Wild Bird Wednesday 587 - Shy Albatross

 'When a man is tired of London Albatross, he is tired of life'

with apologies to Samuel Johnson.

I had the opportunity to go out on another 'pelagic' trip this weekend - although this one was a little different from the ones I have done in Tasmania.

Melbourne is not really close to any genuine deep ocean - which is what you need to find for most pelagic birds - but we do have access to a large area of shallower seas.  These shallow seas cover what is basically part of the landmass of Australia that was flooded at the end of the last ice age. A remarkable thing about this, is that when colonised by Australia's first people they would have been able to have walked to the part of the country we now call Tasmania. Bass Strait, which now separates the mainland from Tasmania, formed during the history of human occupation!

Anyway, I took a short trip out into the shallow waters of Bass Strait to see what we could find.

One of the more abundant birds we found were Shy Albatross (Thalassarche cauta).

These are some shots of Shy Albatross performing braking manoeuvres as they approached the back of our boat.

OK, I admit it - these birds are not braking! 

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