I spent an hour and a half in the park yesterday watering thirsty young trees. And yet today I see for the first time that the teros have two babies – checking out the main path that crosses from one side to the other. We stopped here, before mama and papa decided to make a fuss!
Southern Lapwings (Tero Comun, Vanellus chilensis)
Maguari stork (Ciconia maguari) and ducks
Its presence upsets the teros (Southern lapwing – Vanellus chilensis), but it clearly has no attention of going anywhere. They were hassling it when I arrived, and still an hour later.
With the camera I have, very difficult to see subject in bright light
I have not spent much time in the campo lately, and was fully expecting to see the baby tero-teros.
Instead, I was not greeted by noise. The teros, near the tajamar (pond), remained quiet until I approached to check the water level.
Here’s the nest. Empty. No eggs, no shells, nothing. I don’t know what transpired, but apparently we won’t be seeing little teros this summer.
Meanwhile, the water level has subsided in the tajamar with our recent suffocating heat. The grasses I planted to the left are high and dry, but hanging in there (and I learned that the second type of mystery floating plants, which I did not add, were put there by my neighbor Mañuel).
I try to keep my blogs short, so that if one is boring, at least, well, it’s short. But since we’re on the subjects of teros and water, I must relate a revelation: an Uruguayan guy about my age told me that when he was a kid, visiting his grandfather’s estancia (big country place), the teros hung around the water, in the thousands. When they took flight, they formed a cloud that blocked out the sun. With the advent of “modern” (i.e., unsustainable) agriculture, they adapted: so now you see them only in pairs, far from water, near streets, even on Avenida Italia in Montevideo. I never dreamed they could exist in a crowd.
