30 Nov 25 - Argentina 25 - Penguin Island In The Beagle Channel

This is my third and final Blog Post in the trilogy covering the boat trip down the Beagle Channel to Martillo Island (Penguin Island). The first Post covered the islands just outside of Ushuaia where there are breeding colonies of Imperial Shags, Rock Shags and South American Sealions. The second Post covered the other Seabirds and a small pod of Commerson's Dolphins seen on the trip down to Martillo Island.

This boat was running about fifteen minutes ahead of our boat, to stagger visits to the various locations

Our skipper slowly parked the boat onto the beach at Martillo Island. The loafing around Penguins were clearly used to this and were completely unfazed by it.

Magellanic Penguin: Looking to the right where some of the Magellanic Penguin were resting

Magellanic Penguin: Magellanic Penguins dig out burrows under the bushes for their nests

Gentoo Penguin: There was also a compact Gentoo Penguin colony further back on the island

Magellanic Penguin: These Magellanic Penguins were only about ten metres from the boat and they didn't move as it was beached

Magellanic Penguin: Adult. This adult barely opened an eye as we beached

Magellanic Penguin: Juv. Zooming in on one of the juveniles

Magellanic Penguin: Another juvenile

Magellanic Penguin: There were also some Magellanic Penguins in the shallows

Magellanic Penguin

Magellanic Penguin: Looking in the water for food

Magellanic Penguin: The water is clear enough to allow a photo of this individual swimming underwater

Magellanic Penguin: Adult. They breed from coastal central Chile & central Argentina to Cape Horn & the Falkland Islands and winter as far North as South East Brazil

Magellanic Penguin: Thinking about going into the water

A closer view of the Gentoo Penguin colony.

Gentoo Penguin: This is the nominate papua subspecies which breeds locally in Tierra del Fuego, as well as, on the Falkland Islands

Fortunately, there were one or two photogenic Gentoo Penguins around the water's edge.

Gentoo Penguin: There are other two subspecies which breed on South Georgia and in the Antarctic Peninsula & neighbouring islands, respectively, with a third subspecies breeding on Macquarie Island & the South Indian Ocean islands of Prince Edward, Marion, Crozet & Heard Islands

Gentoo Penguin

I didn't realise it was possible to land on Martillo Island. Looking into this option, there is an operator who can land up to fifteen visitors. However, at just under three hundred quid per person, it's three times the price I paid and it would be hard to justify paying that price to get a bit closer to the Gentoo Penguins, if you were planning on a Southern Oceans trip.

Tourists with the Gentoo Penguins

There was a small colony of distant Rock Shags nesting on the cliff behind the left end of the beach. Other Birds on the beach includes some Imperial Shags, a few Upland Geese and a handful of Chilean Skuas.

Imperial Shags

Chilean Skua: They have a capped appearance. This monotypic species breeds along the coasts of South Chile & South Argentina and they range North to the coasts of South Peru & central Brazil outside of the breeding season

Chilean Skua: Like all Skuas, this one is on the lookout for an unguarded egg or chick

As we left, I spotted this navigation buoy with a few Rock Shags breeding on it, as well as, a few South American Sealions at its base.

This was a popular navigation buoy

A close up of the Rock Shags

A close up of the South American Sealions

We returned to Ushuaia about mid-afternoon and I wandered off to find a late lunch, before heading back to the flat. There were a couple of old Routemaster buses which are used for tourist runs around Ushuaia.

An old Routemaster bus: The colour scheme just looks wrong

An old Routemaster bus: Another thing that is wrong is having doors on the bus. The great thing about the Routemasters, is you could run after them and jump aboard a moving bus, if it had already pulled away. This was in the days when nobody worried about Elves and 'Elf & Safety wasn't as big a worry as today

I spent the rest of the day in the flat catching up on emails, backing up photos etc, as the next day I was headed off to Antarctica.

14 Jan 26 - A Perfect Winter's Day On Brownsea

Brownsea Island has been closed for the Winter since the end of the October half-term. This allows the Dorset Wildlife Trust and National Trust to do some of those annual maintenance jobs on the island, without risk to the public. As one of the regular Birders who is also a DWT volunteer on the island, I have been invited to pop over to help out with some high tide lagoon counts while the island was closed.

