Petaka (shown below) is one of the pumas that my group and I photographed while in Patagonia. Our guides that track the pumas and follow a lot of their day-to-day say that she had a litter of three but lost one. This was most likely due to a male puma. Her two surviving cubs are approximately five months old.
Petaka has beautiful markings on her face and a slightly pinkish nose. Her color is golden tan, and her body is fit and sleek. I took many portrait shots of her because of her distinct characteristics. I never saw Petaka before so seeing and photographing her was a treat.
This shot shows Petaka’s features best.
Dania enjoying the Guanaco.
One of the other female pumas that we had the opportunity to photograph was Dania. Dania is exceptionally beautiful; she is also one of Rupuestre’s offspring (Rupuestre is the mother of the four cubs I photographed on my last visit). She has her mother’s good looks with the exception of a clipped left ear that distinguishes her from others. Because of my love for her mother and the fact that I photographed Dania when she was just seven weeks old, I have a huge soft spot for her.
Watching her thrive in the wild is heartwarming but it is also a great privilege and I do know how fortunate I am. In fact, being able to revisit Patagonia and explore Torres del Paine as many times as I’ve been able to has been a dream come true for me…
Dania
Back to the trip… once again my puma tracker/guides did not disappoint. They did some scouting before we arrived and had a good idea of where some of some female pumas with cubs had been hunting Guanaco. This time around we took 4x4’s to get up the mountains so the hiking was pretty minimal.
On our first day we saw Dania trying to eat some Guanaco meat that belonged to a large male. I never saw that male before, but he was large and had unattractive features— at least I thought so. He would finish eating and retreat only to rush back to the kill if he saw Dania going anywhere near it. She was clearly hungry but extremely cautious of the large male. He chased her off over and over again until they both went over the mountain.
A few minutes later Dania came back to feed from the carcass after shaking him from her trail or “tail.” She ate for a while, and we all got some great shots. I got down very low, hoping for some out of focus foreground stuff to soften the blood and guts of the kill a bit.
On a different day we watched as Petaka, and her two young cubs headed to Sarmiento Lake. Halfway there they stopped and slept. Boy, the life of cats… eat, sleep, repeat… Anyway, I was able to get a shot of the cubs against the deep blue water of the lake as they waited patiently for mom to get up.
Petaka’s two cubs
My group and I were treated to many puma feedings and sightings during our time on the mountains. We even had the rare opportunity to watch from a distance as a female puma almost caught a Guanaco. But, her two cubs botched the chance, it was nail biting for a while.
As fantastic as our time with the pumas was, we did plan to do two days of landscape photography. After all, the mountains are so majestic and beckon to be viewed. Some clients even photographed a Pygmy Owl, Patagonian fox, and a few Southern Crested Cara cara.
I will miss the pumas and the towers very much. I am planning to return in 2023, but for now, the winds and cold evenings on the mountains are a cherished memory. Patagonia has a way of touching your soul.