The following images were taken by myself, a Patagonia-based birder, naturalist and photographer. I recently carried out two photographic trips to the island of Tierra del Fuego in the southern autumn (fall), between April and May 2021.

The island of Tierra del Fuego (the Land of Fire) is a vast territory shared between Chile and Argentina, and most of the land in the Chile sector (its northern, western and southern parts) remains pristine, untouched and wild, thanks to the effective conservation work carried out by Karukinka Park (Wildlife Conservation Society) and Yendegaia National Park, the latter recently established by CONAF (Chile’s National Park Authority) and kindly donated by Tompkins Conservation to the people of Chile. The island is also dotted by numerous and large estancias (sheep and cattle farms), a traditional activity on the island, since the first western pioneers arrived and started to populate Tierra del Fuego in the late 20th century. Noble tribes and bands of hunter-gatherers (Selk’nam, Haush and Yamana) were the original settlers of Karukinka (“our land”), but their presence sadly became just a memory in nowadays silent woodlands, moorlands and wind-swept steppes as they were suddenly wiped out in a short and dramatic occupation of their land.

I have explored this territory numerous times, while studying its birdlife and other natural history subjects, but on this occasion, my goal was slightly different as I wanted to make an autumn portrait of this huge territory while traveling from its northern tip (Punta Catalina in the Magellan Straits) south to the “end of the road”, in Yendegaia National Park, surrounded by the colossal peaks of the Darwin Range.

My most important recollections, I think, are the striking, vivid foliage colours of the southern beech (Nothofagus) forests of the southern part of the island, the many unnamed peaks and lakes of the southern Andes stretching as an open invitation to be explored and conquered, and the crèches of fluffy king penguin chicks at Useless Bay, arising as a prominent and inspiring promise of nature’s recovery at the end’s of the Earth.

I am most grateful to my hosts and friends Cecilia Duran, Alejandro Fernandez and Aurora Fernandez from Reserva Pingüino Rey (Estancia San Clemente) and Christian Filipic from Estancia Fortuna. I also wish to thank Paula Santana for her kind invitation, to my brother Dr. Osvaldo Vidal, from Universidad de Magallanes, for sharing his vast knowledge on the plant life of the island with me and to Susanne Widmer for been the most wonderful companion on these endeavours into the wild. Tierra del Fuego in Autumn