Looking towards the Brownsea Castle in the early morning sunshine

With the trip to Antarctica, I didn't have the time to get over in the back end of 2025, but I was keen to rectify this in the New Year. The first Wednesday of the year saw an icy lagoon with few Birds on it, but the following week looked good for a visit. It was a day when Poole Harbour would be between two days of solid rain, with crisp, still conditions. I met up with fellow Birding volunteer Phil Bentley for the National Trust staff boat and within ten minutes of departure, we were arriving at the Brownsea Quay. As we got off the boat, there was a shout that 'there was a Seal off the quay'. A quick naked-eye scan revealed a head popping up thirty metres from the quayside. Checking with the bins, it was the closest Grey Seal, I've seen in Purbeck. I mentally kicked myself for not bothering to take the proper camera, especially when it was still on view, when we left it, after ten minutes of watching it. A bonus flyby Kingfisher put in an appearance as it flew past the quay. My first Isle of Purbeck Year Tick for the day. It was time to head onto the check the lagoon.

I really like how this cobweb caught the light

It was a high tide between the neap tides (less than one point seven metres) and the spring tides (around two point three metres) and the high tide wasn't even two metres at the harbour mouth. On these tides, many of the Waders end up roosting close to their feeding areas, rather than being pushed onto the Brownsea lagoon. Still, there was a good selection of Waders on the high tide. A bonus was seeing my first Water Rail along with the expected Bar-tailed Godwits, for the Isle of Purbeck Year List. However, it wasn't the Water Rail or the Waders that were the highlight for the day: it was the lighting on the lagoon. There was a light frost and the sunny conditions were quickly burning off the frost and dampness from the previous day. It was time to grab some nice atmospheric photos of the lagoon.

It clouded over a bit and the lagoon had become more atmospheric, by the time we reached the Tern hide

After we completed the high tide lagoon count, we headed on for a cuppa in the DWT villa. After that the plan was to walk around the island and check from various viewpoints to see if we could relocate a Red-necked Grebe that had been briefly seen by the Birds of Poole Harbour bird boat on Sunday between Jerry's Point on Studland and Brownsea. Various locals including myself, had looked for it that afternoon and on the Monday, without joy. Phil and I were hoping that the still conditions would allow us to refind it. However, before I had finished my cuppa tea, I had a call from Graham Armstrong. He was watching the Red-necked Grebe from the Studland Houseboats. That narrowed down our search area considerably. Our tea mugs were quickly emptied and we headed off to Brownsea's South shore to view the South Deep channel. Phil and I only knew the direction Graham was looking at Studland, but we were looking from a completely different viewpoint, so we were almost starting from scratch. Fortunately, I picked the Red-necked Grebe up after a few minutes of scanning, fairly near to a Great Crested Grebe.

Another view of the Brownsea lagoon from the Tern hide

The Red-necked Grebe was my fourth Purbeck Year Tick for the day to take me to one hundred and sixteen and Green Woodpecker heard for the year. As always this follows the BOU taxonomy, but excludes any recent reintroductions and Feral Pigeons. It sounds a reasonable total, but I could add another ten species if I spent a day around the Purbeck coastline sites. However, all those species are Birds I will see without any trouble during Spring Birding. This year, I am focusing my efforts towards seeing the tricky species, rather than to get a big total quickly.

Looking back on the Avocet hide: It looks like somebody is vaping in the left hand side of the hide, but it is actually steam disappearing from the sun's rays on the hide

Avocet: An IPhone photo of these two squabbling Avocets next to the Tern hide. There was a large lagoon where they could feed without upsetting each other

We spent a couple of hours looking offshore from various viewpoints around Brownsea, before we headed off to catch the 14:00 boat back to Poole. The other highlights were the two wintering Slavonian Grebes off Redhorn, twelve Black-necked Grebes off Goathorn and four Great Northern Divers. It had been a brilliant visit and hopefully I will be able to support other high tide counts before the island reopens.

30 Nov 25 - Argentina 25 - Seabirds & Commerson's Dolphins In The Beagle Channel

Having left the Imperial Shag and South American Sealion colonies on one of the tourist boats from Ushuaia, we carried on down the Beagle Channel. The water conditions were like a millpond, which was the main reason for deciding to join this trip on my second day in Ushuaia.

