Following the trend, I regrouped with two couples at the port who were on yesterday’s trekking and rafting excursion for today’s engagement with the animal kingdom.
Harberton Ranch was founded in the 1880’s by Tomas Bridges, an anglican minister/language recordist/rancher responsible for an interesting and involved slice of history that you can read more about here
Harberton Ranch 
Moby Dick is a mere shadow
of his former self
After a serious of misfortunes, the ranch changed its core business in the 1990’s to tourism and now ferries tourists on zodiacs to Martillo Island. This is where we headed to mingle with penguins, skuas, gulls and geese.
Skua 
Upland Geese
About 2500 breeding pairs of Magellanic penguins have established a colony on Martillo Island and the area is pitted with burrows and pulses with the mournful calls between mates. We saw one baby being fed before the parent flattened back down over it to keep up the warm cocoon and the little peeps were quickly muffled.
There are also several nests of Gentoo penguins – they build a pebble nest above the ground and are a sub-Antarctic species with an orange beak and a serious expression. And then there is the lonely, solitary, rogue King penguin, just hanging out with the Gentoo group, looking up only to preen his sleek coat and apparently chase after a disinterested Gentoo. He comes and goes and nobody can work out why he’s gone out on his own. Maybe he’s seen Happy Feet 😉
Gentoo penguins on their pebble nests 
Down on the beach we could sit a while watching them watching us. The cold seeps into your bones awfully fast when sitting on pebbles and before too long the zodiac came to take us back to Harberton. Biologists have researched the effect on the penguins from human visitors and it seems they appreciate the interaction as it means the skuas stay away…which is good news for penguins trying to keep babies off the skua dinner table.
The small marine bird and mammal museum on the way home does a good job focusing on the local animal populations…with the exception of a hippo skull – as you do.
It’s raining, or is it snowing, while the sun shines though the hostel window as I write. While I’ve been here the characters have kept up quite a show. An eccentric elderly Spanish man with bedazzled jeans has regaled the reception crew while checking in, a man who I have seen only skulking around the hostel and never leaving has complained that people are hanging clothes to dry in the room and wants a free night’s accommodation because it “is completely unacceptable to be expected to live in a room like that!” And now a young guy called Felix, who has just finished cycling from Alaska, has been pipped at the final hurdle – he can’t get a room here till tomorrow, though they have invited him back for a free breakfast in the morning.
This is a place of vast natural beauty, diversity and mystical engagement. Humans cling to the edge of Ushuaia Bay, looking up to the snowy covered hulks of mountains behind and scurrying around in gore-tex-everything. The animals pay no heed, even the stray dogs ignore you, the penguins and other birds go about their business like this is any place on Earth you can think of…they can’t see why we make such a big deal out of Fin del Mundo.
Cat on cat action outside the hostel