Where Are the Penguins?

As winter turns to spring – in the Southern Hemisphere – penguins are on the move, but it’s not for their Patagonia vacation. Rather, this is the season that most of them, after spending the winter at sea, migrate to their nesting sites in the South Atlantic and South Pacific, including Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands.

A solitary Magellanic penguin in the abandoned lighthouse at Isla de los Pingüinos

With that in mind, I thought I’d suggest some of my favorite sites for flightless bird-watching, except that they’re not flightless – they fly through the water! Penguin nesting sites occur on much of the coastline of both Argentina and Chile – there’s even one just a couple hours from the Chilean capital of Santiago – but access is best in Patagonia.

Humboldt & Magellanic Penguins

Visitors to Chile’s southern “lakes district” can take a detour to Chiloé – similar to Vancouver Island - only 27 km from the city of Ancud, where the northerly Humboldt penguin and southerly Magellanic penguin overlap their ranges at the Monumento Natural Islotes de Puñihuil (pictured above). These similar species nest in burrows on offshore islets, but local fishermen shuttle penguin-spotters within camera distance.

Puñihuil is easily the best accessible place to see the Humboldts but, elsewhere in Patagonia the Magellanics are present in abundance. The biggest colony is at Argentina’s Punta Tombo (pictured above), near the city of Trelew in Chubut province, but there are accessible sites near the Chilean city of Punta Arenas, at the mainland Otway Sound and the offshore Isla Magdalena (pictured below, where Patagonia cruises and local excursions both stop). At all of these, it’s possible to approach the penguins closely – often they’ll approach you - though there are some restrictions.

King Penguins

King penguins, which are not migratory, stand out for their size and bright colors, but they’re more common on remote offshore islands than in easily accessible Patagonian locations. Occasionally a wanderer shows up at Punta Tombo or another site where other species breed, but the most accessible choice is the private Parque Pingüino Rey reserve (pictured above) on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego. This is a full-day excursion by ferry and road from the city of Punta Arenas, but it’s well worth the time.

Rockhopper Penguins

An angry rockhopper in the Falkland Islands

Exactly what their name suggests, rockhopper penguins nest on stony offshore islands on which they land by force of waves and then, painstakingly, they hop up to drier nesting spots. These are “crested penguins,” along with their close relatives the Macaroni, which occasionally (but rarely) appears among them. One of the easiest places to see rockies is the Isla de los Pingüinos (pictured above), reached from Argentina’s picturesque Puerto Deseado, where there are frequent excursions in summer on rigid inflatables – sea conditions permitting. Despite an excellent paved highway, Deseado is out of the way but, if you have the time, there’s much more to see – including albatrosses, dolphins and sea lions.

Gentoo Penguins

Gentoos (pictured above) like kings, are not migratory – they remain in the same place all year. Unfortunately for penguin-seekers, those colonies are mostly insular, away from the continent, though there are occasional appearances elsewhere. The likeliest place to see them is on the Argentine side of Tierra del Fuego, at the historic Estancia Harberton ranch,  where a small colony has established itself on a nearby islet.

An Austral Footnote

More distant and more expensive to reach, the Falkland Islands – still less than two hours from Punta Arenas by air – have almost all the above species and sometimes more. It can also be expensive and time-consuming to get around the archipelago but in just one morning, on a 4WD jaunt just outside the tiny but still sprawling capital of Stanley, I once saw Magellanics, Gentoos, and rockhoppers, plus a single Macaroni (pictured above) and one lonely king. In a small king penguin colony on an outer island, I also saw a vagrant chinstrap penguin - usually seen only in Antarctica.

An Antarctic Footnote

And now for something completely different: even more distant and expensive, Antarctica has many of these species and more. The usual way to reach the frozen continent is with an expensive cruise but, in summer, there are flights from Punta Arenas to Isla Rey Jorge (King George Island), with the possibility of an overnight stay for an introduction to this environmentally strategic destination. I photographed the chinstraps above and the Adelies below there.

Pacific Northwest Penguins?

I don’t usually promote events other than my own, but readers in the Pacific Northwest will soon have several opportunities to learn something about Patagonian natural history as Dee Boersma, professor of conservation science at the University of Washington (purely coincidentally, my undergraduate alma mater). She will present her new book, Penguins: Natural History and Conservation at several events in the area.

