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

27 Mar 18 - The Estancia Harberton Cetacean Museum

I visited Estancia Harberton in my first trip to Argentina in 1998. At the time the museum wasn't open to visitors. However, it has since opened its doors to the public. Glenn had been saying one of his friends had visited the museum & had been impressed, so we decided to give it a go after the Beagle Channel cruise. It would have been a lot quicker had we been able to get off the boat for an hour on the cruise to look around the Estancia, but that wasn't possible. So having got back to Ushuaia, then I was happy to return by car for the late afternoon for a quick visit.

The original Estancia phone

The museum is dedicated to the study of stranded Cetaceans, other marine Mammals & Birds from the Argentinian Tierra Del Fuego area. It was set up by the late Natalie Goodall, who was the wife of the Estancia manager. It contains the skeletons of 2700 Cetaceans & marine Mammals, as well as, 2300 Birds. There is a small team of staff who work on preparing future skeletons (from stranded corpses by slowly & naturally cleaning up the skeletons) and showing visitors around the museum. Apparently, the museum gets a number of scientific visitors who which to spend more time studying the skeletons as it is such an extensive collection. I thought it was well worth a visit. Before entering the museum, we had to visit the main building to buy an entrance ticket & check out the chocolate cake (good choice).

An old storage bottle from C&E Morton, London

Sperm Whale head: One of the exhibits that is too large to house in the current museum space

Sperm Whale head

Sperm Whale lower jaw

Sperm Whale teeth

Baleen Whales: Can't remember which ones they are

Cuvier's Beaked Whale: One of the most widespread of the Beaked Whales & species I'm still to see

Cuvier's Beaked Whale teeth

False Killer Whale: With an Orca for comparison

Spectacled Porpoises

Burmeister's Porpoise

Southern Right Whale Dolphin: with a Bottlenose Dolphin head

Commerson's Dolphin

Peale's Dolphin

South American Sealion

Magellanic Penguin

King Penguin: with photo-bombing Crab

All too soon it was time to pick up Geoff & Josh on the approach road & head back to Ushuaia. I had to return the car before the airport closed. A small lake on the approach road held a few Ducks.

Crested Duck

Bahama Pintail

Having been unable to get into La Campana National Park in Chile at night, I still needed Rufous-legged Owl & there was an Owl trip planned for that evening. While we did see Rufous-legged Owl, I cannot recommend anybody else to go with local guide Marcelo, who is the worse person I've even been owling with. I've spent a lot of time looking for Owls in the tropics & have a pretty good success rate of seeing them well if they respond to tapes. If Owls have come in close, then it is often possible to find their silhouette before turning on the torch. Failing that then it is often possible to work out where they are calling from before turning on a torch. Marcelo approach involved putting his torch on far too quick & then wave it around randomly as soon as he heard a close calling Owl. This was not helped by not listening to directions from people who were telling him where it was sitting. All this random torch waving resulted in the inevitable result of the Rufous-legged Owl rapidly disappearing. We did get a few brief additional views as a result of the same random torch waving technique, as surprisingly it carried on calling. All in all, it was very amateur-ish in my opinion given he is suppose to be the top Ushuaia guide & the price per person was over-inflated. There was another trip into the National Park the following day, which I didn't go on given my lack of good impressions of the Owl trip.