Penguin Superhighway

The next morning was sunny and clear, with a little less wind than the days before. I had my usual sunrise walk along the beach after coffee, then joined the other volunteers at the women's house for scrambled eggs and fresh fruit. At 9:00am, we all made the trip to Cabo Dos Bahias, getting an introduction to Argentine rock 'n' roll from Javier, the driver. Gaby, Romi, and Geno also had lots of good recommendations for Spanish-language music and we listened to Argentine bands such as Las Viejas Locas and Soda Stereo, as well as Mexican musicians such as Maná and Juan Gabriel.

We made our usual rounds of the nests in the morning, checking the number of eggs and the gender of each penguin. We were mostly finished by noon, but took a break for lunch with hearty ham and cheese sandwiches and a side of tortillas.

After lunch we went back into the field to finish checking the nests. The work is going very fast now, since we have a better idea of how to find the marked nests and how to check for eggs. We finished making the rounds of the nests mid-afternoon, a little earlier than usual, so we went down to a small beach to watch the penguin "changing of the guard." This is a beach where penguins arrive and depart in their ongoing ritual of fattening up in the ocean and then coming ashore to take care of their duties on the nest.

We saw a steady stream of skinny penguins marching down the hill from the nests and diving into the water, while a steady stream of fat penguins emerged from the water and waddled up the hill. It really seemed like a "penguin superhighway," with heavy traffic of penguins in both directions.

The drive back to town was always an adventure, with lots of wildlife to see outside the window. This day we had a special treat, passing by a group of guanacos that included a tiny little baby. Known as a chulengo in Spanish, the baby guanaco was very wobbly on its feet, indicating that it must have been born just recently. We stopped the van and watch them as they made their way across the desert, the chulengo stopping at one time to nurse with her mother.

A chulengo (baby guanaco) with its mother

The chulengo nurses with its mother

When we got back to Camarones later that afternoon, I joined Jesse and Lori at Gaby's house to help with the data entry. We took turns going through the day's notebooks and entering the information into an Excel spreadsheet. The number of eggs in each nest, along with the gender of the penguin, was typed into columns, giving us a permanent record of our research. We also noted if the penguins had switched off, with one of them heading out to see while the other one returned.

We had another hearty dinner at Alma Patagonica, with filet of merluza (hake) and a salad of shredded carrots and cabbage. After dinner, some people rode home in Gaby's truck, but it was a warm night, so I joined Romi and Geno for a leisurely walk back to the house. The stars were out, with the Southern Cross appearing just above the horizon and Orion standing on his head, upside down from the northern hemisphere.

Filet of Merluza with a carrot and cabbage salad

Before I went to sleep that night, I opened up the curtain and stayed awake for a while. It was great to lay in bed, nice and warm, and look up at the spectacular show of stars outside the window. The Milky Way got brighter and brighter as the night grew darker, forming a luminescent band across the midnight sky.

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