You should read this travel article about Bahia Bustamante.
Bahia Bustamante is a sprawling private ranch south of Punta Tombo, the site of the world’s largest Magellanic penguin colony. The article nicely captures the environment and its rich diversity of animal life — armadillos, guanacos and even steamer ducks.
Here’s a picture of a pair of steamer ducks that I took when I was at Punta Tombo years ago:
Image may be NSFW.
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Steamer ducks can’t fly but they can sure zip across the water when provoked.
And here’s a picture of Punta Tombo. Reading that article sent me back through all the photos I had taken.
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The highlight of the article was when the author came across some of the local penguins:
We walked into the bushes, slowly and quietly, as inconspicuous as three giants in bright windbreakers could be. Under almost every bush was a penguin nest; in each, two penguins rested on their egg, a portrait of monogamy (they mate for life), looking up as we passed, curious but not afraid. These were Magellanic penguins, each about two feet tall; they are indigenous only to southern Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands. (The penguins are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a near-threatened species because of oil spills and overfishing.) When the water gets too frigid, they’ll swim north to the warmer waters of Brazil for a few months before heading back next fall, to this exact island, these exact nests.
I hope to visit Bahia Bustamante some day, though I’d be happy enough just making it back to Punta Tombo.
By the way, there is a small guest ranch, further north, that I was fortunate enough to stay at and I highly recommend it: Rincón Chico. Here’s a nice video of some of the wildlife you can see there.
Image may be NSFW.
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