- We hired Daniel Somay as a guide for one of our days here.  This was money well spent.  We made contact through Explorador Expediciones (offices at the Sheraton Iguazú, telephone (03757) 421632; e-mail daniel.somay@rainforestevt.com.ar).  Daniel was an excellent guide, with a good knowledge of the local birds (by sight and by vocalization) and where to find them.  He also had excellent equipment, including tape for playback and digital pre-recorded calls, and knew just when—and when not—to use them.  I did not feel like he overused the tape as some guides do.  Without his knowledge and equipment we would not have seen many of the more secretive birds.

- An independent birder can hope to do quite well in the National Park.  A guide or a lot of personal experience and tape equipment is probably necessary to see the skulking species, but an independent birder can do quite well on his or her own with everything else.

- The Sheraton is very expensive, but a marvelous location for a birder, since it is right in the middle of everything.  This is especially true if you don’t have a car.  It also allows earlier access onto some of the trails near the Sheraton such as the Macuco and Yacaratia Trails.  It is not entirely clear how early one may enter those trails without the company of a guide, but 7:30 a.m. seems to be the official “opening” time.  I have heard varying reports on how strictly this is enforced. There is decent birding along the main road before then, especially in a wet, brushy area near the entrance to the Yacaratia Trail.

- There are many excellent hotels back in Puerto Iguazu at all price ranges, from inexpensive hostels, to simple but clean mid-range hotels, to higher end “full service” hotels.  Although it was the high season when we were there, other than the Sheraton everyone seemed to have plenty of room.  If you are staying in Puerto Iguazu it is helpful to have a car of your own (rentals at the airport).  A car also allows easier access to Road 101 and other outlying areas.

- A basic birding itinerary for Iguazu should include at a minimum some quality time along the Macuco Trail, Road 101 (the unpaved but decent quality road that leads into the National Park from a point a few kilometers from the airport), and around the Falls and main visitor center.  Notwithstanding the joy of watching Great Dusky Swifts cavorting about in the misty canyon around the Falls, any birder who doesn’t have the time to look at the Falls themselves needs to have a good long think about life’s priorities.   Note that some of the side tracks along Road 101 require prior permission (or be in the company of a local guide) to enter, but there is no shortage of good habitat right along Road 101 and the open side tracks.

- Be sure to include a stop at the Jardin de Picaflores (Hummingbird Garden) in Puerto Iguazu.  Hummingbirds can be tough in the forest, and publicly available feeders are not too common in this part of the world.  For directions see the report at http://www.surfbirds.com/trip_report.php?id=697 (but note that it isn’t quite as obvious as it looks.  We followed these directions, then wandered around for a couple of blocks before locating the actual garden).  This lovely spot is the private garden of a Puerto Iguazú family, now open to the public upon payment of a modest A$5 per person.   One simply sits quietly on a comfortable bench and watches the whir and zip of dozens of hummingbirds coming to the many feeders placed about the yard.  Marile Castillo, the proprietress, is very friendly and will often sit with guests and talk about the hummingbirds and the garden.  She knows the bird names and a few key terms in English, but otherwise Spanish is required for conversation.  In an hour at the garden we had terrific views of VERSICOLORED EMERALD (including one smaller than small juvenile still perched on a twig begging for food), GILDED HUMMINGBIRD, PLANALTO HERMIT (only came in once in a while—so shy for such a big hummer), BLACK-THROATED MANGO, VIOLET-CAPPED WOODNYMPH, and VERSICOLORED EMERALD.  Also at the feeders were the seed-spill riff-raff, including RUDDY GROUND DOVE, EARED DOVE, SHINY COWBIRD and SAFFRON FINCH.  A pair of SAYACA TANAGERS made an appearance, and a BLUE-FRONTED PARROT flashed by (we didn’t get a good look at it, but saw one later in the National Park).  Other trip reports have mentioned other good species here including Black Jacobin.

- The edge of this area is about a 4-5 hour drive from Iguazu.    The closest larger airport (with standard commercial flights) is Posadas, perhaps an hour and a half drive away.  Highway 12 is an excellent road, usually one or two lanes on each side, no potholes, and not too crowded.  It is a toll road, but the total tolls in about a 200 Km drive was A$10 or so.  Be careful at the junction on to South 105 (junction about 10 Km east of Posadas)—from Highway 12 westbound the junction is not marked at all—it is a simple cutoff right before the police checkpoint.  We continued on past the checkpoint on Highway 12 and in to the Posadas outskirts before realizing our error.  Highway 105 is well marked from Posadas (i.e. heading eastbound on Highway 12).  Also note that we had a PLAIN-BREASTED GROUND DOVE (rare in Argentina) right at this intersection.

