The WHSRN Executive Office is excited to announce that Estancia Medaland has been designated as a WHSRN site of Regional Importance, becoming the 105th site to join the Network!
Estancia Medaland is a privately-owned cattle ranch, situated near the Atlantic coast of Argentina in the southeast of Buenos Aires Province. The site covers a total of 3,800 hectares of natural grassland, and is owned by the sisters Amanda and María Eugenia Arbelaiz, who have managed the property for livestock for many decades.
The importance of the site for grassland shorebirds first came to light in the 1970s when ornithologists surveyed the area (among them, WHSRN’s future first Chair, Pete Myers). The survey revealed high numbers of American Golden Plover (Pluvialis dominica) and Buff-breasted Sandpiper (Calidris subruficollis). Counts of Buff-breasted Sandpipers reached 2,000 individuals in a single day.
Left: Buff-breasted Sandpipers (Calidris subruficollis). Right: Tawny-throated Dotterel (Oreopholus ruficollis), a grassland shorebird restricted to South America, at Estancia Medaland. Photo: Natalia Martínez-Curci.
More recent surveys conducted by the Southern Cone Grassland Alliance revealed much lower counts, leaving Estancia Medaland below the threshold required for a WHSRN site nomination. Nonetheless, Ángeles Loredo, who led the successful site nomination, was confident that Estancia Medaland was still a key site for non-breeding grassland shorebirds, and suggested it was crucial to carry out a comprehensive survey. To verify the site’s ongoing importance, in December 2017 a team of seven shorebird biologists conducted such a survey. The team was made up of Natalia Martínez-Curci, Ángeles Loredo, Juan P. Isacch, Matías Pretelli, Matilde Cavalli, Germán García and Nicolás Chiaradia. Juan P. Isacch had previously studied grassland shorebirds at Estancia Medaland in the 1990s.
The survey team. Ángeles Loredo, third from left, led the successful site nomination to designate Estancia Medaland as the 105th site in the Network. Photo: Ángeles Loredo.
The survey was a success. Both American Golden Plover and Buff-breasted Sandpiper were recorded in high numbers. The Buff-breasted Sandpiper numbers were especially noteworthy, with a total count of 1,010 individuals – or 1.8% of the species’ global population. The site was also found to hold over 1% of the southern cone population of the Tawny-throated Dotterel (Oreopholus ruficollis), a grassland shorebird restricted to South America.
Rufous-chested Dotterel (Charadrius modestus), another grassland species restricted to South America (left) and Pectoral Sandpipers (Calidris melanotos), another migratory grassland species (right), at Estancia Medaland. Photos: Natalia Martínez-Curci.
Estancia Medaland joins a network of other WHSRN sites of significance for Buff-breasted Sandpiper, including Bahía Samborombón (Argentina), Lagoa do Peixe (Brazil), Barba Azul Nature Reserve (Bolivia), Bahía de Asunción (Paraguay), Laguna de Rocha (Uruguay), and the Flint Hills and the Rainwater Basin (both WHSRN Landscapes in USA).
Left: Natalia Martínez-Curci and Matilde Cavalli during the comprehensive shorebird survey at Estancia Medaland. Photo: Matias Pretelli. Right: Shorebirds and cattle share the ranch. Photo: Ángeles Loredo.
Please join us in welcoming Estancia Medaland and its partners to the Network!
