Albatrosses, like this blur before the sun, have animated my imagination– and sometimes my dreams– for as long as I can remember. The albatross by itself alone has the power to conjure up for me all beautiful mysteries of nature. It must be truth of others, too, who have poured myth and superstition into the void of knowledge about these glorious birds, making them into far more than even what they are. Men who sailed before the mast long ago cast the albatross as a symbol of unchallenged perfection, and picking up on that, Coleridge in his Rime used the bird to represent man’s single hope for redemption.
Little fact is known about this largest of flying birds. Albatrosses circumnavigate the globe over the icy southern oceans far from landfall, soar at speeds up to 115 kilometers an hour and can travel 12,000 kilometers each year in their lonely clocking of the lower latitudes. They remain aloft sometimes for days at a time by locking their wing joints for rest. These flying giants, with their narrow soaring wings spanning up to eleven feet long, deign to visit land only once in every three years. In all instances except one, they stop on barren juts of grass and rock near Antarctica’s coast. Before heading to sea once more, they get a vital job done: they court, choose life partners, breed, and raise their chicks.
As luck would have it, our trip around the world has taken us to New Zealand’s southern island and the world’s only mainland albatross colony. Sighting this descendant of the Great Auk until now went beyond any hope of mine. But here alone on earth– at the Royal Albatross Centre (http://www.albatrosses.com) on a spit of land called Taiaroa Head near the enchanting city of Dunedin– the royal albatross sets down near the presence of humans. Here dreams such as mine can come true.
By cruel contrast, earlier the same day that we went to the Albatross Centre we also visited the opposite end of the bird spectrum: a colony of yellow-eyed penguins said to be most endangered, but penguins just the same. These cantankerous yellow-eyed ones live in uneasy harmony– a sharp warning peck here and there notwithstanding– with sheep and bachelor fur seals that squabble on rocks indifferent to mere penguins walking by.
We had dressed in layers of warm clothing that also protected us from rain that falls sideways in these climes, and with our guide leading us, we entered blinds dug deep in the sand like World War I battle trenches. Through binoculars we saw a black dot in the spume that turned into a first wave of penguins to come ashore from a day feeding at sea. After spending an interminable time crossing the sandy beach, the colony waddled past us as if in slow motion. Would they never get to their nests amongst the tussocks? Their old man’s slouch, how prissily they hopped, their squeaky calls, their ponderous natures made us laugh.
That I know of, no one ever laughed at an albatross.
We hiked a steep trail from the Albatross Centre. Fences meant to keep stoats, cats, and even rats out of reach of precious albatross eggs enclosed the walkway. Our guide, a dour woman for whom the magic of the albatrosses was clearly absent that day, warned us that the birds flew in from the sea only on a stiff wind. She showed us into a low-roofed frame building with a smoked-glass window. On a steep slope of land right before our eyes lay two pillows of white fluff that noticeably fidgeted. These turned out to be albatross chicks that made us smile for their obvious boredom, sitting on their straw nests waiting– and waiting– until they grew large enough to begin their long lives of flight. Meanwhile, they ate about eight pounds of regurgitated fish and squid each day and would get so heavy that their parents would put them on strict diets before they tried to take to the air, or they would fall like flatirons. Nature gives fledglings only one chance to fly, with no practice runs. If they fail and fall from the bluff, they are doomed.
The sight of the chicks engrossed us when a male adult with wings that spread a full span of eleven feet suddenly swooped right past our eyes. The surprise seemed to me as unlikely and brilliant as watching a pterodactyl fall down from oblivion. The albatross’s wings did not move as it sped down and then around the bluff; I had the thought that it could actually see the wind. It reappeared from behind us and to the right, this time in formation with a smaller female, until we lost them in the sharp dark glare. Watching these two birds pass by, we uttered sounds of wonder. Words could not suffice.
They were gone as quickly as they came, and did not come again.
But for those moments, we watched pure ecstasy in the air.
