This report is a work in progress, as I find time... XZX indicates more information is needed.

I searched the Internet and could not find a birding trip report for Uruguay! I recently married a Uruguayan lady, and came to Uruguay for a few weeks Feb. 1, 2008. Please note I always travel by bus; this way I save time (valuable sleeping or reading time) and money, and possibly hurt the environment less in the process. I also feel more safe, compared to driving a car in a country I am not familiar with, and where the safety standards are probably less than my country.

One other environmental note about Uruguay and Argentina: recycling is done by the street people, and from what I saw they do it very well. So when you throw out your trash, be sure to clean the containers and keep similar materials together.

Much of my time was in the Montevideo area, and not by choice. My first-day visit to the local city park, Parque Rodo, was a pleasant surprise. I left feeling I had seen about 20 species, including a kingfisher, hummingbirds, coots, a (I believe) Green Heron, Neotropic Cormorants, the beautiful Red-crested Cardinal, Monk Parakeets, Rufous Horneros, and a number of song birds I could not identify. So I was very optimistic about Uruguay.

I generally visit zoos because they attract a lot of native birds, maybe because of the chances to grab food meant for other animals. I am not enthusiastic about zoos, but feel that the positives zoos offer (education mainly) compensate for negatives. Montevideo has two zoos. Parque Lecocq is a large open area with just a few cages. It is a great location to see and photograph the Greater Rhea. Otherwise there are mostly farm animals, and the normal birds of the Uruguayan countryside. On this trip we found the Golden-breasted Woodpecker and the common Southern Lapwing, and a few other common birds, but not too much else. But I was there at the wrong time of the day, and the large pond looked like a great birding area.

The Montevideo municipal zoo is more like a regular zoo, and perhaps below US standards. The duck pond has just a few local species and Black-necked Swans. A second pond had Red-gartered Coots, flycatchers, Black-crowned Night-herons, and White-throated Herons. I don't know how many of these birds were there by choice. There are also two Maguari Storks, who perhaps were injured or had their wings clipped, and Chilean Flamingos. The entrance to the zoo is about one dollar US, so worth the price if you can bear seeing some of the mammals in small cages and don't have ethical objections to zoos.

Parque Riviera is a similar city park to Parque Robo, with a pond. It is larger so probably is a little better for birding. XZX I have not visited it.

In Piriapolis and Punta del Este, two popular tourist destinations, there are a lot of rocky beaches, where you commonly see American Oystercatchers and a host of other plovers and gulls. Around these cities I saw the Bare-faced Ibis, Great Grebe, Campo Flicker, Guira Cuckoo, and two species of hummingbirds. Search for Uruguay on BirdPhotos.com to see a few photos. Ilsa Garita near Punta del Este has a lot of shore birds (gulls, plovers, Neotropic Cormorants and oystercatchers) and a pair of Southern Caracaras.

My second trip was to the state of Rocha. Bosque de Ombues (forest of Ombu tress) is a nice place to visit. Ombus are a tree-like plants which grow in irregular shapes. You can take a boat from the bus stop, but we walked about 2 kilometers through cow fields. The forest itself it rich with songbirds, many of which I could not identify. I think there are so few forests in Uruguay that most of them have good concentrations of birds. Please remember I am a photographer and not a 'birder' and I live in the US right now. The Giant Wood-Rail is common here. The park ranger here is a tremendously knowledgeable person who guides trips all over the world. It was my impression that his knowledge is so impressive that he can fill trips without even having a web page. XZX more info.

Cabo Polonia is a nice place for a tourist to visit. It is connected to a protected area that looked very promising for bird watching, but the transportation took us to the tourist area. There is a lighthouse, many dunes, and a lot of seals. I found a colony of Burrowing Owls here, which are common in Argentina/Uruguay.

The city of Rocha has a nice natural area which leads into the zoo that should not be visited. One cage had a night heron, two owls and two hawks living together. I am of course ok with caged birds if they are injured, but many birds in this zoo were clearly not injured.

Colonia is an important tourist city which is now adjacent to a just-planned gigantic European resort. Close by is the "House of Birds", a private residence that claimed it kept birds for education. There were hundreds if not thousands of small birds of all sorts in small cages, and it was clearly not about education. This place should not be visited, and should be reported.

Everything I read was that Laguna del Rocha was the most important birding area, and the must-see place to go. I stayed one night in Rocha (the city), and took a morning bus to La Paloma (where I should have stayed). A taxi took me to a spot about 8 kilometers in the direction of Montevideo, along the lake and also along the beach. I was told Laguna del Rocha was brackish water, but the level was low and it did not connect to the ocean. I could see at a different time of year that it would. There are a lot of shore birds to be seen here of all types, including stilts. I was happy to see two Southern Screamers and a dozen Coscoroba Swans. Also a dozen or so Scarlet-headed Blackbirds. The Chilean Flamingos were nowhere to be seen, but are there at other times of the year, I am told. There is a blind for viewing birds, but it is quite far from the water (perhaps because the level is low) so I didn't get many shots. XZX more info of species seen.

I was told the other great location in Rocha is the freshwater area south of Route 14 between XZX and XZX north of Laguna XZX. I did not visit that area. Some things are difficult without a car, and also without and local information. Much of Uruguay is private property, although I was told the area directly connected to a laguna or beach is always public.

So to summarize, there are birds in Uruguay and they seem to be evenly distributed in the country. I hope this information has been useful to you,

tom friedel

editor, BirdPhotos.com