Friday, September 29, 2023

Great to see our lovely reserve is once again a wetland. We have had around 450mm of rain during the past month and what a difference it has made. May it continue!

Saturday, June 3, 2023
We have had to take expensive emergency measures and have invested in 1.5km of electric fencing which is proving successful at keeping the cattle out of the garden and around the houses at least. In the north we are committed to replacing 2km of destroyed fencing (partly by the wildfires last year). This is all costing us a lot of money and we are having to compromise on various projects to channel our funding toward just keeping our neighbour’s cattle out.

Saturday, June 3, 2023
For the past 4 months we have had large invasions of our neighbours cows in our pristine land, tampling down our native species’ habitat and coming into our garden.

Evidence of our neighbour’s cattle invading our reserve. At times we have more than 100 cattle from various neighbours.

Wednesday, April 5, 2023
We were delighted to capture this unusual looking, rare bat in one of our nets at the reserve on 30/03/2023. This is the first time we have seen this bat here and believe that it is the first ever captured in Esteros del Ibera.

Pygoderma bilabiatum is usually only found in Misiones, Salta & Jujuy although it has been found in Corrientes, near the border with Misiones.This is quite a large extension of its range. The bat was released unharmed after weighing & measuring.

Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Here is another photo of our new conservatiion land near San Pedro in Misiones. The highest part of the land is 530m asl.

This is the stream at the southern end of the lot.

Tuesday, December 20, 2022
We have just completed the purchase of 100 hectares of prime native woodland near San Pedro in Misiones.We intend to keep the land as it is and only form a path down to the stream at the southern end of the land, where we may build a platform for birding. We also plan to do bat research in due course.

Friday, October 14, 2022

We are delighted to find Reserva Don Luis teeming with birds, some of which we have not seen before or not for many years. In spite of the awful fires in February, the birds are definitely back. This is Aguilucho Pampa or Black-collared Hawk which we are seeing in the south of the reserve and which is probably breeding.

Friday, October 14, 2022

We took part in the Global birding weekend bird count for EBird on Saturday 8 Oct. This is a worldwide count of species taking place over a 24 hour period. Our team at Reserva Don Luis managed to count 152 different species and we were top team in our province of Corrientes, 3rd best count in Argentina. Congratulations to all the team.

Monday, December 19, 2022

We discovered this beautiful Diaemus youngii in the north of Misiones province during the past few days. Its common name is White-winged Vampire bat and it is rare.

It looks similar to the ubiquitous Common Vampire Bat, Desmodus rotundus, but has suble differerences, including white wing tips and edging.

Friday, September 29, 2023
We discovered these 2 beautiful recently fledged Barn Owl chicks using a box of firewood placed outside our first build Lodge – Tito alba.

Up until recently they have been using the beautiful owl box that was designed and built by Cepi Oporto, one of our trustees.