The Royal Albatross.

The Royal Aalbatross - what a bird!  Huge beyond  all reason: 8 kgs and with a 3 metre wings span. As if those statistics alone were not enough, wait until you hear about their life style. Don't look away, please stay with me, it's truly amazing. 

Harrington Point, on the Otago Penninsular near Dunedin is the the only mainland site in the world that these majestic creatures come to breed. Readers, I went there yesterday. I know you are already jealous. 

In brief:

They can't flap their wings. They are jointed and lock in place once airborne. They rely totally on the wind or, when at sea, the wind coming off a wave, to get airborne then they just glide on the thermals. 

They mate for life and the oldest recorded female, known as 'Granny' lived to be 61. The year before she didn't return she successfully reared a chick. She definitely deserved a long service award for all that egg action. 

The female lays the egg and then the male sits on it for 80 days. Think about that. The poor woman squeezes out a giant egg (I know the feeling) and then has to go far and wide searching out delicacies to bring back to the male while he just sits. Hmmm...

The chick hatches and has to to be fed so much food - up to 2kgs a day - of octopus and squid, that it ends up weighing twice as much as an adult. So fat it can't even walk. It takes a lot of energy to grow those enormous wings. 

Eventually, after around 8 months, the fledgling manages to get its huge self up in the air on the, not inconsiderable, wind and it takes to the  sky. WHERE IT REMAINS FOR 5 YEARS. 5 whole years and it never touches land!  It sleeps on the sea and circumnavigates the globe around the whole of Antartica. Don't tell me that is not blowing your mind.

Then, it comes back and for a few days it can't walk properly. Not surprising; If you've ever been on a cross channel ferry and feely wobbly after getting back on land, imagine 5 years. 

It behaves like a bit of a hooligan for a while, I think it's entitled to after all that, and then gets down to the serious business of finding a mate. When it's a lifelong marriage you can't rush things.

Mating occurs and then the whole rigmarole starts all over again. 

After the gigantic effort involved in raising a chick,  the pair fly off in different directions for a year ( you might think they deserve some respite and a bit of a holiday). Then, suitably refreshed, they return to the headland, often landing within 10 minutes of each other.  

Impressed? I certainly was. 

We also saw fabulous hairy seaweed swirling around the point, a few seals and lots of red billed gulls.  It was beautiful but the albatross - what a story!