Boersma has worked for more than three decades at Argentina’s Reserva Provincial Punta Tombo (pictured above and below), one of the world’s largest Magellanic penguin nesting sites. The book itself is more global, with coverage of all 18 penguin species, as the UW Press’s blurb notes that "The fragile status of most penguin populations today mirrors the troubled condition of the southern oceans, as well as larger marine conservation problems: climate change, pollution, and fisheries mismanagement.”

To promote the book, and the conservation issues that accompany it, Boersma and her Argentine colleague Pablo García Boroboglu will appear tonight at the REI Seattle flagship store as part of a larger conservation-oriented event. On Tuesday, May 14, they will also hold a “Penguins in Peril” event at Seattle’s Town Hall and, on Thursday, May 16, a similar talk at Bellingham’s Village Books (where I have spoken several times).

I have never met Professor Boersma in person, though I am familiar with her work and have spoken with her on the phone. For penguin lovers, who are so numerous, and anyone else interested in the critical topic of maritime conservation in the new millennium, this should be a can’t-miss event, and I look forward to reading and reviewing the book some time in the near future.

Those of you planning to see penguins in the wild, though will probably have to wait a while. At Punta Tombo, only a few stragglers remain of the 200,000 breeding pairs that burrow along the shoreline. They’ll be back in the southern spring but, meanwhile, nearby Península Valdés will soon be the attraction for the arrival of southern right whales, which breed and give birth in the shallow, sheltered waters of the Golfo Nuevo.

Patagonia's Penguin Season

It’s approaching spring in the Southern Hemisphere, and that means that migratory penguins are returning to their Patagonian nesting sites in Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands. From Argentina’s Península Valdés, all the way around Cape Horn to the Pacific archipelago of Chiloé, Magellanic penguins - colloquially known as “Jackass penguins” because of their braying call - are the most abundant and easiest species to spot, but determined or fortunate penguin seekers may also see several other species at various locales.

Península Valdés is a prime wildlife site because of the whale-watching industry at the hamlet of Puerto Pirámides, but there are also several colonies of the migratory Magellanics scattered around the reserve. Occasionally, though, startled visitors even find themselves swimming with penguins in the shallow waters just off Pirámides’ beach (usually in summer, after the right whales have returned to the open Atlantic. Most visitors, though, go to the colony of Magellanics at Punta Tombo, south of the Atlantic beach resort of Puerto Madryn, where hundreds of thousands of Magellanics waddle ashore to mate, hatch their eggs, and raise their chicks before returning to the ocean in March or April. Occasionally there’s a surprise - last season, for instance, a wandering king penguin (not the one pictured here) made its appearance.

Other good Argentine sites for penguin-watching include Bahía Bustamante, Puerto Deseado, Parque Nacional Monte León, and Cabo Vírgenes. Puerto Deseado makes a particularly interesting detour because it’s the gateway to Isla de los Pingüinos, which has not just Magellanics but also the world’s northernmost colony of rockhopper penguins. Elsewhere along the continental coast, rockies are a rare sight, as they are most abundant in the Falklands.

In southernmost Chile, the most accessible penguin-watching sites are at Otway Sound, barely 45 minutes overland from the city of Punta Arenas. Isla Magdalena, in the Strait of Magellan, is a little harder to reach but worth the effort because the ferry voyage there is an opportunity to view Commerson’s dolphins, black-browed albatrosses, and many other seabirds that nest on the island. Across the Strait, on the Argentine side of Tierra del Fuego, the historic Estancia Harberton conducts trips to offshore Isla Martillo, where a small but growing colony of gentoo penguins (pictured to the right) shares the island with much larger numbers of breeding Magellanics. For visitors to the city of Ushuaia, this is the best opportunity to see gentoos (which are not migratory) without continuing to Antarctica (more than 90 percent of Antarctica-bound cruises leave from Ushuaia).

On Chile’s Pacific coast, near the city of Ancud in the Chiloé archipelago, the offshore Isla Puñihuil is particularly interesting because it’s where Magellanic and Humboldt penguins - which look very similar - overlap their ranges and breed almost side by side. The Humboldt’s range, though, stretches north through Chile and into Peru.

The Falkland Islands, meanwhile, are more expensive to get to, and to get around, but dedicated penguin watchers will find it much easier to observe gentoos, kings (Volunteer Point, at Johnson’s Harbour ranch, has a huge breeding colony), and rockhoppers as well as rarer macaroni penguins (pictured here) that breed among the rockhoppers in a few sites. Occasionally, as well, a wandering chinstrap penguin - they are most abundant in Antarctica - will put in an appearance among the gentoos.