4 ms·

Apparently yes. It looks like the Grey-Headed Albatross, a pretty large seabird, can reach a maximum horizontal speed of nearly 80 mph: https://en.wikipedia.or

• noetic_techy 7y ago
  Can't be. Only 3 albatross species exist in the northern pacific and none of them fit the length: Short-tailed albatross, Black-footed albatross, Laysan albatross. None of which are long enough head to tail. The only other explanation is a Brown Pelican, which is too slow average 25 mph. https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/jfo/v049n02/p0108-p0112.pdf https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/jfo/v049n0...
  • godelski 7y ago
    The question was about if. So average speeds aren't great. We actually need to consider two different speeds. The obvious is maximum horizontal speed. The other isn't so obvious, maximum dive speed. We don't really know if the bird is flying horizontal to the ocean or it is diving. It could be flying somewhere in between. I did find a mention of a brown pelican diving at 41mph (which seemed like an average number). Consider that it might be higher than normal, better winds, just a stronger bird, or slight radar errors tracking such a small object, and that extra 9mph doesn't seem unreasonable. Or... it could not be specifically a brown pelican and just some other bird that fits the parameters. There are quite a lot that have diving speeds WELL over 50mph.