a pipevine or dutchman’s pipe – the host plant for some species of Battus swallowtail.
We only
heard distant Red-legged Seriema and saw a White-bellied Nothura in flight, but
it was already time to leave for lunch in the city. This Whistling Heron was
seen from the bus as we left the area.
We spent a
rather quiet afternoon at the Santa Cruz Botanical Gardens just east of the
city. It was once a rather quiet place, little visited, and overgrown with
great birding trails. Things have “improved” over the years, and we actually
had to pay an entrance fee and share a parking lot with many others, then walk
the opposite direction of a wedding party.
One of the
highlights from the day was this Buff-throated Woodcreeper, which at this
moment had just finished swallowing a lizard that it had been whacking to death
against the tree trunk.
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