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| photo by Ron Knight, Flickr creative commons |
'Wingspans of these birds can approach twelve feet, a reach so wide they cannot flap to take off. Instead they nest on the highest, most exposed ridges so that it is enough to merely stretch their wings into the wind and be vaulted skywards. After take-off they can watch the ocean heave beneath them for two years straight without touching earth or rock. Human beings seem so marginal to their lives that I had the sense that they could barely see me, as if their gaze passed right through me. I sat within inches of one nest, and though the bird sat stiffly, and was clearly uncomfortable on land it breathed an air of impassive serenity. Its feathers trembled like dusted snow, a dazzling, laundered whiteness.'
'They mate for life, and with increasing numbers lost to long-line fishing hooks more of them are standing lonely vigils on the ridges of Bird Island, waiting for mates that never return. Populations are falling as a result. Ornithologists tell us that albatrosses are not clever birds. Developmentally they are quite primitive, and the stereotyped patterns of their behaviour are sluggish and slow to adapt. But as I sat and watched them I thought not of illegal fishing or their reported simplicity but of Herman Melville's awe on an encounter with them: "At intervals it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it ... Through its inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself."
Gavin Francis, 2012, Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins
