ESTANCIA LAGUNA DEL MONTE & LIST
ARGENTINA
SAN ANTONIO OESTE (near) (Compass)
Lat:00o00´S/00o00´W ha topography msl
Protected/registered status
Best Time for visit (13th May, 2005)
Birding Site Guide
This is any excellent site and famous as being one of the easiest to see the endangered Yellow Cardinal. It is fairly easy to reach from San Antonio Oeste. Buses leave the Las Grutas terminal for Viedma at 7am and 7:30am. The road to to Viedma starts at a junction (El Cruce) 8km out of San Antonia. From here it is marked every kilometre, starting at 1139. Just after km 1101, there is a gate with a white tire next to it. A gravel road goes from there to Estancia Laguna del Monte. The gate was shut with a chain but I entered and asked permission to watch birds from an estancia worker. They will know you are there to see the cardenal and will point you the right way. You can walk North along the fence from the windmill. This meets up with a track and comes to a gate. After this there is good scrubby areas with many good birds including Yellow Cardinals, Brown and White-throated Cachalotes, Checkered Woodpecker and White Monjita. I saw 24 species including 7 lifers.
Species seen
Upland Goose Chloephaga picta Black Vulture Coragyps atratus Rufous-tailed Hawk Buteo ventralis Southern Caracara Caracara plancus Chimango Caracara Milvago chimango Southern Lapwing Vanellus chilensis Checkered Woodpecker Picoides mixtus Scale-throated EarthcreeperUpucerthia dumetaria Rufous Hornero Furnarius rufus Plain-mantled Tit-Spinetail Leptasthenura aegithaloides Cordilleran Canastero Asthenes modesta Firewood-gatherer Anumbius annumbiBrown Cacholote Pseudoseisura lophotes White-throated Cacholote Pseudoseisura gutturalisEndemic White Monjita Xolmis irupero House Wren Troglodytes aedon Chalk-browed MockingbirdMimus saturninus Patagonian Mockingbird Mimus patagonicus Mourning Sierra-Finch Phrygilus fruticeti Common Diuca-Finch Diuca diuca Yellow Cardinal Gubernatrix cristata EndangeredRufous-collared Sparrow Zonotrichia capensis Long-tailed Meadowlark Sturnella loyca Black-chinned Siskin Carduelis barbata
Other Fauna
A total of -- species of mammals.
There are -- recorded species of amphibians and reptiles.
Flora
Author: Charles Hesse
www.birdingsiteguide.com