King Penguins of Onaisin, Chile

We saw these guys and gals at the very beginning of 2014. The location is newly open to tourists,  just near Onasin, which is near the town of Porvenir, in the Chilean part of the Isla Grande at the bottom of South America.

We got a really good look at the Penguins which were separated from us by a narrow waterway, which I think was good for them to feel safe behind. These are King Pengiuns, which are large but not so big as the Emperor Penguins found in Antarctica.  Some of these had eggs hidden behind their fur on their feet.

The little fox: he eats young pengiuns if he gets the chance.

Some people complained about the entry price to this. It was about $24 per person, but the Penguins (about 100) are definately there, and this is a lot less expensive than an Antarctica trip.

Photo upload: Monte Leon National Park

In December 2013 we visited Monte Leon National Park in southern Argentina. Whereas we had earlier seen the Magellanic Penguins nesting with eggs at Peninsula Valdes and Punta Tumbo it was now a month later and they penguins were with chicks. The chicks proved difficult to get a good photo of.

The park also has Puma, but the closest we got was a paw print, masses of cormorants, and sea lions.

Half a million penguins in one spot at Punta Tombo, Argentina

At Punta Tombo, on the coast of the Argentina Patagonia, there's about 500,000 magellanic penguins nesting annually. We were there super early in the morning, just finishing our walk before the 5 buses of teens arrived. 

Penguins are cute, we all know that. At Punta Tombo you get to observe a weird landscape, some with shrubs but at each metre another hole in which there is likely another penguin on his or her eggs (his or her because penguin couples take it in turns to mind the eggs while the other one feeds). This weird landscape goes to about a kilometre inland. 

The holes aren't deep so you can see into them. To manage the visitors there is a strict walking trail and board walk which provides plenty of viewing of all the aspects and the penguins don't seem the least concerned about people being there. 

Penguins are in the holes, wandering about amongst the holes, heading down to the beach for a wash and a feed, and others are returning to their hole/partner. Amongst the penguins, there are also little cavies (guinea pigs are in the cavy family) running everywhere. And the occasional guanaco (like llamas). 

Another bonus, being there so early in the morning (the first by a long shot), we saw 2 guanacos having a fight in the parking lot while we were cleaning up from breakfast, right outside the back door of the camper. Even the parkranger had his camera out. These animals have long necks and so the fight was mostly a kind of wrestle where they went neck to neck and tried to topple the other. Neither was successful and they eventually ran off. It was an exciting event to have such good viewing for!