Ushuaia Argentina (27-28Feb2022)

We finally sailed into Ushuaia on the night of the 27th and did some unsatisfactory birding from the deck while docking.

They couldn't have picked a more beautiful place to put this city, nestled as it was at the foot of snow capped mountains on one side and the Beagle Channel on the other.

In the morning there was a mix of rain and sun with a cutting wind.  Our itinerary for the morning was to be shuttled to a prison museum in town and then to a hotel where we had a day room set aside for waiting for our shuttle to the airport.  It was all designed to limit interaction with the public which I get 100% but Matt and I just wanted to look for some birds.

Dolphin Gull at the dock.

This Southern Lapwing greeted us at the prison museum.  To be honest I don't know much about the museum because we were just walking the limited grounds looking for birds.  The museum did a good job making us feel like convicts because we were not allowed outside the fenced in area which was postage stamp sized.

In back of the buildings we found a Chimango Caracara feasting on some moths found in the grasses.

The next stop was the hotel, and we were told we could get fresh air outside if we wanted.  So Matt and I birded a little courtyard next to the hotel.

A southern subspecies of House Wren.  Maybe an arm-chair tick in the future.

Since we were allowed to get some air and the point of the "bubble" was to limit interactions with the public, we reasoned that a walk along the waterfront would be ok as long as we didn't talk to anyone.  We had about an hour only but we made the most of it.  We knew the ponds north of the anchorage downtown had some birds based on the long scope views we had earlier so we double-timed it down to that area.

A male Kelp Goose was the first to greet us at the waterfront.

A female Kelp Goose was not far away.

Dolphin Gulls foraged in the seaweed.

Brown-hooded Gull

Dolphin Gull

Imperial Shags / Cormorants

Juvenile Dolphin Gull

Rufous-chested Dotterel!  They were right in the area that we thought we saw them in when we left the harbor at the beginning of the trip.

Crested Caracara

Flying Steamer-Ducks!  Remember the species we had at the beginning of the trip were the Flightless ones, these are the smaller cousins that can fly.

They stayed fairly distant.

Kelp Geese

Southern Lapwing

Magellanic Cormorant or Rock Shag

Crested Duck!

Imperial Cormorant or Blue-eyed Shag

Dark-bellied Cinclodes - these are very similar to Gray-flanked but we were fairly confident in the ID based on the streaking and overall dark appearance.

Brown-hooded Gull

Crested Duck revealing the red velvet wing bars.

Not bad for a short walk along the Ushuaia waterfront!  We made it back with a few minutes to spare and jumped back on the shuttle to the airport.  We knew we had a couple more hours to our flight when we got to the airport, so instead of checking in Matt and I walked outside and went birding!  Airports are usually great places to bird and this one was no exception.

One of our first birds was this Dark-faced Ground-Tyrant.  Unfortunately we were not able to get closer before it flushed.

Long-tailed Meadowlark!  We had a really red looking male with red in the face but it was not super cooperative.

Buff-winged Cinclodes 

These Black-faced Ibis were absolutely stunning.

Buff-winged Cinclodes

Ok pardon the poor picture here but this was taken at long range on the other side of a chain-linked fence. We were looking at the two ducks in the middle but later in looking at my pics we noticed that we missed a lifer Red Shoveler on the far right side of the frame!  Its the only bird with such a honking bill in the area.

The ones in the middle were all Yellow-billed Teal

The coy adult male Long-tailed Meadowlark

And the juvenile male.

We had covered a mile or two and needed to get back to check in for the long flight home which included a midnight stop in the Bahamas for some reason related to security checks.

What an amazing trip!  Thanks to Matt for making it possible and extending the invite to me.  

Next post will cover some cool birds from Florida as I had a day layover in Miami on the way home.

Deception Isle and the Return Passage (25-27Feb2022)

Our last shore excursion was probably our best and made me wonder why we didn't do it first..  Apparently the landing at Baily Head on Deception Isle is very difficult and usually does not allow visitors to come ashore.  I made the mistake of not taking any iPhone pics or the ones I took were not any good, but basically Baily Head was a small beach landing in the shadow of a large cliff which opens up into a valley or amphitheater full of penguins, mostly Chinstrap. 

Most of the Chinstraps had already successfully bred and left the island but there still were thousands and they reached some staggering heights.  You might wonder why they would hike all the way up to the ridge lines but imagine this scene with 20x more penguins and you will understand the need to find new real estate.

