Can you tell its been busy? Of course, the first things that always get neglected are our blog and Facebook page.
Here is a recap of our exciting adventure over the last few days:
Guests on the Sea Hawk saw some amazing wildlife in the past 4 days. Naturalist Kevin said they saw Peregrine Falcon fledglings seriously testing there flying abilities. There is a huge nest on Turn Point (Stuart Island) and the fledglings were out flying around. The Sea Hawk watched these guys for quite some time. One fledging zoomed right past Captain Brian’s head while he was driving the boat from the fly bridge. Can you believe these guys can reach speeds of up to 200mph while in a full dive to catch prey?
Another highlight was that guests on the Sea Hawk were able to see K27 and her new offspring K44 pretty frequently. At one point, they were swimming along at 8mph! It doesn’t seem very fast on land, but in the water, that’s some serious speed! K44 was keeping up with mom and other members of K27’s subgroup with no problem. Killer whales can have bursts of speed of up to 30mph and their usual traveling speed is somewhere in the range of 6 mph. The Center of Whale Research assigns calves an alpha-numeric at birth, and then the Whale Museum holds a contest to assign a name at about 1 year of life. Our submission for K44 is definitely going to “Speedy” or “Zoom-Zoom.”
Check back later from more updates from our day trips that will be out on the water shortly!