![]() Apparently, it's a great spot to spy sea lions (rāpoka). Our next stop is Allan's Beach, one of Dunedin's famous white-sand surf beaches, stretching nearly two kilometres along the coast. Sealions on the sands of Allan's Beach, Dunedin. Today, however, the population is healthier, with more than 2300 birds on record. In the late 70s, as few as 50 royal spoonbills called New Zealand home. Lyndon tells us a few decades ago we'd have been lucky to glimpse the bulky black-billed bird with the raucous white head feathers. From the van, we see spur-winged plover, bar-tailed godwits and, my favourite, the wacky-looking royal spoonbill. He explains the shallow waters and intertidal mudflats were once the traditional shellfish beds of Māori, but are now home to wading birds who come here to gorge on the bay's crabs, snails and shellfish. Travelling the flat unsealed road, Lyndon points out a family of violet-coloured pūkeko foraging near the roadside. By 17 he'd signed on with DOC, becoming an albatross ranger at Taiaroa Head at 19. Aged 7, he dreamed of working as a wildlife officer. On the drive to Hooper's Inlet, I realise Lyndon knows pretty much everything there is to know about Dunedin's birds and mammals. Not only that, Wisdom has mastered the albatross' challenging lifestyle-foraging for hundreds of thousands of miles over the vast ocean, coping with an extreme climate, and finding a piece of remote land on which to raise their chicks, Eldermire notes.Australian coots can be found at Dunedin's Ross Creek Reservoir. Wisdom "really breaks the mold." Lucky Bird Most wild birds struggle to survive, find a mate, and raise chicks-much less do it almost every year for six decades, says Eldermire. ( Watch the Cornell Lab's Laysan albatross bird cam in Kauai.) "You're talking about a bird that stretches our understanding because it's so unlike our life history and 99 percent of the animals we interact with on a daily basis," adds Charles Eldermire, bird cams project leader for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. Robbins had a fondness for Wisdom, particularly because she's avoided so many hazards of her species, such as ingesting ocean plastic or getting caught in a fisherman's longline, he told National Geographic in 2013. (Like Wisdom, Robbins stayed active in old age-until his death in 2017 at age 98, he worked with birds at Maryland's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.) Her seemingly advanced age and good health earned her the name Wisdom. ![]() (See National Geographic's bird pictures.) The bird wasn’t seen until 46 years later, in 2002, when Robbins happened to recapture the bird again. Wisdom's story as we know it began on December 10, 1956, when USFWS biologist Chandler Robbins banded an ordinary-looking Laysan albatross on the Midway Atoll. "It makes you wonder-could there be a bird two nests away from Wisdom that's even older?" A Bird Named Wisdom "It's just unprecedented that we have a bird that we know of that's 67 years old and still reproducing," says Kate Toniolo, deputy superintendent for the marine national monument. (Related: "Albatross's Effortless Flight Decoded-May Influence Future Planes.") ![]() She's also remarkable for having logged an estimated two to three million miles since 1956-or four to six round trips to the moon, according to the U.S. (See National Geographic's pictures of animal mothers and babies.) In her long life, Wisdom has outlived several mates and raised anywhere from 30 to 35 chicks. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) confirmed the pair were incubating a new egg. ![]() Wisdom and her mate, Akeakamai, return each year to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to nest and raise a single chick. At 67, the world's oldest known wild bird has laid an egg at her home on the Midway Atoll. Wisdom, the albatross supermom, has done it again. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |