This is Patagonia, the last outpost of continental rock before the beginnings of the wild Antarctic
seas.
In its aloof majesty, Patagonia has stood unchanging and undisturbed for millennia.
There is no human footprint here.
This land offers no haven for ordinary creatures.
In the course of millions of years, only a few species have learned to survive in this
realm of extremes.
A kingdom of endless punishing winds.
Those who can live here are among nature's most indestructible offspring.
Here even the sun seems to be born on the wind.
Through months of howling winter darkness, the denizens of Patagonia have somehow endured.
They now await the coming of summer and of new life.
Patagonia covers more than a quarter of a million square miles at the end of South America.
The land has many faces, non-welcoming, few familiar.
This is the emptiest place on the continent.
Three hundred miles east from the Andes, beyond primeval wastelands the size of nations, lies
another thousand miles of virgin coastline.
Along these barren shores, strange visitors will soon arrive.
As outlandish and untamable as the region itself.
Marunga Leonina, the southern elephant seal.
For a hundred thousand years, mighty bulls like this have lumbered on the Patagonian
shores driven by the instinct to mate.
At three tons and nearly twenty feet, their displays of male power are deafening.
To the victor will go the prize, a herald of blubbery sirens.
Despite the sound and fury of these bloody battles, they are never fatal.
The loser will be back to fight another year.
With their chests protected by thick shields of callus and with bodies fully one third
blubber, these giants quickly recover from even the most brutal of fights.
Elephant seals are not at home on land.
These females have beached themselves only reluctantly, just in time to give birth to
a single pup.
A rocky beginning, but no harm done when you're born at a strapping eighty pounds.
Mother and baby begin to bond instantly, imprinting on each other's voices and smell.
The mothers and their pups will be inseparable and nearly immobile for the next twenty five
days.
Their springtime on these shores is devoted mainly to nursing and resting.
No nourishment here ever goes to waste.
Within three weeks, mother's fat rich milk will have tripled the baby's body weight.
But mother will have lost nearly half of hers.
Soon hunger will draw her back to the ocean.
One day soon, the pup will no longer hear a call to him in the waves.
After she has bred, she will swim away and be gone for good.
The pup will stay ashore on his own, living off his fat.
In two months, instinct will finally carry him to his true home far at sea.
Having defeated all rivals, this bull has earned first right to breed with any female
in his territory.
His nose reports instantly when one of his harem is raided.
While utterly lacking in graces, the huge bull is not an entirely insensitive mate.
When he couples with the female, who is only a fraction of his weight, it is side by side.
In this way, the bull will attend to the twenty or thirty other females he has won this season
on the sands of Patagonia.
Hundreds of miles inland toward the Andes, Patagonia's resident population is everywhere
about, soaking up what warmth they can glean through the icy wind.
High above them, members of the world's last wild population of condors flock and thrive.
Here, the prehistoric vulture has found the precious isolation required for its slow and
calm
life.
Were it not for this unspoiled Eden, it would never have been known that condors meet at
secret rock pools high on mountain ridges.
But here, they carefully bathe their featherless heads and groom their delicate plumage.
In these hidden sanctuaries, the condors have the time needed to fully dry their feathers.
Their massive wings are so lightly made that even a slight amount of moisture will impair
their ability to fly.
Though condors roost and feed and bathe communally, their nests are solitary affairs, high up,
hidden from all others.
Here, every other year, a pair that has bonded for life begins again a slow and graceful
courtship.
The male may spend days or weeks enticing the female to mate with an elaborate fan dance
of his wings.
A high alpine meadow softened with thaw is the favorite haunt of the Wanako.
Among the last truly wild camels on earth, the Wanako is at home in every corner of Patagonia.
Their adaptation to this land is complete.
Summer and winter, they carry their sole protection in the fleece on their backs.
A carefree dust bath fluffs their coats for perfect insulation.
The screams of male competition herald the opening of summer.
Though they live together in casual herds all winter, now the males will chase each
other ragged.
The mutual torment continues for weeks as the males jockey for territory in harems.
The young males excluded from the herd eagerly imitate.
They are practicing for survival.
But in Patagonia the normal rough play of youth can be fatal.
This simple mishap will be a windfall for the puma.
The puma will feast on the kill for several nights, carefully hiding it by day.
When the cat has finished with his prey, the remnants will mean life to countless other
creatures.
In this harsh land nothing can be wasted.
The Andean condor, a scavenger, is the most enormous flying bird in the world.
With its impressive ten foot wingspan, the condor uses wind currents to soar for hours
on end.
It conserves precious energy by flapping its wings only occasionally.
donneh-banaksih-banako Belar.
Really?
The condo's greatest strength is its eyesight.
It can spot food up to eight miles away.
A condo will study a feeding site for up to two days before moving in.
The key to its long history of survival is not power or cunning, but caution.
The flock will land on a carcass only when they're certain it's safe.
The pecking order among the hissing men is simple and strict.
The ranking males eat first and most.