- At the town of San Jose Boqueron turn off on to Highway 14 (rather than around on 105 through Santo Tome).   Highway 14 is in fine condition and it will shave off some kilometers as compared to going through Santo Tome. 

- The intersection of Road 40, the route in to Carlos Pellegrini and the Ibera marshes, is fairly obvious.  The road was a maintained dirt road, with the surface covered by the ubiquitous gravely red dirt.  The recent rains made the shoulders a little soft, but the road surface itself was well drained and quite drivable in our little rental car.  I would not have wanted to be on the road while it was raining.  Frequent deep ruts showed what the surface looked like just a day before.  The road continued like this for about 46 Kilometers, passing through excellent open country habitat with outstanding birds.  After the bridge over the Rio Aguapey the road is no longer maintained.  The gravel coating is gone and the natural sandy surface is all you get.  Even a full day after the rains the sand was still very soft.  After about two kilometers of this, and realizing that the road surface would continue this way for at least another 40 kilometers or so, we decided to abandon further efforts to drive this way and instead concentrate on the very birdy segment we had already passed through.  Just turning the car around on this stretch—during which we almost got badly stuck—reinforced our decision not to continue on that road with the car we had.  With a short schedule this is probably adequate, but with more time it is probably better to rent 4WD and drive deeper in to Ibera proper.  We had the feeling that however good the birding, we were only on the fringe of the area.   Ibera deserves a trip of its own, not this little spot-check into the margins, but I’ll take what I can get!

- Santo Tome makes a good base for excursions into the area we covered, even if it is not exactly high on the list of most-visited destinations for North American travelers.  If you can get deeper into the marshes, Carlos Pellegrini would probably be much better, not to mention more scenic.  If you do find yourself in Santo Tome, you will have to do some looking to find food and lodging.   We located two hotels, one noisy looking place near the bus station and one simple, quiet place on edge of town.  One of the guidebooks mentions what sounds like a more upscale place somewhere in the town, but we didn’t find it (and didn’t have any instructions for finding it at the time).   We chose “quiet and simple”, and had a very peaceful night.  The hotel didn’t seem to have any name other than “Hotel”.  It is located near the intersection of Av. Alvear and Av. San Martin.  Driving south on Highway 14 from the Road 40/Pellegrini intersection, there is a sign indicating a cutoff into Santo Tome.  Follow that road for a couple of kilometers until you reach a stoplight (two decent grocery stores right at this corner).  At this stoplight turn left (north) on Av. Alvear and you will see the hotel sign on the right within a few hundred meters of your turn.  Just beyond the hotel is Av. San Martin.  We also located  what seemed like the only restaurant in town (OK, I’m sure there were more, but we couldn’t find them), down Av. San Martin in the “city center.”  The restaurant was an Italian one, “El Tuscano.”  We had delicious pizza and good, large bottles of cold Argentine beer.   It was a very friendly place and we felt quite comfortable there. 

Birds of Argentina & Uruguay,  T. Narosky and D. Yzurieta (Vazquez Mazzini Editores:  Buenos Aires, 1993).  The second English edition was the real workhorse for this trip.  At first glance this is not a very appealing field guide.  The illustrations look terrible and the text is terse and abbreviated.  The binding is poor and the guide will fall apart with heavy field use.  However, actually using the guide greatly improved my impressions of it.  Narosky’s descriptions are extremely helpful.  He consistently draws the user to the precise marks one needs to make key distinctions, similar species, etc.  We found ourselves thinking that being in the field with Mr. Narosky would be an incredible experience! The biggest problem with the illustrations, I believe, is the printing rather than the drawings themselves.  Poor Mr. Yzurieta must have been livid over what the publisher did to his paintings and drawings.  As is, they are usable, but better if supplemented (see below).

Aves de Argentina y Uruguay, same authors.  This is the same guide in its original Spanish.  Now in a spiffy new (2003) edition, this guide has been greatly improved.  If only there was an English translation of this revised version!  The printers did a much better job, although many pages seem too dark, and illustrations of certain families still leave something to be desired.  The generally darker, sharper, print greatly improves the helpful background habitat sketches.  The taxonomy is updated, species added, order changed and range maps significantly revised.  This is a much better guide than it was before, and really helped us once we found a copy in the Sheraton Iguazu gift shop.  Note that the Narosky species numbers are different in this version than in the English edition.

