Antarctica: Day One, Beagle Channel and Magellanic Penguins

From home base in Ohio, Kenn writes: On the afternoon of January 7, after a day of birding around Ushuaia, we boarded the Clipper Adventurer. By about 7 p.m. we were under way, cruising east down the Beagle Channel. That might sound like a specialized offering on cable, but it’s actually a narrow strait of water running through the southern part of Tierra del Fuego. It was named for The Beagle, the ship on which Darwin traveled. Captain FitzRoy of The Beagle was responsible for exploring this waterway at the southern tip of South America during two voyages in the 1820s and 1830s.


During the evening we were mostly admiring the scenery -- just as Darwin did when he arrived here in 1833 -- but of course we were also birding, and people who stayed on deck late enough saw the first penguins of the trip, the first of the eight species that we would encounter. These were distant views of swimming birds, and observers were startled to hear that these mysterious distant "ducks" or "grebes" were really Magellanic Penguins. The photos below were all taken a couple of days later in the Falkland Islands.


The first thing to notice in this close-up portrait is the color of the background: green. The public may think of penguins as birds of the deep-freeze zones, but Magellanic Penguin belongs to the genus Spheniscus, a group of four penguins that are all limited to mild climates. These are Galapagos Penguin on the Equator, Humboldt Penguin in western South America, Jackass Penguin (yeah, that’s one of its official names) in southern Africa, and the Magellanic, which is found all around the southern coasts of South America. The latter has several large colonies in Argentina, and seeing it in the Beagle Channel was no surprise.
The second thing to notice is that the bird has, let’s face it, sort of a slow-witted expression. Penguins aren’t at their best on land anyway, but Magellanics come across as rather dim bulbs.

As we would see on the Falklands a couple of days later, it’s a common thing to see Magellanic Penguins standing around peering at holes in the ground. But they have a good excuse: that’s where they nest. They’ll dig burrows up to six feet deep, laying their eggs in a cavity at the end of the burrow, and tending their young underground until the chicks are large enough to be safe from most predators. Penguins in the Antarctic nest out in the open, but several kinds in the temperate zone are burrow nesters.

Here’s an adult Magellanic Penguin peering out of its burrow. The striking face pattern is a lot less obvious once the bird is in the shadows, and it may serve as disruptive coloration, breaking up the bird’s outline and making it less conspicuous.

Zooming in and overexposing another shot of a penguin in its burrow, we can see a couple of chicks lurking in the background.

And here’s a better look at a slightly larger chick out at the entrance to the nest burrow with one parent bird. The chicks are fed by both parents for at least two months before they molt out of their fluffy down and go out to sea.

This might seem like an odd juxtaposition, but I have to stop writing about baby penguins now because our rock band is performing in a couple of hours. The band has had only three practices in the eight days that Kim and I have been home, and there's a certain adrenaline rush involved in trying get mentally prepared and get back into rock-'n-roll mode. But I'll try to blog more about the Antarctic trip tomorrow.

Antarctica: Day One, Pre-trip Birding in Ushuaia

From home base in Ohio, Kim and Kenn write: In terms of overall bird diversity, there tend to be fewer species as you go from the Equator toward the poles, and fewer species on islands than on equivalent mainland areas. Because of these basic trends, a trip to islands of the Antarctic region won't produce a huge list of bird species ... huge numbers of individuals, yes, and fascinating creatures to watch, but not a huge amount of variety. So birders headed for the Antarctic usually take advantage of South American stopovers to add more birds to their total trip lists.

We've already written about some of the birds we saw around Buenos Aires, and we saw more on the official pre-trip to Otamendi on January 5, but things really got underway on January 7th in Ushuaia. This city, located on the Beagle Channel in southernmost Argentina, prides itself on being at the "end of the Earth" -- or "Fin Del Mundo," as the signs say on the edge of town. Ushuaia has become a major stopover point for tourists, as almost all the cruises going to Antarctica make their turnarounds here.

Here's a distant view of the harbor at Ushuaia with a few of the cruise ships tied up at the dock. But on this day we took most of the group (from Victor Emanuel Nature Tours) out to the Tierra Del Fuego National Park to see some of the specialty birds of South America's southern tip.