In the larger pecking order, a hungry fox must be yielded to.
For all their great size, condors, small beaks and weak claws are poor defense against a
true predator.
Though smaller, the fox possesses the simple but formidable gift of teeth.
It is now the fullness of Patagonian summer and both food and life are bountiful.
For the Wunako mothers, the birth of a calf is an annual and nearly effortless part of
life.
Here in the particularly intestines of the Wunako mother January 16th of this year marks
By the end of its first hour, this newborn will be able to easily outrun a human.
Though the baby, called a Cholengo, will be able to forage for itself in a matter of weeks,
Mother will continue to nurse it for half a year.
The Cholengo, with well-padded feet sure on any terrain, will one day be able to gallop these slopes at 35 miles per hour.
For a few more weeks, all these Cholengos will know is play and indulgence.
Life, for now, is a place of carefree, sun-warm perfection.
In the world of the Condor, finding food in this season has become everything.
These days, a parent must always fly home with its gullet full of meat.
Back in the nest, everything has changed.
Three months ago, this ungainly baby shed its shell, and already it is nearly as huge as its mother.
This demanding little big bird is a full-time job for its parents.
It may consume a fourth of its weight at a single feeding.
Baby has no way out of its lofty nest, and nothing to do but beg for food and grow for half a year,
until its downy feathers have fallen away and given it real Condor wings.
Miles to the north, high above even the Condor's haunts, the Andes hide yet another wonder of the world.
This colossus is the glacier Perito Moreno.
Two hundred feet high, its spires are made of thousands of years' worth of Patagonia's snowfall,
caught by the mountains, hoarded in this freezer.
Two miles long and three miles wide, this frozen giant is alive.
A thousand feet under evening sun, within an hour of landing,
the little tabs still hold its Pigeon's hand in the terrain,
while a clear and faint
The
glacier has lived on in this way for millions of years. Time and mortality mean nothing here.
On the Patagonian shore, life moves to a far different rhythm. An army fueled by
urgency has just invaded. These improbable creatures are Magellanic penguins, also known
for their braying as jackass penguins. They are denizens not of snowfields and ice floes,
but of temperate southern waters and these desert shores. This entire host, some 200,000
birds, are males. They have come to this parts spit of land to breed, just as their forefathers
have done for generations. Every few feet on this outpost is a nest owned by one of these males.
Somehow each male will eventually find the same nest he left six months ago,
a nest to which he returns every year of his adult life. It's not much of a house,
but he'll guard it with his life, for it guarantees his chance to mate. For two weeks,
the nest will be dug out, freshened up and decorated in anticipation of the arrival of
the females. One fine morning, the sleek ladies appear. They have just swum 1500 miles from the
waters off Brazil. This will be the first dry ground they have touched in half a year. Each
female has come to listen for a special call. Somewhere among these 200,000 males is her
lifelong mate. This pair, however long it may take, will recognize each other's voices.
The reunion is enthusiastic, but little time is lost to foreplay. They will couple repeatedly
in the first days to make certain she conceives. At last, it's time to inspect the nest, a generous
word for a dusty hole in the ground. But this will be the couple's sole habitation for five long months.
Poor as it may be, this nest is a better piece of real estate than many. There are other males
who would try to steal it. Though they are peaceable birds the rest of the year, tempers
are now short. The lesson is a punishing one. The victor braes his triumph. He has successfully
defended the only things that matter now, a female and a nest. Life is tough for a water bird who
must spend summer in the desert, but a few scattered tide pools provide an essential
oasis. Here the penguins can quench their thirst and rid their protective coats of the dust and
grime of this harsh land. For birds who live on the outskirts of the colony, the trek from
tide pool back to the nest can be a grueling mile-long ordeal.
Back home, they must also endure the heat.
Back home, they must also endure the intrusions of the ever curious Winoco and a fellow species
of flightless birds called Reyes. Not far away, one of the rarest of all animals comes to
call in the bays, the southern right whale. Among the gentlest of giants, this whale is
buffeted the year long by the wild southern seas that whirl around Cape Horn. Here in
the shallow bays of Patagonia, they find the peace to mate and bring forth their young.
Each mature female comes every third year to bear a single two-ton calf, which she has
carried for 11 months. These quiet whales are sensitive and tactile.
Sly and baby circle and caress, rarely moving beyond the reach of each other's touch. Safe
in these lagoons, the whales play by the hour, sailing the bays by lifting their tails into
the ever-present Patagonian wind. In the long Patagonian summer, the clouds scutting by will
dispense rain only occasionally, for a few minutes at a time. For the water-loving penguins
now entering their fifth month in the desert, rain is a blessing of almost overwhelming
sweetness. After 40 days of constant incubation, two chicks have been born to the mated penguin
pair. Caring for them requires all the strength of both parents. Mother and father constantly
alternate fishing and feeding to satisfy the chicks' insatiable appetites. Any strength
they have left is spent defending the young and themselves from the rotting school birds,
and scavengers who will devour any meat they can find. Constant competition weeds out the
weak. In Patagonia's dry months, there is often not enough for everyone. The indifference
of this parched land began in volcanic calderas like these 20 million years ago. In a violent
upheaval, the Andes were lifted from sea level to 13,000 feet. The youngest of Earth's mountain
ranges, the Greedy Peak, steeled nearly all of the 200 inches of rain that surged in from
the Pacific. Beneath the new mountains, mighty rainforests were left to become gigantic fossils.
