Valdez Peninsula

February 24, 2015

We walked off the boat onto the dock at Puerto Madryn early in the morning. We drove for about an hour to go into Valdez Peninsula Nature Reserve. On this day we saw the most mammals on the trip. We saw about 50 of the elegant, wild relative of the llama, the guanaco, whose only image I took was on a sign. 

After a brief stop at the visitor's center, we went to Puerto Piramides. From the lookout we observed a group of Snowy Sheathbill roosting on a shelf below. About the size of a pigeon, this white, short-tailed, pink-faced scavenger and predator breeds in Antarctica. In the other direction we looked down on a sea lion colony and nursery.

During the morning we also visited Punta Cantor and Punta Delgado stopping to scope for elephant seals and the birds that can be seen along the coast of the peninsula.  On the road Fabrice demonstrated the advantage of having a younger (40 something) guide by jumping out of the bus, running after and nabbing a Big Hairy Armadillo for us to photograph.

We saw several Mara, a rabbit-like mammal with long legs and a face like a kangaroo.

Other mammals and birds seen closely and from the bus were Lesser Rhea, South American Gray Fox, and Burrowing Owl.

We drove back to the visitor's center at the narrow neck of the club-shaped peninsula to eat lunch at their picnic tables. We had good weather, a little wind.

We were back at Puerto Madryn and on the ship at about 3:45. We had planned to do more birding in the late afternoon as the ship left the harbor.  However, when it was time to go, a strong wind prevented the ship from doing its sideways maneuver away from the dock.  It was not until night that it was able to get under way.  

Mammal List:

South American Sea Lion
Elephant Seal
Guanaco
Mara
Common Yellow-toothed Cavy
Humboldt's Hog-nosed Skunk
South American Gray Fox
Big Hairy Armadillo
European Hare

One reptile: a Black and White Tegu


Bird List:


Lesser Rhea
Elegant Crested-Tinamou
White-headed Steamer-Duck
Great Grebe
Neotropic Cormorant
Magellan/Rock Cormorant
Imperial Cormorant
Turkey Vulture
Cinereous Harrier
Chimango Caracara
Southern Lapwing
American Oystercatcher
Blackish Oystercatcher
Snowy Sheathbill
Brown-hooded Gull
Dolphin Gull
Kelp Gull
South American Tern
Royal Tern
Burrowing Parakeet
Burrowing Owl
Common Miner
Southern Martin
Patagonian Mockingbird

Others saw:

Darwin's Northura
Variable Hawk
Black-chested Hawk-Eagle
Southern Caracara
American Kestrel
Tawny-throated Dotterel
Sandwich/Cayenne Tern
Austral Negrito
Correndera Pipit
Mourning Sierra-Finch
Rufous-collared Sparrow
Long-tailed Meadowlark
House Sparrow