I've travelled independently to quite a few places and never had a seriuos problem but my luck ran out on this trip. Actualy it could have been worse so I won't complain. After a fantastic morning of birding my plan was to head to Tierra del Fuego National Park to look for some forest species. I studied the route on my phone and noted I had to make it through a couple of rounabouts. Now after a trip to Australia four years ago I developed an absolute hatred of roundabouts. Traffic circles as we call them are at every intersection in Australia and though I can see some benefits, I still hate them.
I won't go into all the details but after making it through the first roundabout, I wasn't so lucky at the second. It was probably a mixture of being cold, wet, tired and driving an unfamiliar manual transmission combined with a dark sky and a muddy poorly signed roundabout, but I wound up smacking into a small gray, nearly invisible, light pole. Fortunately the air bags didn't deploy, but it was a pretty good hit and hurt like hell where the shoulder strap kept me from hitting the windshield. Area passerbys immediately came to my attention, as did the police and later an ambulance. They checked me over and urged me to go with them to the hospital. I was hurting but nothing seemed broken and the car was drivable so after some convincing on my part, they let me go. I have to say at this time how impressed I was with the kindness and generosity of all the Argentine people I met.
I drove back to my lodging and was hurting and feeling pretty low. I dreaded calling the car rental agency but did after resting a spell. They sent someone over who looked the car over, pulled the grill up and removed a couple of broken pieces. He apologized that he didn't have a replacement vehicle. I told him this car would do fine. Again I was so impressed with how nice people were. And in the end I got off easy only having to pay the insurance deductible. I highly recomment FoxRents car rental in Ushuaia.
Well, I still had some daylight. My upper sternum and adjacent ribs were hurting from the seat belt impact but the trail behind the condos was calling so I gingerly put on my coat and strapped on the binocs and camera and was on my way down the slippery snow covered hillside to look for birds. My first find was an uncopperative Austral Thrush. They act just like American Robins down here.
There was some brush along the hill and then it leveled out towards the shore. I was whistling an immitation of the resident Austral Pygmy Owl hoping to call in birds or even an owl. It sounds much like our Ferruginous Pygmy Owl but higher pitched and faster paced. Dang! I got an answer! Well it kind of sounded like a pygmy owl except the "toots" were in pairs. But there often is variablity in pygmy owl calls so I kept whistling and the sound started to come closer. Just one problem. The pygmy owl should be in a tree, even a small one, and this call sounded like it was coming from the ground. I kept whistling and the "owl" kept coming closer. Now it was really close and low. "doot-doot doot-doot doot-doot" And there it was just a few feet away.... on the ground.... a Magellanic Snipe!
As I moved for a better shot it waddled into the snow. My pain and misfortune were forgotten. Wow! I was hoping for Magellanic Snipe but I didn't think I would have one at my feet!
I moved to the east below the hill and came to a fenced in horse enclosure near a lodge. There was a dead tree and something was hammering away. A big black something with a red head! My only Magellanic Woodpecker of the trip. There was a pair but I never got a shot of the female.
I whistled some more owl calls and a flock of brightly colored birds approached. These were my first Patagonian Sierra Finches, about twenty of them.
I walkd to the shoreline of the Beagle Channel and got a pair of Flying Steamer Ducks.
There were a few more Kelp Geese.
That was enough for the day. My sternum was hurting so I made the painful slog up the hill to my room. I was too tired to go out to eat so I had some bread, cheese and fruit. Tylenol helped me get some sleep but it was a painful night.
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