More Fun with Wildlife

1-31-2023 

More fun with wildlife… Mother nature gave us a front row seat to an awesome display of beauty and grace. Outside the window where I work, where once there was nothing but snow and ice, is now a massive body of water. The Ross Island Sound. The morning began with 2 Adelae penguins cavorting on the ice. They are just so much fun to watch. Truly like small children playing without a care in the world. On the way back from lunch we saw what we thought was a single orca, perhaps the same one from yesterday. On closer examination we realized it was a pod of 5 orcas and they were on the hunt. We watched as they swam up to the ice edge. At the edge the rotated from a horizontal swim to a vertical bob exposing half of their huge bodies. They were clearly looking on the ice for any prey they could find. Finding none, they turned around and began to swim back up the sound. Shortly after they turned the came upon a raft of penguins swimming in the sound. The penguins saw them at the same time and beat a hasty retreat to a floating slab of ice. The literally flew out of the water onto the ice and moved towards the center. It was then that the orcas started splashing water onto the slab and sliding out of the water onto the ice trying to force the penguins into the water. 
It was fascinating to watch the give and take between the huge orcas and the tiny penguins. The orcas managed to dislodge 2 penguins from the ice. Fortunately for the penguins they were able to jump back on the ice before they could be dragged away. After about 5 minutes of trying to jostle the penguins loose the orcas seemed to lose interest and just swam away. Off and on we watched the penguins over the next half hour as the ice floated out into the sound. Eventually they would need to leave the ice to tempt fate and the orcas. Today, in this brief encounter the penguins prevailed. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

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