Birds, Birds and more birds

Waiting for penguins...
We went twice to see penguins and never saw one. It was sad, but we still had fun hanging out waiting for those sneaky little penguins to come on shore.

Waiting, where are they??

We did see a container ship coming into port

and a beautiful sunset

We also found some massive seaweed

We also went to the Royal Albatross Center out on the Peninsula. The Albatross bird is a sea bird that spends most of its life out at sea. It only comes back to land when it breeds. We have the only mainland breeding center in the southern hemisphere here in Duendin. The Royal Albatross are huge birds, their wings span is around 10 feet and they can fly around 115 kph.  After they leave their nests, they usually spend the next 5 years flying around the southern hemisphere and then they will come back to the same place they were born to breed.  When when went to see them, we saw one adult briefly from the visitors center and then we didn't see another one at all. We did get to see 3 of the 7 chicks they had. The chicks were getting ready to leave the nest in the next month, so they were huge.

Before the Royal Albatross Center became a Nature Reserve there was a fort there. The Kiwi's were nervous that the Russians were going to attack them in the late 1800's and built an underground fort with three disappearing  guns. There is still one gun that is in working order (but they don't use it) that you can tour also.

 

 Spotted Shags also nest there.