Birding Tour Argentina: 1-day Ushuaia Birding Tour

Birding Tour Argentina: 1-day Ushuaia Birding Tour
11 December 2023

This 1-day Ushuaia birding tour is designed for those who joined us on our Antarctic birding cruise (including the Falklands, South Georgia, South Orkney and the Antarctic Peninsula) and have the rest of the day (after disembarking the cruise ship) to search for a few special birds around Ushuaia, including Magellanic Woodpecker, White-throated Treerunner, Austral Parakeet, Austral Pygmy Owl, Ashy-headed Goose and numerous others. We also have a more extensive 4-day Tierra del Fuego excursion which will begin the day after ending the Antarctic birding/wildlife cruise.

Magellanic Woodpecker will be targeted in the beech forests east of Ushuaia.

After disembarking our expedition cruise vessel, we will head east of Ushuaia to Puerto Almanza, a small, picturesque crab-fishing village located in a bay along the Beagle Channel. En route to Puerto Almanza, we will stop at Vitoria Pond, where we hope to see Bronze-winged Duck, Flying Steamer Duck, Yellow-billed Pintail, Silvery Grebe and Ringed Kingfisher.

Around Harberton Ranch, also located on the edge of the Beagle Channel, we should have a good selection of shorebirds to sort through including Blackish Oystercatcher and Two-banded and Magellanic Plovers as well as migratory shorebirds from North America, such as Lesser Yellowlegs, Ruddy Turnstone, Baird’s Sandpiper, Sanderling and Surfbird.

Birding some of the more open areas throughout the day should hopefully produce sightings of some of the following: Upland and Ashy-headed Geese, Black-faced Ibis, South American Snipe, Rufous-chested Plover, Short-eared Owl, Dark-bellied and Grey-flanked Cinclodes and Austral Negrito. We will of course keep an eye to the sky looking out for the massive Andean Condor as well as other raptors such as Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle and Chimango and White-throated Caracaras.

We should find Fuegian Steamer Duck in some of the more open areas near to Ushuaia.

The Patagonian beech forests will be searched for special birds such as Magellanic Woodpecker, Austral Pygmy Owl, White-throated Treerunner, Austral Parakeet, Thorn-tailed Rayadito, White-crested Elaenia, Patagonian Sierra Finch and Black-chinned Siskin.

Please note that the itinerary cannot be guaranteed as it is only a rough guide and can be changed (usually slightly) due to factors such as availability of accommodation, updated information on the state of accommodation, roads, or birding sites, the discretion of the guides, and other factors.