Here's part of our group birding the edge of the marsh in

Tierra Del Fuego National Park.

Our friend, your friend, heck, it's everybody's friend, the Rufous-collared Sparrow.

We've seen these birds all over South America, but the ones here in the extreme south are slightly different, with a plainer gray look to the head. Plainer, yes. But, still kinda cute.

The local American Robin look alike--the Austral Thrush. Kim loves the name of this bird. This is obviously a juvenile, all decked out and bedazzled with spots galore.

One of many species of caracara (which is a really fun word to type, btw) the Chimango Caracara was the first life bird for Kim in Argentina, spotted from the plane as we landed in Buenos Aires back on January 1st.

The act is getting classier. This beautiful bird is the Patagonian Sierra-Finch. It was all over the National Park, frequenting camp sites, looking for scraps left behind by campers. It reminded Kim of a Mourning Warbler at first glance.

This bird was, without a doubt, a highlight for everyone in the group! The Magellanic Woodpecker is a glorious looking bird. In the genus Campephilus (yes, the same genus as the Ivory-billed) one thing that's particularly fun about this species is that the female is the really gorgeous one in the pair. She sports this amazing top-knot with a forward-curving crest of slightly curled feathers. The photo is of the male, but we had stunning looks at the female too. A hell of a time for one's camera battery to go dead. Wouldn't you say?! [Kim's screams of frustration echo through the night...]

On the way back into town we stopped the bus in the middle of the street to enjoy watching a small group of Austral Parakeets. Clambering about and performing impressive acrobatic manuevers among the branches of the Southern Beech Trees, they were a blast to watch. Even if we had to perform our own acrobatic manuevers in the bus seats to get in position to take this photo.

Back into Ushuaia, we birded a series of ponds and coastal lagoons on the edge of the city. This Crested Duck was one of several species of waterfowl that we saw.

The lovely Dolphin Gulls were a nice change of pace from looking at Ohio's rather drab and homely Ring-bills and Herring Gulls. [Kim's thought...Kenn asks for a disclaimer here.] Not quite as sharp as Heermann's Gulls, but close.

You are one day closer to BABY PENGUIN PICTURES!

Buenos Aires, Day Dos

From Buenos Aires, Argentina, Kim and Kenn write: Our friend Delores Cole (web guru for Black Swamp Bird Observatory and Ohio Young Birders Club) came in this morning, and walked out with us for another round at the Costanera Sur Nature Reserve. As indicated by the sign above, the reserve is internationally recognized as an Important Bird Area.



A major Important Bird of this Area is the outlandish Guira Cuckoo. It looks weird enough standing still, but check out this video that Kim took of the bird calling and showing off (with authentic Latino music in the background):

A bird that we found foraging in the high traffic area along the edge of the reserve was the totally gorgeous Red-crested Cardinal. But, unlike most good-looking humans I've encountered, these doggone birds did NOT want to have their picture taken. I chased them up and down the sidewalk, generating ZERO good photos, but lots of laughs from Kenn & Delores, and the locals who delighted in watching the bird come in right next to me...until I raised the camera.

Eventually I got bored with the game and started people watching. That's how I spotted and photographed the much more cooperative Red-crested human, which looked remarkably like the bird that refused to have its picture taken! Here she is doing some foraging of her own:

Of course, as soon as I gave up and settled for a photo of a look-alike, the real thing came along and posed for me. Check out this stunner:

The Beautiful (and fussy!) Red-crested Cardinal

The most common hummingbird here was the Glittering-bellied Emerald (another name invented by museum ornithologists, trying to come up with something distinctive about yet another species of Chlorostilbon that looks pretty much like all the others). We often saw it feeding at the flowers of tree-tobacco (Nicotiana glauca). This is a great hummingbird plant in the southern USA and Mexico as well, but here in South America it's more likely to be a local native.

The trails through the park are filled with local people who come here to exercise. They certainly seem to enjoy the sun; Kenn was practically the only man there who was wearing a shirt. Some apparently come to exercise their bodies. Others appeared to be exorcizing any variety of demons.

Kenn had an interesting conversation with one of the locals who seemed to be doing a bit of both. A nice fella, who knew a bit about the birds, he, um, well, he didn't have much on in terms of clothing. But he sure knew a lot about Rufous Horneros! When he saw our binoculars, he stopped running, came straight over and pointed excitedly to a large nest above our heads. Kenn was too nice to tell him that we knew exactly what it was, and that we'd been standing there admiring it for several minutes. We're always thrilled when the locals seem to be aware and appreciative of their bird neighbors, and we didn't want to dampen his enthusiasm.

The conversation Kenn had with the guy was totally in Spanish, so I was pretty much out of the loop. After he jogged off, Kenn explained the conversation, referring to the guy as "The Naked Naturalist" which had me giggling like an idiot the rest of the day.

In case you don't remember the Rufous Hornero.....Here it is again.

And, here's its way cool nest.

See, it looks like an old oven, doesn't it?!

The Naked Naturalist moves on after giving us the lo-down on the

Rufous Hornero and its nest.

A few birds from Buenos Aires

From Buenos Aires, Argentina, Kenn writes: We were walking for hours and for miles in the huge Costanera Sur reserve right in the city today, developing a good January sunburn in the process. Buenos Aires is a city of around ten million people, and it's amazing to have this superb nature reserve within walking distance of the downtown hotels. A recurrent drought has dried up the ponds that usually have hordes of waterbirds, but we did see a great variety of landbirds. It's after midnight here in Argentina and we're too wasted to write anything, but here are a few pictures, anyway.

Looking at a small part of the skyline of Buenos Aires, Argentina, from across the Costanera Sur Nature Reserve

Picazuro Pigeon -- this native pigeon is abundant in the reserve

Bay-winged Cowbird -- the most attractive of the three local species of cowbirds (this one is not a brood parasite, but its nests are parasitized by another species, the Screaming Cowbird)

Green-barred Woodpecker, lurking in deep shade -- as you might guess by looking, this bird is related to the flickers in North America

This young White-rumped Swallow was waiting to be fed by its parents. Early January is mid-summer here, and we saw recently fledged young birds of several species.

Don´t Cry For Me (we're in) Argentina

From Buenos Aires, Kim and Kenn write: (Couldn´t resist the musical reference in the title.) Before we left home we weren´t sure we´d be able to post to the blog from here. But if you´re reading this, then evidently we can! That might change once we´re on the ship, but for now, woo hoo! (can you tell that Kim typed that part?!)

So, yes, we´re here. We´re sleep-deprived and jet-lagged. But thanks to our dear friends Lois and Vic, we made it to the airport safe and sound, and made the long overnight flight so that we could be in Argentina today. Kim had a life bird (the very cool Chimango Caracara!!) before we even got off the plane! It was perched on a light pole and several Blue-and-white Swallows were harrassing it, giving away its location.

The big nature reserve of Costanera Sur was closed today for New Years, but the beautiful cosmopolitan city of Buenos Aires is full of small parks that have their own attractions. In a park off Tucuman Avenue, we photographed this impressive old tree, which obviously had been here for a while:






A bird that´s common in the city is the Rufous Hornero. ¨Hornero¨ in Spanish is a reference to ¨one who works with ovens,¨ and the whole tropical family of Ovenbirds (Furnariidae) (unrelated to the North American bird called the Ovenbird, which is a warbler) gets its name from this Rufous Hornero (scientific name Furnarius rufus), which builds a nest shaped like an old oven.

We saw these horneros in several parks and gardens today, marching about on the ground with a self-important air.

Monk Parakeet is a bird that you can see in parks in Chicago, Dallas, Miami, and many other U.S. cities, but those are all descended from escaped cagebirds. The ones we saw in Buenos Aires today were wild birds on their native range.

Monk Parakeet in B.A., just as noisy here as it is anywhere.

Take a casual look at any of these small Buenos Aires parks and you´d swear you were seeing American Robins running around. Take a closer look and you realize the bird doesn´t look quite the same. This is a related bird, the Rufous-bellied Thrush. Similar thrushes wind up being common city birds in many parts of the world.

Rufous-bellied Thrush, the local robin substitute in Buenos Aires.



Okay, it´s almost 10:30 at night here, we´re tired, dirty, hungry, and ready to call it a night. Happy New Year to all (and to all a good night).

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