This magnificent bird with its wingspan of sometimes over 3 metres, breeds only in 

New Zealand. Not only is it the largest seabird in the world but it is also one of the world’s longest living birds. “Grandma,” one of the first albatross to call Taiaroa Head on Dunedin’s Otago Peninsula home, lived till she was 60. She was presumed dead when she failed to return to her nesting grounds.

 

The Northern Royal Albatross bond with their breeding partner for life, sharing incubation and chick rearing duties. Once fledged, their chicks will wait for a brisk wind off the sea, capture it under their stretched out wings and take off for the first time. From that point, they will spend the next four to five years circumnavigating the world alone in the Southern Ocean, never touching land! Breeding for the first time at 8 years old, these young birds will come back to the spot they were born to find a partner, engage in courtship and begin a bonding which will often last for the rest of their lives.

 

Sea and sky and wind. This is the existence of the Albatross.

 

At 2.4 metres long, I have drawn the Albatross to scale to give some sense of it’s true average size. In this piece, the sky, the sea and the bird are one. The few incongruous elements in the drawing hint at the threats that put this majestic bird in the line of fire for extinction.

 

The Northern Royal Albatross is classified by the International Union for Conservation and Natural Resources (IUCN) as an endangered species.