25 Dec 25 - A Nice Christmas Present

During Christmas morning, I looked out of the living room window and saw there was a Sparrowhawk about four metres from the window looking at me. It was sitting on a low Pittosporum bush, which has been popular with the occasional visiting Blackcap feeding on the bush's red berries. Additionally, my local House Sparrows and Dunnocks can often be seen moving within the bush.

Sparrowhawk: I'm quite impressed with this photo considering it was taken through a double-glazed window

The Sparrowhawk spent a few minutes looking around and when it didn't see any targets, it finally flew out down my neighbour's drive.

Sparrowhawk

This Blackcap might have been what the Sparrowhawk was after. One appeared around mid-Dec and I've seen the odd visitor since then. On the day this photo was taken, I had my highest garden total with a male Blackcap and three Browncaps in the Pittosporum.

Blackcap: It's difficult to be sure if this is a female or a first winter male (12 Jan 26)

1 Dec 25 - Argentina 25 - A Final Walk Around Ushuaia

I woke early as I had a number of things to sort out before I left the flat to drop the bags with Oceanwide Expeditions. A quick scan of the quay confirmed the Ortelius was tied up.

Ortelius is the middle ship on the right hand jetty

As previously mentioned in an earlier Blog Post, this is a flat I wouldn't recommend. However, it had one positive thing, it was only a ten minute walk to drop the bags off. I then headed off to the Urban Reserve which is next to the city.

The view of the Urban Reserve from the flat

There is a raw look to the Urban Reserve: However, the scenery behind is stunning

I'm sure I would find similar raw-looking areas next to some of the high Arctic towns

There was a selection of Ducks on the water, which included over two hundred Crested Ducks, fifty Flying Steamerducks and a handful of Red Shovelers and Speckled Teal.

Crested Duck: This is the nominate specularioides subspecies which occurs from central Chile & Argentina to Tierra del Fuego & the Falkland Islands

Crested Duck: There is a second subspecies which occurs in the Andes of North Chile & North Argentina to Peru & Bolivia

Flying Steamerduck: This monotypic species occurs in South Chile & South Argentina. They also occur on the Falkland Islands, where they are a scarce species

Flying Steamerduck: Note, the thinner and less orange bills compared to the Flightless Steamerducks

Flying Steamerduck: The males also have darker heads than Flightless Steamerducks

Red Shoveler: This monotypic Duck is probably my favourite of the Latin American Wildfowl. They occur from South Peru & South Brazil to Tierra del Fuego & the Falkland Islands

Night Heron: Adult. This is the obscurus subspecies which occurs from North Chile & North-central Argentina to Tierra del Fuego. There are two other New World subspecies to the North of this subspecies and on the Falkland Islands, respectively

Night Heron: Juv

Night Heron: Another adult

After the lake at the Urban Reserve, I walked along the path next to the stream that flows into the lake. It didn't take long to find a feeding Magellanic Snipe. They are very approachable compared to our Snipe, which typically would have flushed as soon as it saw me.

Magellanic Snipe: This is the nominate magellanica subspecies which occurs from central Chile & Argentina to Tierra del Fuego & the Falkland Islands

Magellanic Snipe

There was a party of three Long-tailed Meadowlarks at the end of the stream, as well as, a Chimango Caracara and a few Southern Lapwings by the houses that are adjacent to the Southern end of the reserve.

Long-tailed Meadowlark: This is the nominate loyca subspecies which occurs in Chile & Eastern Argentina as far South as Tierra del Fuego

Long-tailed Meadowlark: Two other subspecies occur in the North West of Argentina, with a third subspecies on the Falkland Islands

Long-tailed Meadowlark: This looks to be a display, as I saw two different individuals in this posture

Chimango Caracara: This is the temucoensis subspecies which occurs from South Chile & South Argentina to Tierra del Fuego

Southern Lapwing: This is the fretensis subspecies which occurs in South Chile & South Argentina. It always surprised me, how happy Southern Lapwings were on unfenced garden lawns. I saw few cats in Argentina and dog ownership wasn't high in Ushuaia, with many walked on leads. That scenario would be fantastic in the UK, but sadly it will never happen

As I reached the far corner of the Urban Reserve, it was good to see this old Argentinian Patrol Boat. It looked like she was being restored. Having checked since I got home, she was an American Fast Patrol Boat built during WW2 for deployment in the Pacific. After WW2, she was one of ten Fast Patrol Boats sold to the Argentinian Navy and in service up to 1984. After that she was used as a storage vessel, with most of the internal compartments removed. It is good to see that the Maritime Museum of Ushuaia is working closely with the Navy to restore her to her former glory. There still looks to be a lot of work to complete. However, there has been excellent progress to get her back to looking this good, from the sorry state as a glorified storage container.

Fast Patrol Boat A.R.A. Towora

It was lunchtime and time for me to head towards the port to board the Ortelius. I will cover the rest of the day in the next Blog Post.

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.