After being picked up by Oscar from the airport in the bird001, a big well-equipped Toyota Land Cruiser, we started our Paraguay experience with a simple but good breakfast at a gas station (not the last time for any meal at such a location) as it was still too dark to think of birding, let alone photographing. We could drop our luggage at Oscar’s home and started birding in the nearby park and later in the botanical garden of Asuncion.

It became soon clear that Oscar was well prepared for our small (3 person) but very diverse group with 1 photographer, 1 birder (who also takes photographs) and a general nature lover. From the start he made sure we all felt our needs / wishes being looked after and this improved over the course of the 3-week trip.

After our renewed introduction to some common South American birds (we all had been in various South American countries before) we started quickly to go into the more specific Paraguayan birds that were the target of this trip.

Visiting most of the ecozones of Paraguay Oscar excelled in finding the various target birds in each habitat even with circumstances being far from normal; the past year(s) very few rains fell and most of the habitats where suffering from this drought. Most of the birds were found by his excellent hearing and knowledge of all the bird calls. Only when needed tape was used to lure the birds in, but he preferred no play back or whistling (with Ferruginous Pygmy Owl as his favorite), which proved very effective. While finding the target birds, he did also tell us a lot about the various habitats and their – often poor – conservation status. It became clear that Oscar, besides being an excellent guide, is also very involved in nature protection within Paraguay and he has an extensive  network of friends and colleagues that he uses to gain actual information of the places we were about to visit.

As we would visit some locations that did not have any restaurant nearby, we were prepared for some evenings with simple meals, but it turned out that Oscar on all these locations had arranged that someone would cook for us with the supplies we had bought on the road. This not only delivered us good meals but also more birding time!

With the program already tuned to our wishes, even during the trip it was – in consultation with us – changed to improve the chances of seeing some specific species. A proof of the flexibility Oscar showed during the whole trip.

After three weeks of excellent birding, we went home with a species list of 409 (for the birder), 120+ lifers (for the photographer) and a lot of knowledge of the ecosystems of Paraguay and most of all with the satisfaction of a very well organized and smoothly delivered Paraguayan experience by Oscar.

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All the best,Kees & Paul

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