Looking across the water to the most-Southerly town of Puerto Williams in Chile

Puerto Williams: It's possible to get a small boat from Ushuaia to Puerto Williams and then to take a thirty hour ferry ride to Punta Arenas. This could be an interesting ferry route to enter Southern Chile with opportunities to look for Seabirds, including Magellanic Diving-petrels, and Cetaceans. There are further ferries which would finally arrive at Chiloe Island after several further days of travel

The historical Cemetery at Mejillones on the Chilean Navarino Island: This cemetery dates to the first half of the 20th Century and contains the remains of the indigenous Yahgan people who were associated with an Anglican mission in this area. The last known Yahgan speaker died in 2022, although there are descendants who still live in Chile and Argentina

The conditions were ideal to look for Seabirds, albeit there weren't that many Black-browed Albatrosses or Southern Giant Petrels in the Beagle Channel. I guess some would have been around breeding colonies, whilst non-breeding individuals may have moved closer to the sea due to the lack of wind.

Black-browed Albatross: This is the nominate melanophris subspecies which breeds in the Antarctic & subantarctic islands, including islands off southern Chile, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, South Sandwich, Crozet, Heard & Kerguelen islands, Macquarie Island and New Zealand's Antipodes, Snares & Campbell Islands. They range across the Southern Oceans from North of the Antarctic Convergence to the Tropic of Capricorn

Black-browed Albatross: As we passed this individual, it decided to take off

Black-browed Albatross

Southern Giant Petrel: This monotypic species breeds on the islands & coasts of Antarctica to Heard & Macquarie Islands, as well as, off the coast of South Chile & Argentina. It ranges throughout the Southern oceans and generally South of the Antarctic Convergence

Southern Giant Petrel: They can be separated from Northern Giant Petrel, by having a pastel green tip to the bill, compared to the pastel red tip of Northern Giant Petrel. At a distance, these colours can be hard to see, with the bill of Southern Giant Petrels looking a pale uniform colour, whereas the bill of a Northern Giant Petrel looks dark-tipped

Southern Giant Petrel

Antarctic Fulmar: This monotypic species has a circumpolar distribution in Antarctic and breeds on islets & the coast of Antarctica. They range in the Southern oceans from the pack ice to the Humboldt Current off Chile & Peru

Antarctic Fulmar: They are a common species in the Beagle Channel and always nice to see

Antarctic Fulmar

Antarctic Fulmar: I really like the reflections in these photos. It's a treat to see water this still in the Beagle Channel. It was sea state 4 or 5 a couple of days earlier with white water everywhere

Further down the Beagle Channel is another set of small islands which have a large breeding colony of over one hundred pairs of South American Tern. Fortunately, the boat didn't get too close or try to stop. However, just passing close to the island flushed many of the adult Terns which will make the nest vulnerable to predation by passing Kelp Gulls and Chilean Skuas.

South American Tern: It would be good if some of the local Birders discussed with the boat operators about not sailing as close to the Tern Islands to reduce disturbance

South American Tern: This monotypic species breeds along the coasts of & islands of Southern South America & the Falkland Islands

South American Tern

When we were about thirty minutes away from reaching Martillo Island, I picked up three unobtrusive Dolphins occasionally surfacing ahead of us. I managed to get a few photos as they detected the boat and came racing in. Unlike the European species that I normally see being attracted to the boat, they didn't breach and only occasionally surfaced a couple of more times before they reached the boat on the port side. Being on the starboard wing, I was on the wrong side to see if they continued to be seen. Looking at the photos, I was pleased to see they were my first Commerson's Dolphins and one of my two main target species to look for in the Argentinian sections of the trip.

Commerson's Dolphin: Their Porpoise-size, unobtrusive manner, the dark triangular marking on the forehead and much paler body markings up to the small dorsal fin, identify these as my first Commerson's Dolphins

Commerson's Dolphin: It was great to see them, as I had missed them in the Falkland Islands back in Jan 23

Commerson's Dolphin: They occur in the far South of Chile and along the Argentinian Coast as far North as the Southern end of Buenos Aires province. There also occur around the coasts of the Falkland Islands and a second subspecies around the Kerguelen Islands

It had proved to be a good decision to pay the very steep price to take the boat ride on these calm conditions. I think I could easily have missed them given their unobtrusive actions, if the seas hadn't been mirror-calm. I will cover our arrival at Martillo Island in the final Blog Post for the day.

Magellanic Penguin: It was clear we were getting close to the Magellanic Penguin colony, when we started to see them in the water