The Whispering Land

Martinetas were to be seen everywhere along the rough roads in little groups of five or ten. Ridiculously tame, they would stand in the middle of the road, watching the Land-Rover's approach with wide eyes, bobbing their heads so that their silly crests twitched and fluttered, not bothering to move until you slowed down within a few feet of them and blew the horn. Then, stretching out their necks and holding their heads low, as if searching the ground for something they had lost, they would scuttle off into the scrub. They were most reluctant to fly, and in order to make them do so you had to pursue them for considerable distances through the undergrowth. Then, when they felt you were coming too near, they would launch themselves into the sky with an air of desperation. It was a curious, laboured flight, like that of a bird which has never learnt to use its wings properly. They would give four or five frantic flaps of their wings, and then glide until their fat bodies had almost dragged them to earth again, when they would give another series of wild flaps and then glide on a bit further. As they flew the rush of wind through their feathers produced a curious wailing note, that rose and fell flute-like, as they flapped and glided away. Their partiality for sitting in the middle of the road was due to the fact, I think, that it was only on these bare surfaces that they could construct the best dust-baths. In many places they had scooped out quite deep depressions in the red earth, and you could see three or four of them standing patiently waiting their turn, while one member of the flock rolled and kicked absurdly in the bath, fluttering its wings to throw the dust over its body.

These lovely, slightly imbecile birds are, of course, ground-nesting, and I think that they themselves, their eggs and their young, form an important item of diet among the carnivorous mammals of the peninsula, particularly the pampas fox, which is a common predator in the area. They are slim, grey, dainty little animals, with incredibly slender and fragile-looking legs. They appeared to hunt as much by day as by night, and were usually to be seen in pairs. They would suddenly dash across the road in front of us as we drove along, their bushy tails streaming out behind them like puffs of grey smoke, and on reaching the other side of the road they would skid to a halt and, squatting on their haunches, examine us craftily.

At one of the places in which we camped a pair of these little foxes paid us a visit, the only animal apart from the guanaco to do so. It was about five in the morning, and from my bed under the rear axle of the Land-Rover I was watching the sky turn green with dawn, while, as usual, trying to pluck up the courage to quit the warmth of my blankets and light the fire for breakfast. Suddenly, from the yellow scrub around us, the two foxes appeared as unexpectedly and as silently as ghosts. They approached the camp cautiously, with the conspiratorial air of a couple of schoolboys raiding an orchard, with many pauses to sniff the dawn wind. It was fortunate, at that precise juncture, that no one was snoring. I can put it on record that there is nothing quite so effective for scaring off wild animals as three women in the back of a Land-Rover, all snoring in different keys.

Having circled the camp without mishap, they grew bolder. They approached the ashes of the fire, sniffed at them deeply, and then frightened each other by sneezing violently. Recovering from this shock they continued their investigation and found an empty sardine tin, which, after a certain amount of low bickering, they proceeded to lick clean. Their next discovery was a large roll of bright pink toilet paper, one of the few luxury articles in our equipment. Having proved that it was not edible, they then discovered that if it was patted briskly with a paw it unravelled itself in the most satisfactory manner. So, far the nest ten minutes, they danced and whirled on their slender legs, hurling the toilet roll to and fro, occasionally taking streamers of it in their mouths and leaping daintily into the air, returning to earth with the paper wrapped intricately round their necks and legs. This game was conducted so silently and so gracefully that it was a delight to watch, and their agile bodies were well set off against the green sky, the yellow-flowered bushes and the pink paper. The whole camp site was taking on a gay carnival air, when somebody in the Land-Rover yawned. The foxes froze instantly, one of them with a piece of toilet paper dangling from his mouth. The yawn was repeated, and the foxes vanished as silently as they had come, leaving – as a souvenir of their visit – some hundred and twenty feet of pink paper fluttering in the breeze.