The Birds of South America,  Robert Ridgely and Guy Tudor (University of Texas Press:  Austin, 1989 and 1994).  I color photocopied key plates for certain species (especially funariids, pipits, finches) as well as some of the text from this volume as a supplement to Narosky.  We found the combination to work very well. Some of our identifications were only possible after cross-checking this source.  A larger group could probably afford the weight luxury of bringing the actual volumes, but that would have made my pack heavier than it already was.  I am very reluctant to cut out plates unless I have the advantage of a second copy that can stay intact.

Vida y Color (Life and Color) series, text and photos by Maria Luisa Petraglia de Bolzon and Norberto Domingo Bolzon.  I found the Iguazu (2000) and the Ibera (2003) editions to be very helpful.  The bulk of the text is in Spanish, but there is an English language text translation in the back, and species names are given in Spanish, Latin and English.  In addition to interesting general narrative on the natural history of these regions, there are helpful lists of mammals, birds and other flora and fauna, with small but nice photographs of many of the species listed.  We bought our copies in the Sheraton Iguazu gift shop and used them as a supplement to our field guides.

Birds of Chile, Alvaro Jaramillo (Princeton Univesity Press:  Princeton, 2003).  This marvelous book is quite useful as a supplemental resource for Argentina, especially for the western and southern provinces.

Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, Louise Emmons (University of Chicago Press:  Chicago, 1990).  Very helpful for the Iguazu area, but the southern areas of this trip are beyond the coverage of this volume.

Where to Watch Birds in South America, by Nigel Wheatley (Princeton University Press:  Princeton, 1995).  Perhaps a little general, perhaps a bit dated, but this is still an extremely useful book for trip planning, for working up study lists of target species and, of course, for birding when in the covered locations.  As with all bird finding guides it is important to remember that the lists are of POSSIBLE species, not necessarily a list of LIKELY birds.  You can’t get discouraged if you don’t see everything listed for the region you just visited.

Rough Guide to Argentina.  Of the many general travel guides to Argentina this seemed to me to be the best of the lot, or at least the most suitable for birders and our typical destinations in this country.  Undoubtedly others could be just as good.

Rough Guide Map to Argentina.  I liked this one best of the various country maps I looked at prior to departure.  It is durable, waterproof and has good coverage of the areas I visited

Automapa series.  We used the provincial maps for Corrientes and Misiones from this series, which were fine.  We bought them in Argentina, but surely they must be available SOMEWHERE in the USA or Britain or perhaps available at a website.

Canto de las Aves, by Roberto Straneck.  I bought and brought with me the entire series of bird call tapes, consisting of 8 cassettes and matching booklets.  They were a little bulky, but very useful.  I prefer tapes when they are organized taxonomically rather than by biogeographical region, such as this series, but I’ll take what I can get!  The recordings are clear and of sufficient length.  A few of the tracks on the cassettes don’t match up with the order in the booklets.  Someone more technologically sophisticated than I am would record these on to his or her i-pod or mini-disk, then have them all available for immediate recall.  I purchased my set from Bird Songs International at http://www.birdsongs.com/.  Since the closure of that operation, perhaps you can find them at Wildsounds,  http://www.wildsounds.co.uk/.

Field Check-list to the Birds of Argentina, Roberto Straneck (L.O.L.A:  Buenos Aires, no date).  This quadrilingual (Latin, Spanish, English, German) checklist was useful for reference and planning.

The Birds of Argentina, compiled by Russell Rogers for the International Field Checklist Series.  This checklist includes English and Latin names, plus columns for daily marks.  The format is greatly reduced in size, though, making it hard to put much of anything but a checkmark in a given space (I usually like to put in numbers of individuals or other code marks), plus it is out of date, so I don’t really recommend its use.  There were also some perplexing omissions of common birds (e.g. Brown-headed Gull, Masked Yellowthroat, Yellow-winged Blackbird).  Next time I’ll make my own checklist using web resources.

Avibase, Checklists of the World (accessed via Denis Lapage’s Bird Links to the World, http://www.bsc-eoc.org/links/links.jsp.  Current taxonomy with English, Latin and world status (threatened, vulnerable, etc.). 

- For traveling within the country there are a number of options, depending on the time available, the trip budget and the distance of the locations.  Domestic air travel is not as expensive as we had expected, but don’t overlook the excellent network of long range overnight buses.   They leave from an enormous terminal in Buenos Aires and are well-timed to allow a night departure with a morning arrival at the destination.  The seats tilt back far enough to allow a reasonable chance for a good night’s sleep.

- Car rental is always a possibility, and cars are available, but for the independent traveler I would recommend only renting for local transportation with the longer stretches covered by bus or plane.