Our Far South
End of Day 5 and for the 2nd day HF has traveled due east with no southerly progress. Wind and tide appear to be in the ascendancy. We've been told there are plenty of fish around, so perhaps chasing a meal.   

Beauty, I believe, stopped by for a second, then off.
next to Main Cam

Good morning Helen and Happy Birthday! Hope your OK. Come back and say Hi! Have a great day.

   

This will be interesting or it won't! Seems like Mr C is taking after Archer. Beauty or Unity? We don't need a 4 way!! Funny how he found KP and DT. I'll never figure this mess out! 

[WanderingFalcon (Carol P.):]

WanderingFalcon (Carol P.): At kp. A&U heading towards DT!

Link:
http://twitter.com/WanderingFalcon/statuses/111929792185647104

Noooooooo, stay away!!!

Our Far South
The drifter buoys near Campbell Island move east-northeast an avg of 10.5km/day. Therefore if Happy Feet had not been swimming, he would now be about 42km E-NE of his release point.

It is four days since the world’s most famous penguin escaped down the stern ramp of the Tangaroa. After two months of intense scrutiny, you might think that he was slipping into the obscurity of being a speck in the great southern ocean, and the anonymity of being one of over 300,000 emperor penguins on the planet. No such luck! Thanks to the Sirtrack KiwiSat 202 satellite transmitter glued to his back, his every move is watched by millions of adoring spheniscophiles around the world. But that is hyperbole; the duty cycle of the transmitter has it turned on for only 7 hours per day. This means that for 17 hours a day he can swim wherever he likes without anyone telling him that he is swimming in the wrong direction (as long as he ends up further south when the transmitter turns on again).
What does his track tell us after 96 hours? Overall, he has travelled about 100 km in a south-easterly direction, travelling at a rate of about 1.2 km per hour (29.3 km per day). But where would he have ended up if he had floated passively on the surface, allowing currents to carry him like inanimate flotsam? We have the answer to that due to the known movements of 30 Global Drifter Program buoys that have passed near Campbell Island (data from NIWA).

Campbell Island sits in the path of the mightiest oceanic current on the planet, far more massive than the Amazon River. Driven by strong westerly winds, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current south of New Zealand flows eastward at a rate of nearly 150 million cubic metres per second. This is about 150 times the water flow of all the world’s rivers combined.
On average, the drifter buoys near Campbell Island moved in an east-northeast direction at an average rate of 10.5 km per day. This means that if the penguin had not been actively swimming, he would now be about 42 km east-northeast of his release point. If passive movement due to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is allowed for, the distance that the emperor penguin has travelled by active swimming is approximately 91 km in a south-southeast direction at a rate of 1.1 km per hour (26.9 km per day).

If he keeps on this track and speed, he will reach the pack ice off Marie Byrd Land (between the Ross Sea and the Amundsen Sea) about the end of November. Will he find other emperor penguins there? Yes – as the attached map shows, there are two known and two probable emperor penguin colonies along this remote stretch of the Antarctic coast. The probable colonies have never been visited by humans; they were discovered by satellite imagery detecting fecal staining on the fast-ice, known to be characteristic of emperor penguin colonies.
This strong easterly drift also raises the question of where the peripatetic Peka Peka penguin came from. If he travelled as far east as he did north on his way to New Zealand, then it is likely that he came from one of the colonies in the Australian Antarctic sector, rather than from one of the cluster of colonies on the western side of the Ross Sea.

I keep watching the nest, waiting for Archer to come back with the other falcon in tow! 

Would love to be at KP right now!

I wonder if this is a tiercel or another female Archer's added to his harem? 

The picture didn't look like a juvie either did it?  I had the strange thought that maybe U and A had a hatch this summer, but the pic posted is not that of a juvie.    So all three can be sharing the same space in harmony? 

I think it looks more female than male, not sure though. Maybe a passer-througher! Time will tell and so will the watchers!

Would love to be at KP right now!

[MAKfalcon (MAK):]

MAKfalcon (MAK): A on blue building. U and Mr. C both gone and I have to go too!

Link:
http://twitter.com/MAKfalcon/statuses/111766739108372480

Sorry Shaky, I didn't know Yarak had an on/off switch!! 

Thank you Janet for sharing those pictures.  The happenings on 9-11 were so very heart wrenching to remember and for those to live through it right in "their own back yard".  I will NEVER forget that day and know my family will not either.  Such a tragic day in our history.  God Bless America and take comfort in the fact that it has made us more aware and maybe just a little more caring for our neighbors and surroundings.  I have a son  in the Navy since summer 2000,now serving on board the new George H. W. Bush aircraft carrier and I know They still fight to keep all of us as safe back here as they can.  I doubt there is a day that goes by that I don't think of that day and pray for the families that have had to figure out how to go on with their lives, minus some very important loved ones with them.

I agree "WE MUST NEVER FORGET"!

God Bless your son Annie, we will never forget him and others who are serving our Country. Thank you!

Had to drive past the Canadian Embassy in DC yesterday.  There is a HUGE Banner that says, "Canada Remembers 9/11".  Thank you, my friends.

YAY Canada!! 

All,  Terry from Wild Wings sent this (the birds were seen Monday):

I just wanted to let you know and I am sure you can post it if you like, that there were 2 Peregrines at Montezuma yesterday from about 2-6pm on the wildlife drive especially concentrated by the bend where the thruway starts and they were amazing to watch as always. They drove off a Great Blue Heron and made for a great viewing spectacle. They perched together in a tree for about 2 hours or so and were only about 20 feet up.

How wonderful for them to see this!! Wonder who the 2 were?

If anyone received a weird get rich message from me-- it wasn't from me.  My road runner account was hacked

I have called time warner and changed my password but wanted to let you all know!

jeanne

Oh jeanne, I'm so sorry!