(Modern version. Or how I made friends with albatross. Don’t forget to click on images for a full screen view!)
One of the objectives of my recent southern peregination was to photograph as much of the abundant wildlife as possible. This meant many a lonely hour on the extreme stern of the good ship, the Ocean Endeavour, looking at the seabirds gliding back and forth searching for chopped up seafood in the wake of our propellers. Watching in amazement as albatross would glide silent and motionless above me. So close at times that I could almost touch their extended wing tips in the stone cold silence. Staring at each other in a dumbfounding wonderous amazement. Each asking of the other the age old question. “What the hell are you doing here??“
To say the least a humbling experience! Staring at the dark, tumultuous waters of the Drake Strait twenty feet directly below me and contemplating the fact that 400 years ago the old time sailor men (wooden ships and men of steel!) plyed this treacherous passage in diminutive wooden ships with canvas sail. A half world away from their native country. What did they think of their strange wildlife encounters?
THE LIGHT MANTLE ALBATROSS
RIME OF THE ANCYENT MARINERE
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 1772-1834
How a Ship having passed the Line (equator) was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.
And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.
And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
Iceberg three times the height of Notre Dame cathedral!
And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.
It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!
Good work Jeff!!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.’
‘God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
My new friend, the Light Mantle Alabatross, Drake Strait, Southern Ocean
(Not shot with a cross-bow…. but with a Nikon Z9 camera from a distance of 10 feet. Could a Disney cartoonist design a friendlier face?). Two other albatross species were seen in abundance but they were a little more camera shy. I doubt that the Ancient Mariner could have hit them with a crossbow. Click and reclick to enlarge the view).
BLACK-BROWED ALBATROSS
