Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 167
Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
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| testing the wind |
This seems hardly surprising when you get out there, because the sheer size and grace of these birds takes you completely by
surprise. The colony now has around 21 breeding pairs but their lives are
complex. They work two shifts. Last years adults and youngsters left in
September to cruise the southern oceans and this years pairs are just arriving.
It’s very hit and miss to see them, so we were lucky.
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| in flight |
Boisterous weather is the best time to see
them in the air. It’s been a very turbulent and cool spring down here, after a
mild winter, but this was a sunny day and calm. There were two sitting out in
the colony – a male (grooming in film) then a female, both sitting. Around 11am
the breeze picked up then it was all on.
The male wandered (waddled! These big birds don’t so much land as crash into
the ground) down to the female. Albatross are famously monogamous, though like
us, they can have same sex partners, especially the females. There is a
female/female pair here who act as foster mums for at-risk and sick
youngsters.
This male started beak tapping with the
female who immediately sussed he wasn’t her man and, with great indignation, ran
him off her patch. With the wind up new birds began arriving and over the next
couple of hours they could be seen circling sometimes alone sometimes in pairs,
sometimes in a group of four or five. This all looked like courtship/homecoming
behaviour and was delightful to observe.
These birds weigh up to 8 kilograms (it's rather
like picking up a medicine ball), with a wingspan of 9 feet. The winds were
knocking the seagulls around but the albatross never missed a beat. Their
ability to glide upwind then down, in such blustery winds, was uncanny; even
feet from the ground they looked completely safe and at ease. It gave a idea of how those
earlier warmblooded Pterosaurs (some with a wing span three to four times
longer) must have looked. Then how much windier (perhaps) their climate was than
ours.
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| Scram buster!! (female on left) |
The youngsters spend 5 years at sea before coming back to
raise youngsters of there own. There’s an interesting history here, because it
wasn’t until this headland was cleared, that these birds started to arrive and
breed here. They come originally from the Chatham Islands which was becoming
rather overcrowded.
Track we were listening to while posting
this – Teresa Brewer it had to be! You can hear her again on the film. And
again! And again!
Till I waltz again with you
let no other hold your charms
If my dreams should all come true
you'll be waiting for my arms
Till I kiss you once again
keep my love locked in your heart
Darling I'll return and then
we will never have to part.
