Beez Neez now Chy Whella - Albatross Centre

Albatross Centre

Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Wed 30 Jul 2014 22:37

The Royal Albatross Centre

The royal albatross D1 – on the right, later known as Grandma with her mate D4. This picture was taken by Dr. Lance Richdale in December 1938, he banded Grandma in 1937 when she had reached breeding age. She was the star of her own television documentary and set a world age record. She was at least sixty one when she went missing in mid-1989. Her chick of that season called Button, survived through supplementary feeding by the colony’s rangers and went on to have chicks of his own. The picture on the right is the last one taken of Grandma, she stands patiently whilst head ranger Shirley Webb weighs Button in February 1989. We began our tour with guide Chris, who showed us a film where we learned of this extraordinary bird, a good mother who married, divorced, married, widowed, married, widowed and then went back to her first husband D4. Perhaps Liz would have been a more appropriate name for her, actually her different husbands was a benefit to the early formation of the colony by increasing the size of the gene pool. We were also told that whilst she was good with the rangers, her son Button is not, he attacks at every opportunity and proves to be grumpy, but a good father.

This Northern Royal Albatross chick left Taiaroa Head on the 26th of September 2006. It was found two days later and preserved in memory of those chicks who grow to adulthood.

The skeleton in the corner gave us a unique look at the form of this amazing bird.

While Chris offered coats to the group as we now had to face the biting wind outside, we looked at the model of an albatross. What full wingspan looks like beside Bear and I held an egg. We were well wrapped up and bimbled along behind.

After a steep climb, we looked back on the Albatross Centre.

Inside the viewing house we looked down on a ball of fluff, a baby preening and one stretching his wings.

Bear held a fluffy chick that demonstrated just how heavy a five month old was. Chris explained the record chart, incredible to see the ages of the parents. He told us how duct tape and nail polish could help if an egg got accidentally cracked by a clumsy parent and that there were two same sex pairs, one acting as foster parents and one where the egg layer had lost her husband and another lady was helping out feeding the chick. We did see an adult circling but it was too much to hope that we saw a chick being fed.

A chick can take two and a half kilograms at a single feed. If parents cannot manage and the chick is not up to weight for age, the rangers supplement feed in between parent visits. A little salmon as it is too rich for them but most other fish and mainly squid. The picture shows just how wide they can say arrrrr. Chris told us how hard the rangers work to eradicate rats, weasels and feral cats from the hill.

Also on the hill we could see black and spotted shag nests, sharing space happily with red-billed gulls.

After a long time watching the activity on the hill, we went for the ‘Gun’ part of our tour, after that back down to the centre. Outside we stopped to look at a variety of wingspans, their names in Māori are: toroa, kawa-mapua, karoro, tarapunga and tiu.

Time to bimble around the centre.

Northern Royal Albatross are on record as having laid the first egg at Taiaroa Head around 1920. However, with so much interference from people and predators, it wasn’t until 1938 that a chick fledged successfully. This was mostly due to the efforts of Dr. L.E. Richdale, a Dunedin ornithologist. In 1951 a full-time field officer, Stan Sharpe, was appointed to protect the albatross. Ever since then, work at the colony has remained ongoing – resulting in the longest continuous study and protection of any animal population. Each albatross in the colony has leg bands for identification purposes, which allows the life story of each bird to be recorded by Department of Conservation rangers.The colony is intensively managed to ensure its survival and to assist the overall population growth rate, which is naturally slow.

Protection of the birds from introduced predators such as feral cats, rats, ferrets and stats can be challenging. Other threats to the colony include climatic extremes, fire and disturbances. The natural curiosity of visitors can have a damaging effect, so public access is limited to guided tours. The Department of Conservation allows the Otago Peninsula Trust to conduct small guided tours up to an observatory within the reserve to view a section of the nesting area at certain times of the year. With ongoing study, minimal disturbance and protection, the colony will continue to grow.

1920 First albatross egg laid at Taiaroa Head

1938 First albatross successfully fledges

1972 Public access by guided tour to colony commences

1989 Royal Albatross Centre opens

2007 500th chick hatched

2014 500th chick makes first return Taiaroa Head.

April and July chicks

A year in the life of a Royal Albatross:

September: New season’s parents start arriving to re-establish their pair bonds before mating. Last season’s chicks fledge.

October: Some breeding pairs may still be arriving. Mating takes place.

November: Nests are constructed of loose vegetation and an egg is laid.

December: Parents share incubation duty over eleven weeks – one of the longest of any bird. One bird stays to incubate the egg, one goes to sea to feed.

