To Catch an Albatross...

To catch an albatross, one must be rather quick. This is not to say that albatross are fast. On land, they are rather akward. However, one does run the risk for a serious scratch as a result of their beak or their feet. Quickness, resolve, and long sleeves are the key. Some may prefer gloves, but those are not all that necessary. Quickness is enough.





Catching albatross is rather interesting, but dodging albatross may be my greater forte. On Midway, one quickly becomes adept at albatross slalom. I’m certainly used to the slalom when I am downhill skiing, but not when I am walking or bicycling. I’m sort of hoping that the bicycle slalom becomes an Olympic sport. I could do fabulously. One interesting thing about albatrosses is that they in general do not like pavement. The most likely explanation is that, most albatross stay where they were born and thankfully pavement makes a cold, unwieldy, and unpleasant nesting material. Which is good because, off-trail biking is impossible here. Without a small bit of pavement, life would grind to a slow crawl.

This reminds me. Bikes are king on Midway. When you first land at midway, you make one of the most important decisions of your stay. You pick your bike. We were quickly advised against choosing on the basis of color or fashion. Baskets in most places would look very much out of place, on Midway baskets are key. Meanwhile, color is a bit of an overstatement too. All bicycles here are shades of rust. Choosing on the basis of color is folly… choosing on the basis of some rust versus a lot of rust makes sense. Bikes are as crucial to residents on Midway as cars are to a suburbanite, or llamas were for the Incas. Midway is not that large of course, but it is just spread out enough that bikes are important. In a lot of ways Midway resembles an Andy Griffith sort of small town America. There are small houses all in a neighborhood with small neatly trimmed lawns and hedges. And, everyone rides a bike. One merely has to imagine Opie Griffith biking to his little fishing hole with a fishing pole in his basket to visualize all of life on Midway. The only difference is visible in the choice of lawn ornaments. Birds are the transcendent motif here. That reminds me of another reason to bike and not walk. Albatross dislike walkers. They bite at people’s ankles. Because of their ungainly actions on land, they tend to miss with their bites. Still, it is disconcerting walking, jogging, or running on Midway as a result of the feistiness of Albatross.

Which reminds me of the point of this blog. I caught and tagged albatross and red-tailed tropic birds this week. The process is rather simple for two people, so I’ll only briefly explain it. The first person slowly approaches the subject albatross, while the second stands ready with a pliers and the tag. When the first person is close enough they quickly grab the albatrosses beak and then put the other hand over the wings on the back of the bird. The other person than follows up and tags the correct foot. That is tagging 101 for albatross. Tropic birds are slightly reversed. Being a smaller bird, you can grab their back and wings with one hand and then their beak with your other. Than you lift the tropic bird against your body so they do not become aggravated. The tagger follows up with the tag. The tag itself is made out of stainless steel and can last the life of these birds. Which, is no small feat for albatross which can live past 60 years old.

In any case, these pics document some of the fun from last week…

(Laysan albatross chick being tagged)
(Little red-tailed tropic bird chick prior to tagging)

(Chick being tagged)(Myself checking to see if the tag is properly closed without a gap. A gap on the tag would potentially irritate the bird or catch on discarded fishing lines)

(Putting the tag on)