Today we made an outing to visit the Magellanic Penguins outside town. A bus ride took us over increasingly dirty roads across the tundra-like pampas, where only stunted shrubs, sturdy grasses and the odd hardy flowers dwell. Birds were around though, the most conspicuous being the Lesser Rhea (Nandu), best described as a slightly smaller (37 inches) Ostrich. In bands of half a dozen they stilted around, eagerly grazing among the shrubs. There were quite a few fully sized juveniles in the scattered groups. Interestingly various hens lay their eggs in the same nest, and then the males are in charge of incubating and rearing the chicks. When we stopped they proved to be very unafraid, minding us as much as cows would.
Along the shore of the Strait of Magellan whitecaps rolled in on the landing beach of the penguins, the sun came and went, and flocks of two banded plovers and sandpipers swept in synchronized waves over the water. On the kelp-strewn beach Steamer ducks rested, and the cries of Kelp gulls cut through the wind. At the end of the road we were greeted by a Patagonian fox, a slender little animal in beautiful hues of coloration. His curiosity seemed mixed with an expectation to be fed, and he sniffed in the direction of every camera case that was opened. A hike along the beach took us to the houses of the penguins, neat burrows dug in the peat covered sand. (You wouldn't miss them, because there were road signs!). Activity was low among the inhabitants. At this time of the year their chicks are fledged, and most of the adults are at an energy saving standstill since they are molting, shedding their feathers in what is aptly called a catastrophic molt. Feathers littered the ground around the adorable creatures like drifts of fresh snow. Also the beach was littered, by driftwood. Silver gray trunks of the southern beech trees, weathered and polished by the surf, formed a blunt script along the tide line. Many of them had very imaginative shapes, with windows and holes to peer through.
Across the water you could make out the snow-clad peaks of the Andes of Tierra del Fuego. The barren land, so beautiful in its own right, certainly induced a feeling of the end of the earth!
