More birds

Life at Laguna Blanca is often unpredictable. For the past week we've been without internet, we have no fridge at the moment and this morning at 4am the power decided to cut out and didn’t return until 4pm. Paraguay is definitely no place for the impatient. I found the best way to deal with the unpredictability is to adopt the Paraguayan attitude and just relax – the power returns when the power return and hey who needs internet anyway? This approach served me well on mine and Dutch intern Fi’s most recent attempt to get the bus to town to get some much needed fruit and biscuits. Having woken up at 6am, power walked/ ran down the half hour dirt track to reach the bus stop for 7am only to be told by a local man who watched us sit by the side of the road for an hour, that the bus wouldn't be arriving for another 3 and a half hours. The news didn't surprise me and my mind began pondering what fun things I could now do on my morning off as we headed back down the red sandy track. Fi on the other hand has yet to adopt this approach and swore pretty much the whole way back. That would have been me a month back so I feel obliged to thank Paraguay for a more stable blood pressure.

Since my last blog I've been out mist netting on 3 other occasions, still in the cerrado but with some smaller but less holey nets.

Untangling a little nightjar (Caprimulgus parvulu), these are one of my favourite species of bird, they have cryptic plumage and huge gape for catching insects at night.

 Chaco earth creeper (Upucerthia certhiodes)

Narrow-billed woodcreeper (Lepodocolaptes angustirostris)

Sayaca tanger (Thraupis sayaca)

Red pileated finch female (Coryphospingus cucullatus)

Huming bird -Planalto hermit (Phaethornis pretrei)

 Ruddy ground dove(Columbina talpacoti)

Tropical kingbird (Tyrannus melancholicus) - despite looking ominous the bill of these fly catchers is soft an light. 

The next few days will entail more mist netting, trail maintenance and the arrival of the new primate volunteer Alexa.

I have plenty more wildlife pictures to upload but the internet is slow and the pasta mush is ready so I'm, afraid they'll have to wait.