Freitag, 30. Oktober 2009

Orca encounter on Patagonia trip

What a great luck during the second part of our Charles Darwin trip.

On 27th October we went out to observe Rockhopper Penguins at Isla Pinguino.
Our first stop was the island where Imperial Cormorans are nesting. Suddenly we saw some blows in the sea, just 200m away from our location. A group of Orcas were hunting just in front of Penguin island.
So we forgot the Cormorans and went back to the boat.
We found the orcas that were feeding on something. After they started to navigate around penguin island and we followed them for more than 1 hour.
A first ID made clear that these animals did not belong to the Punta Norte Pod that we know from our work with Orcas in March and April.
www.patagoniaproject.net

I forwarded the pictures to Dr. Ingrid Visser in New Zealand. She works with the Orcas in Patagonia since many yours. She also could not find any match to other Orcas that have been seen before.
Now we will try to find a match from other places along the Patagonian coast. Juan Capello from PNOR is following up this case.

Ingrid is doing a work shop with us a Pico Island about whales and dolphins from 17th to 31st July 2010. We hope to have more information until that time an will update you in the summer.
Infos on the work shop can be requested by e mail
whales@gmx.net

Now enjoy some Orca pictures with us















On the second day we went to bird island, where the oystercatchers started to nest......Falk, our tour guide for the Orca trip next march took some close ups.






a sea lion bull



The paloma antartica with a sea lion. They feed on parasites of sea lions.



Grey cormorans nest along Deseado river

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