Southern Elephant Seals

Here are a couple of photos of Southern Elephant Seals from punta delgada a very large colony. They are hauled out in-order to molt. It is hard to get a scale in these photos, but some of the animals we saw were tremendously large, the largest probably 15-18 feet and 2-3 tonnes; in other words, HUGE. They are increadibaly akward on land and would only move ~10 metres along the beach at a time, then they would rest for several minutes, and possibly after that continue moving.

Peninsula Valdes

These are photos of Southern Sea Lions at Peninsula Valdes in two different breeding areas. We spent a couple days observing them. Orcas are known for beeching themselves inorder to catch sea lions on the beach in the top photo.

Parque Nacianal Lanin

Our next adventure was a week long bus trip north of Bariloche. The key subject we studied were Auracaria Auracana Trees (You may have heard them called Monkey-Puzzel Trees, this is an offensive racist term, as it was origionally used refering to indigenous people as monkeys). The mountian is Vulcan Lanin. The Crucifix markes the border with Chile. I illegaly crossed several feet into the country:).

To the base of Mt Tronador

This hike from puerto blest lead us up to the base of a massive glacier that ended on a huge cliff. I counted 37 waterfalls coming directly off the glciar front. The flowers are Fuschas which are common garden plants in washington. The climate in this part of patagonia and western washington are remarkably similar.

By foot from puerto blest

These photos are from a supposed 28k treck to the north of Puerto blest through spectacular tempereet rainforest in glacially sculpted valleys. Notice the bamboo in one picture. This bamboo is one of the dominent understory plants-- very wierd for such a glacial terrian it made the place feel like a cross between Hawaii Rainforest and Norway. The trail followed an old logging road which had been used to acces Fitzroya (Alerce) trees (like the one pictured; these trees can be 3000 years old! ). The road has long detereorated into the rainforeset and much of the trail was really just a path throgh knee deep mud. Also in some places we had (got) to cross detereorating bridges over interesting small ravines... those were exciting.

From the Water, Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi

After Chaluaco, we traveled by boat across Lago Nahuel Huapi to Puerto Blest. The Large Mountian is Monte Tronador "mount thunder" because of the sound of its glaciers.

Well, I have wandered quite a wayse since I last updated this blog. The most interesting adventure was a month long course called Ecology and Biogeography of Patagonia which was tought in Argentina. Here this and the next fiew posts are some photos from the escapades! Enjoy.

These First photos are from Chaluaco, a vally just to the south of Bariloche in the Argentine Lake District (except the pink building, which is the presedential palace, El Casa Rosada, in Buenos Aires.) The flowers are Alstromeria, and grow like a carpet everywhere. The poor photo of a bird is a Majelenic Woodpecker which is a member of the same genus as the Ivory Billed Woodpecker and Peleated Woodpecker. The girl climbing the tree is retreeving a recently hatched parakeet chick. (which will be the first photo in the next post)
~andrew