All the remains of once lush forests are scattered shards of petrified wood. In this rain-shadowed
desert, only the hardiest of creatures have been able to survive. There is abundant wind
and heat, but no rainfall here for months at a time. Those who intend to endure must
carry their food and their lives underground. Ancestors of the hairy armadillo were here
long before the Andes were born. Omnivorous and well-armored, he personifies survival.
Not even he must burrow out of the wind. In Patagonia, the wind is known as La Escoba
de Dios, the broom of God. It sweeps away anything weak or faltering, leaving a waterless
mirage of dwarf trees. Yet from this harsh crucible, marvelous creatures have evolved.
The Mara, about two feet tall, seems a wild cross between guinea pig and hare. She will
nurse her young for several months as they grow and learn to graze this weather-beaten
wilderness. Mara are found only on the Patagonian steppes, and one day they will run at speeds
of 25 miles an hour. The tiny burrowing owl is another miracle of adaptation to this windblown
land. Instead of flying, it has learned to dance across the prairie in search of food.
The five-ounce bird requires little. A single beetle is a family meal to be savored and
shared. This thorny badlands in the middle of nowhere is the preferred haunt of the strange
flightless rayon. Strangers still are its family habits. The mother hen is a male. In
a nest hidden somewhere near this watering hole, he incubated and hatched every one of
these chicks, some 50 or 60 in all. Various females came, laid their eggs and left. The
entire brood is now his and only his to protect and raise. In the entire thousand-mile length
of Patagonia, only one or two rivers flow year-round from the Andes to the sea. During
the peak of the summer thaw, cascades of melted snow thunder down to the desert. Most of the
torrents soon peter out, coming to rest in scattered, shallow lakes. These oases are
magnets for a seemingly impossible array of bird life. Some have traveled several thousand
miles to reach these ephemeral lakes and feast on their fleeting bounty of food. The sun-warm
shallows offer up a whole salad of succulent grasses for a mere dip of the head. Fall is
now approaching and the days grow imperceptibly more hostile. The last of Patagonia's summer
visitors has come ashore to bear its next generation, the southern sea lion. A carefree
sea lion pup has no clue that its brief childhood will be a gauntlet of almost incredible cruelty.
The massive sea lion males engage in constant skirmishes, often trampling their own young
in the struggle to control their territory. The noise and chaos can disorient the pups,
frightening them away from the main colony. At the fringe they will find violent clusters
of adolescent males. An innocent pup can become a pawn in their fearsome shows of dominance.
The pup cannot hear his mother's call. In his search for her, he strays into the most
dangerous part of the colony. These sub-adult males without manes do not look so different
from the females, but they are. Teeming with hormones and exiled from breeding by mature
bulls, the adolescent male's frustration fuels cruel displays of thwarted power. They will
often kill a pup in these displays, but this youngster is lucky. He has stumbled into the
territory of an adult bull, a boundary the adolescents dare not cross. Finally, the battered
baby finds relief in a group of other pups and mothers. His own mother, in fact, may
be out with other restless females who are beginning their return to the sea. From the
time their pups are a week old, mothers will leave them for hours at a time in order to
surf and feed in the high tide. But the sea lions are not the only large hungry mammals
looking for food in these waters. At high tides, killer whales patrol the shores looking
for unwary pups. Sea lion pups, which they can swallow whole, are a delicacy.
the 10 ton killer whales have learned to conceal themselves until they are almost
at the beach. One in five sea lion mothers will lose her pup to this two month long feeding
frenzy. As fall bears down with its chill winds, the Magellanic penguins at last prepare
to leave the desolation of the Patagonian shore. The fledglings, only three months old,
confidently march to the sea for their first journey to the penguins' northern feeding
grounds. The youngsters will have to find their own way over 1500 miles of trackless
water. No one knows how they chart their course. The days grow chill in the Patagonian interior
and condors move down from their areas. They gather to witness a ritual. The condor chick,
pampered and adored, is ready to attempt first flight. Awkward still, it will be six more
years before the youth has full adult plumage and can take its rightful place among the
ancient monarchs of the sky. Like the condor, the Wanaka will stay and endure the Patagonian
winter, a world of sub-zero temperatures and 16 hour nights. Patagonia's continents will
soon return to a frozen still life. Again, these icy towers will stand unchanging against
the tempests of another howling winter and no one will be witness. For here is a vision
of the beginnings of the earth at the very end of the earth and there are wonders that
can only unfold in a place that time and man have left behind, a place like the wild Eden
of Patagonia.