The fierce westerly winds smacked my face as I looked up to the overcast skies, expecting to feel droplets of water hit my face anytime soon. Not yet. The weather was abysmal - ideal conditions for some seawatching cheer.
I drove down to the shore, and then spent a few hesitant minutes debating whether I should let myself out of the warm comfort of the car. I lowered the window - the cool, salty air rushing up against everything. Squinting into the distance, I could make out dark shapes in the horizon. The decision to head here had already paid off.
Scores of shearwaters coasting over the water. Image from Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania (Nov 2018)
A bevy of lapwings lifted into the sky as a White-bellied Sea-eagle passed by - but even that was not enough to distract me. Aiming my binoculars at the horizon, I could see the silhouettes of Short-tailed Shearwaters cutting through the winds as they gracefully swooped up before angling down towards the surface of the water again. Ten, then fifty, then a hundred, and then more - swiftly negotiating the winds and the waves as they lifted and dropped with ease while travelling westwards. I counted at least 1,500 before forcing myself to look away.
I looked away to observe the much bigger birds gliding closer to where I was. Shy Albatross.
Like blossoms are to spring, like fish are to water, albatrosses are to the stormy seas. The sight of a bird skimming the swelling seas with exquisite grace, never flapping its long and slender wings, is one of the most moving wonders of the natural world. Winds and conditions that drown boats and their crews, are toyed with by the albatrosses. These regal birds spend almost all their lives at sea, only coming to land in remote islands to breed. Birds have been known to be at sea for up to 10 years straight.
A Shy Albatross skims the surface. Image from Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania (Nov 2018)
Few birds stir up the imagination like the albatross does. It is, perhaps, no wonder then that the sailors of yore regarded these magnificent creatures as the souls of their lost companions.
I watched these spectacular birds for a while, before droplets from the sky beckoned me to take shelter in the woods. Once there, I stared blankly at some other birds - but my mind stayed back with the albatrosses, the shearwaters, and their commanding grace over the violent seas.
It’s only fair that I mention the some of the various threats faced by the wonderful birds I glorify in this post.
Each year, an estimated 100,000 albatrosses die as a result of longline fishing - with birds being attracted to the bait and getting entangled and drowning in the process. In some areas, overfishing threatens to reduce fish stocks available for marine birds altogether.
Seabirds are particularly helpless on land, and they face the threat of feral rats and cats hunting down eggs and chicks on the remote islands they inhabit. In the past, entire populations of seabirds have been wiped off of islands by sailors who would harvest them for food (much like the famous example of the dodo).
Plastic present in the ocean is often ingested by seabirds; and it obstructs and fills the digestive tract, leading directly to suffocation, starvation, and poisoning. The same is true for several other pollutants that we’ve introduced to the oceans today - including seemingly harmless balloons!
The climate crisis, too, is changing oceanic conditions, raising sea temperatures, having a consequence on fish stocks, etc. You can read more about the impacts of climate change on seabirds here, or here; and have a look at cases where there is short term gain and long term loss here, here, or here.