Week 1
6 July 2006

Flying Away – Birds of the Southern Ocean

The wandering albatross is a common sight in the Southern Ocean. It has a wingspan that can measure up to 3 meters. (How many feet is that?) GPS tracking of Wandering Albatrosses have shown that they flew at a mean of 55 km/h.

Two questions here:

1. Is mean the same as average? If not, explain the difference.
   
2. If you drive 55 km/h in a 35 mph zone, are you exceeding the speed limit?

Faster than a speeding albatross:

Ten percent of the time, albatrosses fly at speeds faster than 85 km/h.

Perhaps called the wanderer because:

A male from the Antipodes flew 8000 km to the South Pacific in 17 days.  Another flew 25,000 km in 9 weeks, across almost the entire Atlantic and Indian Ocean.  That distance is about how far it is round-trip from Portland, Oregon to Punta Arenas flying by way of Dallas, Texas.

Legend has it that killing an albatross brings bad luck to mariners; however, many ships used to build a baited wood frame to try to catch them. The activity was just for sport, and often the bird was released. The meat of the bird is oily and fishy and does not appeal to most people.

Antarctic Petrel

These birds have a wingspan of about 29-30 cm and weigh about 675 grams. They can be found from the Antarctic coast to 350 km inland. They can be found as far north as southern South America, South Africa, Tasmania, and New Zealand. There are possibly as many as 4-7 million breeding pairs. In summer, these birds prefer iceberg and ice pack zones.

Petrels live on cephalopods, crustaceans, and small fish.  Is this a diet that people could eat?

Black Browed Albatross - Photo Steve Ebbert Link	A giant petrel in flight. They can fly in storms without problem, but if there's no breeze, they are so big that they can't take off. Link
Giant petrhels on their nests. Link