seabirds and sunshine

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

NEW ZEALAND | Thursday, 4 July 2013 | Views [212] | View Larger Image

After incubation starts in late December young Southern Royal Albatrosses gather in gams on the windy ridges of Campbell Island to dance and sing. It is not until around age 9 that they will find a mate and begin the process of learning to raise a chick.

Stepping onto a Brown Skua territory, the loud calls of the pair tell me that their eggs have hatched and somewhere among the yellow bulbinella flowers there are two downy grey chicks. In a world without mammalian predators skuas have little to fear as they prowl the penguin and albatross colonies.

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Endemic Campbell albatross chicks glisten in the mid-summer sun as they sit atop their mud pedestals waiting for their parents to return from foraging trips out over the Campbell Plateau. Only 3 months more before the chicks will test out their own wings as the summer draws to a close.

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seabirds and sunshine

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

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