Birds at the "End of the World"...ARGENTINA (6 March)

Touched down at the "fin del mundo" (=end of the world), otherwise known as Ushuaia in Argentina. The first bird of our Antarctic adventure was a clean white male Kelp Goose visible from the airport. Once our lost luggage was found again we were on our way, and pretty soon we fought through the Sunday crowds and kids along the lake shore to lose ourselves in the atmospheric beech forests of Tierra del Fuego National Park. Chickadee like noises emanating from the trees were anything but. Equally cute, but far stranger, for the culprit was a party of the oddly-named Thorn-tailed Rayadito, an ovenbird with a tit-like sound that is common in these mature beech woods... Not long after another furnariid popped up, the White-throated Treerunner.

We were busy enjoying these cool "Fuegan" birds when some heavy beating wings and a distinctive double wrap drew our attention away...