Day 2: The Cruise Departs!

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Friday 20 December 2019 73 °F

Today my family and I slept in and around mid-day boarded our cruise ship, the Coral Princess! I was soon birding from the balcony where I saw this VIOLACEOUS CORMORANT:

The view of Buenos Aires from the port.

A few far-off landbirds — EARED DOVE:

And TROPICAL KINGBIRD:

Then, looking toward the ocean, I saw a few gulls fly by. As I have not seen any gulls here yet apart from the common Kelp Gulls, I knew these would be something good since they were much smaller than the Kelps. Yep, my lifer BROWN-HOODED GULLS! Awesome!

Up on the deck for the push-away from Port!

I was able to show my parents this CHIMANGO CARACARA, a life bird for me just yesterday:

As the ship left Buenos Aires, I met some other birders who are from Ireland and happen to also be on the ship! Too cool! So happy to be on a cruise with other birders — this has never happened to me before! It is the nature of the beast with this itinerary, though, because a cruise around Cape Horn would be much more likely to have avid naturalists than the Caribbean cruises I have been on previously. Here is the city as the ship left the port, with the verdant Reserva Ecological Costanera Sur (where I birded yesterday) in the foreground.

I was able to to some distant scoping of the mudflats there, where like yesterday there were BLACK-NECKED SWANS, SNAIL KITES, and SOUTHERN SCREAMERS among the indiscernible other bird-blobs in the distance.

This COCOI HERON posed for us much closer to the ship:

And a BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON flew over:

BLUE-AND-WHITE SWALLOWS formed large swirling swarms over the ship, catching insects as we exited the harbor:

And a regal pair of PEREGRINE FALCONS watched the scene from a nearby tower:

KELP GULL, which was the only bird to be seen once the ship reached the open sea. There was a distinct lack of seabirds which can be attributed to the fact that we aren’t truly in the “ocean” yet as the cruise between Buenos Aires and our next stop, Montevideo Uruguay, passes through really what could be considered a large strait or bay.