Pearson-1990 6 November 17- Bariloche. When I looked out our bedroom window at 6:30 a.m. (still completely dark), two or more bats were flying back and forth, almost within reach, seemingly cornering insects in the corner between our building and the wall next door. November 18- Warm and sunny. Bamboo in morning. Left for Comallo after lunch. Stopped for a sample of real Ephedra along the road about 5 km beyond Pilcaniyeu. They are putting in a gas pipe line between Pilcaniyeu Viejo and beyond Comallo. We stopped at the cliffs 11.5 km by road south of Comallo, east of the road, a place that I think I called 10km S Comallo in earlier notes. There are no big caves here, but lots of broken rock and small caves that are dry and would seem to be satisfactory for accumulation of amber. Viscacha dropping begin about halfway up the slope from the road to the cliff, and are abundant in places along the bottom of the cliff. In some places they were mixed Phyllotis-sized droppings, but in general not many mouse droppings. In one place there were droppigns, rocks, and a giant Ephedra bush in close proximitiy, but no amber. The slope was very dry, even the Calceolaria were withering. Then drove south another half km to a rocky cavye place to the west of the road, just before the road starts switchbacking up a long grade. No viscachas there, no Phyllotis-sized droppings, although the rocks and caves are pretty good. No Ephedra. We scared an Ibis off her stick nest up on the rock face, A horned owl sat on the cliff and watched us get pretty close, Picked up one new, wet, droppings that seems to have no fur in it. Another dry similar one. Then another horned owl took off from the ground under a rock on the hillside. One of the two eggs rolled out from its nest under this rock and broke when the owl took off. Then drove back about 1 km toward Comallo and climbed up to some more cliffs. Vizcacha droppings but no amber. Anita noticed from up there that there seemed to be Mima mounds on two flat areas, one on each side of the road (the new pipe line is on the west side of the road here. The mounds were in dry dry "pasture" covered with a small dried up annual, and several of them had what appeared to be old tuco burrows on them, as well as other smaller holes. I dug two holes between mounds; the earth was very fine, dry, for the first 1.5 feet, then I hit small rocks, but they were not impenetrable and could be penetrated with some effort. Nearby the road had been ditched and one could see a distinct layer of stones at a depth of about 2 feet. See photo. Then drove up the pipeline road away from the main road and camped overnight. The vegetation is very dry, many sage bushes dead, Cola de Pichi thriving. November 19- In spite of the drought, many mouse footprints in the dust in the morning. Drove back the road toward Comallo about a mile (maybe 10km by road S of Comallo) and found a better display of Mima mounds on the west