January: Incubation continues – some chicks may start hatching toward the end of the month.

February: Hatching takes on average three days for the chick to emerge from the shell.

March: Parents take turns to feeding and sitting on the chick to guard it for the first thirty to forty days.

April: Parents leave chicks on their own and return separately to feed them every two to four days.

May – July: Chick rearing continues.

August: Chicks become more active walking around at times, parents are returning less frequently to feed the chick.

September: Chicks fledge, they are gone for four to six years on average. Parents leave the colony to spend a year at sea before returning to breed again the following year.

Toroa is the Māori name for albatross.

The albatross wing span is up to ten feet long.

Albatross can fly at speeds of around seventy five miles an hour.

At seven months old, the chick weighs twenty two to twenty four pounds – an adult averages eighteen to twenty one pounds.

Spending more than 80% of their lives at sea, Royal Albatrosses cover vast distances. From an early age they are able to fly right around the Southern Ocean between latitudes thirty and sixty degrees south. There the westerly winds are strong, persistent and suited to long distance gliding flight. The usual range is five hundred kilometres, but a thousand kilometres a day is possible. Most albatrosses nest on oceanic islands. In sub-Antarctic region they choose places that humans would consider inhospitable – cold, wet and wind-swept. The southern subspecies of Royals nests on the tussocks of Campbell Island and the Auckland Islands of Adams and Enderby. The northern subspecies favour a warmer climate and makes its home on outlying islands of the Chatham Islands and here at Taiaroa Head. After the best part of a year spent off South America the albatross return to New Zealand waters in September and October via the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Paired birds may arrive within hours of each other, but usually males come home first. Juvenile Royals, in their first year disperse around New Zealand waters and eastwards across the Pacific to South America, GPS tracking has shown they even visit the Chatham Islands but never join that colony, always returning to their natal home.

Who’d have thought it. Lice.

Of the fourteen types of albatross we are thrilled to have seen Royal, northern and Southern. Wandering, Snowy, Gibson’s and Antipodean. Mollymawks, black-browed, white-capped, Salvin’s and Buller’s. Lastly, and perhaps our favourite as they were our first, the waved albatross of the Galapagos Island, Espaniola. I have to say the Royal is very impressive and the Buller’s is very pretty. Sadly, so many of these magnificent birds feature on the endangered and critically endangered lists.

Debris in the North Pacific – yellow dots on the map, is concentrated in two huge eddies, gyres. In these areas the surface water contains six times more plastic than plankton by weight. Albatross breeding on Hawaiian atolls ingest the plastic, probably mistaking it for food, and the feed it to their chicks. Thousands of chicks die every year in Hawaii because their stomachs fill with plastic leaving no room for real food. Sadly, the dead Laysan albatross chick above was found on Midway Atoll, Hawaii. Laid out – it looks horrific.

Peter Moore of the DOC took the picture of this Southern Royal with fishing line protruding from his gape. Stacy Moore DOC took the picture of regurgitated plastic next to a nest. Chrissy Wickes DOC took the picture of this Southern Royal with a hook through her leg. Just Terrible.

Now for happier stuff. There is a question which has long intrigued scientists. Reports of albatrosses feeding at sea are rare. Mostly it happens at night. Deep living luminescent squid, which come to the surface after dark, form a major part of the albatross diet along with scavenged fish. Squid beaks are often found regurgitated near the nests here, just before the chicks fly off – an instinctive action to clear their stomachs.Albatrosses can dive just below the surface to about ten feet down, they hook and chop up their food using the ‘forceps’ of their long beaks.

Peculiar to the Taiaroa Head albatrosses is a taste for octopus. Since octopus tend to confine themselves to the seabed it remains something of a mystery how the birds here catch significant numbers of them.

Creatures of Myth: Are albatrosses friends or foe ??? Are they departed comrades watching over shipmates at sea ??? Are they the souls of sailors condemned to haunt the waves forever ???

I was told as a child that when I ate soft boiled eggs, I was to upend the empty shell, tap it with my teaspoon right way and pierce the egg with the other end of the spoon. By doing this I was releasing the soul of a fisherman to heaven from an albatross. I have never not done this. When Bear and I got together, I told him and he has done it ever since. There is mild panic if after the tap stage the inner bit is tough and doesn’t pierce, it has to be done before the egg shell smashes. Phew, always managed. Superstitious clap-trap ??? Who knows but all we can tell you is we have released a fair few souls. Egg events can cause a bit of a problem, but I’m brave and wouldn’t fail in the task.

We’ll leave this amazing place with a picture of Grandma.