The Wandering Albatross

Of Myth & Legend

• In the past, it was thought that seeing albatross flying around a ship in the middle of the ocean was an omen of storms, wind, and bad weather to come
• Sailors felt it was very unlucky to kill albatross because they thought that the souls of deceased sailors inhabited them
• The phrase ‘an albatross around my neck’ alludes to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” in which a sailor who shoots a friendly albatross is forced to wear its carcass around his neck as punishment.
• Albatross come from the genus Diomedea, which refers to Diomedes, a hero in Greek mythology

No Wandering Eye Here

• They do not mature sexually until around 11 years of age
• Males and females will bond with the use of ritualized dances, and their bonds last the lifetime of the pair
• Albatrosses mate for life and can live to be over 60 years old

• They breed every 2 years, with an egg laid between the middle of December and early January. The parents take turns incubating the egg for around 11 weeks

• These birds are colonial, in that they nest together for the most part on remote oceanic islands

Size Matters

• The wingspan of a Wandering Albatross can be up to three and a half meters
• Due to their size (and the fact that they spend much of their time in the air) they have virtually no natural predators
• Albatross are able to soar through the sky without flapping their wings for several hours at a time, actually using up less energy in the air than they would while sitting in their nest.
• As the birds age, the dark patches on their wings recede so the bird becomes whiter over time.

Travel Far & Wide

• Albatrosses are the most efficient travelers of all vertebrates on the planet.
• These amazing birds can travel over over 22,000kms on a single foraging flight, and circumnavigate the globe in just 46 days – all while expending almost no energy.
• Albatross can fly almost three times as fast as the windspeed, using a ‘dynamic soaring’ technique that allows them to manoeuvre using their massive wings
• They can fly up to 40 km per hour
• Albatross have a mechanism within the base of the wing to “lock” it in an extended position. This means the bird doesn’t need to strain to keep its wings out.