Iguazu Argentina

Our second day at Iguazu Falls was on the Argentine side. We did three walks this day. We started the day by taking the little train to the last station and the Devil’s Throat trail.

There was lots of wildlife along the trail. The limpkin below has a snail in its mouth, it will drop it on the rocks in the river and extract the snail, leaving the shell on the rocks.

The top of the Devil’s Throat Falls is very wet, as the falls kicks up a lot of spray and mist. The day was already getting hot at 9:30am when we were there, most folks were dry by the time they got back to the train.

Then we took the train back to the beginning station and walked the upper falls trail. I saw what’s locally called a black eagle, but is probably a snail kite. It’s a somewhat rare sighting according to our guide.

There were numerous vultures circling over the falls. Here are a pair of black headed vultures resting on the ground.

The upper falls trail got close to the top side of a couple of the falls, but didn’t really have good views.

After lunch the rest of our tour group went on a boat ride where you approach the falls and get soaked by the spray. We went with the local guide to walk the lower falls trail. It is a bit longer and has many more steps, so I think that’s why they do the upper falls trail with the group instead of the lower trail. The lower trail has much better views of the falls and also had lots of wildlife.

Here is the Devil’s Throat from the lower Falls trail.

We got a good picture of a boat going into the spray of the falls from the lower trail.

There were numerous spiders in the area, the webs looked golden in the sunlight.

Walking by a small falls, our guide happened to notice a dusky swift on the wall. These birds nest on the walls behind the falls. This juvenile wasn’t quite ready to fly away from the nest. The nesting season was mostly over, so this was an unexpected sighting. They can cling to the near vertical rock behind the falls. The juvenile has its wings out. The nest is in the upper left.

Here are the Falls where we saw this. To the left of the right falls about half-way up, there is a vine arch. The birds were inside that arch. They match the rocks so well, Donna didn’t see them until she looked at my photo.

Then near the end of the walk others had spotted a toucan high in a tree.