The bird blog

The royal albatross is the same, we learnt the next day. Though they spend two years apart at sea, they always come back to the same place and the same partner every other September and produce a single chick. They take turns in guarding the chick and going out to hunt for its food, and it’s a ravenous baby! We really enjoyed a morning at the Royal Albatross Centre, and saw that Prince Charles had also come here … honestly, he really must stop copying us in every way. I can’t believe he’s even followed us to Llandovery!

The royal albatross is simply enormous, with a wingspan of over 3.5 metres (rivalling the condor). Its hard to put them into perspective when you see them sitting down, guarding the eggs, but when they fly, its incredible. They put those seagulls to shame, I tell you! We also watched the Dept of Conservation ranger checking on a chick, who’s guardian didn’t seem to mind a bit. When he crouched down, the parent was as big as him. No kidding. Outside of antartica and a couple of very southerly NZ owned islands, these giants of the air just don’t nest. Its only at Otago, and its surprising they do it here, for beneath their nests is a disappearing gun and a whole burrow of look outs and ammo stores. We also had a good look round this – not half as boring as it may sound! Luckily the threat that NZ perceived from expansionist Russia at the end of the 19th century, and later from the Japanese in WWII came to nothing … and the albatross was left to nest undisturbed by massive artillery bombardment.

We’re not huge ornithologists, but you can’t help but cooo over the penguins and be awed by the albatross.

Otago is right up there on our must do NZ destinations, and its got some incredible deserted beaches as well as just oodles of wildlife. Its also rather nice that you don’t have to pay for a ‘wildlife experience’ everywhere: seals and sealions just loll on public beaches, and you can’t keep the blue penguins away once the sun sets!

But now we were off seeking bigger fish …