Such a beautiful place and the penguins dotting all the hillsides just augmented the effect.

Here is a short video to give you some idea of the scale of the place.

And one video just because penguins can't be truly appreciated until you see them walk.  Apparently the way penguins walk is more efficient than most bipedal animals because they conserve energy by using a pivoting walk instead of having to lift legs up high and step forward.  That explains how they can walk so far despite looking so goofy while doing it.  It looks exhausting to walk like that, but I think they are onto something.  I am going to start waddling and see if I can store more energy as I get older.

Lindblad is onto something with the bright orange suits, it complements pictures nicely as if to say, these are real explorers even though most of these people were just sipping cocktails 20 minutes prior.

Silly me with my blue jacket. I stuck out like a sore thumb.

I love how the Chinstraps would be waddling purposefully and then just stop and take a nap.

After the walk at Baily Head amphitheater we hooked around the head and entered the caldera of the volcano which had opened up and created what is called Deception Island.  It is deceptive because from the outside it appears to be a large island, but if you enter the narrow entrance on the south side, it opens up into a large bay which is actually the caldera of an active volcano that has erupted several times over the past couple hundred years.

Picture thanks to Wikipedia.

One side of the entrance.

Inside the bay we found another ship for the first time the whole trip.  Lindblad does a good job of coordinating with other tour companies to give the impression that you are alone in the vast southern ocean but in reality there are a ton of tour operators circulating the same spots.

One of the cliffs on the way out was stained red presumably from Iron Ore.

I later found out by trolling eBird that someone had Antarctic Petrels flying in this area just one day before us!  So close but yet so far!

We said goodbye to Antarctica the best way we knew how, with cocktails and an excellent meal.  

The next day was spent crossing the infamous Drake, but again it was a very tame version of what it can be.  I think the tour leader planned it that way.  There were monster waves in the days prior that we didn't see because we stayed in sheltered fjords. 

White-chinned Petrel

One of our target birds for the return passage was the Royal Albatross complex which includes a Southern species and a Northern.  They both make their living in the same latitudes but breed on different islands off of New Zealand.

When this bird flew up close we saw that it was lacking the ear wax spot of a Wandering and appeared to have a nicer line delineating the bill so we knew we had one of our Royals.

When it banked and showed its dorsal surface we eliminated Northern Royal since they have solid black wings in all plumages. The Southern can have solid black wings when young so this is an older bird.

Later on I saw an Albatross without Matt which at the time thought was a Northern Royal based on the solid black wings but now that I study the pics, I think its a young Southern. So it turns out we both missed Northern.

At the time I ticked this as Northern Royal based on the dark leading edges to the wings and the solid black.  But now I see that there are small white patches in the center of the wings which would make this a young Southern Royal.  Young Wandering Albatrosses can also have black wings but they would also have a black tipped tail.

We got some better looks at Soft-plumaged Petrels mid Drake.  Very similar to Fea's.

We almost pooped ourselves when we saw this bird thinking Kerguelen Petrel, but we remembered that Sooty Shearwaters are common as you get closer to South America.

Great Shearwaters also made some appearances.

A few Gray-headed Albatrosses said their farewells.

Finally on the morning of the 27th we sighted land!  Cape Horn!  We ended up having to kill time for 3-4 hours while we waited for a pilot to be available to take us into the Beagle Channel.  Unfortunately the captain or whoever was steering decided to take us to a spot devoid of sea life, but on the way there we did see lots of birds and mammals at the Cape itself.

Black-browed Albatross were everywhere!

Dark morph of the Southern Giant Petrel

We went by some massive flocks of Sooty Shearwaters which had a few Greats peppered in.

As we rounded the horn, the wind died out and it made for some good photo ops.

Finally as we entered the channel, the Magellanic Penguins started to appear.

I managed to catch a seal in mid jump!

Magellanic 

Hard to tell size from this pic but this was a very small whale, I think Minke.

Dusky Dolphin!  New mammal species for me.

Some scenery pics from where we picked up the pilot.

Chilean Skua

Crested Caracara

What an awesome trip!  I would normally say a once in a lifetime trip, but I won't say that because I would love to go back and pick up the few birds I missed (Snow Petrel, Kerguelen Petrel and Antarctic Petrel).  Next time maybe I will do the longer trip including the Falklands and South Georgia!