| General Non-Fiction posted September 6, 2022 |
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Gaining independence... (694 words)
Taking Flight and Leaving Home
by LisaMay
I've been in a flap, doing wing-strengthening exercises for the past couple of weeks, practising for this very moment, my instinct for flight becoming insistent. Now eight months old, I'm ready for freedom.
Today's the day! The wind is blowing forcefully, so my heavy body will be supported during take-off. Stepping awkwardly towards the edge of the rugged cliff, my wings held out in anticipation, a gust of wind raises me aloft. I flex my wings experimentally, then with more certainty as the air current takes me higher. What an amazing feeling! I am flying – the first of this season's Royal Albatross chicks in my colony to be fully fledged and leave home. When I've finished growing, my wingspan could measure 11 feet, and I'll be able to ride the wind nearly 500 miles in a day!
I soar high above the Taiaroa Head (Pukekura) Nature Reserve in southern New Zealand, my bird's-eye view taking in the stunning scenery around the rocky headland where I hatched eight months ago, and have since been nurtured by my mother and father. Immediately below me is the grassy area where other chicks of my cohort are nearly ready for their first flight. Some parent birds have returned from fishing to feed their offspring, perhaps for the last time before the young birds fly off.
There have been 21 of us youngsters this season. About 200 adult birds call this place home, with about half making landfall each year to find their lifelong mate or to nest. Our species is on the endangered list, but here at Taiaroa Head (Pukekura), the only mainland Albatross colony in the Southern Hemisphere, we are under protection by dedicated field rangers who assist with predator control and supplementary feeding.
We have quite a few neighbours. There is a large colony of red-billed gulls nearby, with an estimated 3,000 breeding pairs. What a racket they make! Otago shags (cormorants) also choose to breed here, building their distinctive chimney-pot nests nearby. Many seabirds find this windswept location to their liking – spoonbills, terns, petrels, shearwaters, and other species of albatross and gulls. There are also fur seals on the rock platforms below the cliffs, and visitors can see about 200 little penguins coming ashore at dusk to their burrows at one of the accessible beaches.
Now I am gliding high on gleaming wings above the nature reserve's visitor information centre and observatory buildings that are designed to blend into the landscape. The red and white lighthouse is a bold landmark, but it is dwarfed by the dramatic coastal cliffs. Waves are surging in to thunder against the cliffs today, swirling the huge rubbery strands of bull kelp. On other days it can appear tranquil. It is a beautiful place to be at any time, enjoying the colours of sea and sky as the weather changes.
Being here feels wild and remote, as if it is miles away from human habitation, but surprisingly the nature reserve is within the city boundary of Dunedin (population approximately 129,000), which is nestled only a 40-minute drive away at the head of the Otago Harbour.
Taiaroa Head (Pukekura) will always be my home, but I will be absent for many years at sea before I return to breed as a mature adult, help raise my chick, then return to my free-wheeling life across the Southern Ocean between New Zealand and Chile in South America. I will come and go throughout my two-year cycle of breeding seasons. If life is kind to me I will live for an average of 42 years, but as the ocean warms it will have an impact on my food sources of fish and squid. If I can't find enough food to keep up my own strength, it will affect my breeding capability, and I also won't be able to feed my chick properly. Dangers are many for wildlife.
This place will always draw me back, and to make my species feel welcome, each year when the first albatross returns, the Town Hall bell and church and school bells are rung to celebrate and share the good news with the residents of Dunedin.
Sense of Place Short Story writing prompt entry
I've been in a flap, doing wing-strengthening exercises for the past couple of weeks, practising for this very moment, my instinct for flight becoming insistent. Now eight months old, I'm ready for freedom.
Today's the day! The wind is blowing forcefully, so my heavy body will be supported during take-off. Stepping awkwardly towards the edge of the rugged cliff, my wings held out in anticipation, a gust of wind raises me aloft. I flex my wings experimentally, then with more certainty as the air current takes me higher. What an amazing feeling! I am flying – the first of this season's Royal Albatross chicks in my colony to be fully fledged and leave home. When I've finished growing, my wingspan could measure 11 feet, and I'll be able to ride the wind nearly 500 miles in a day!
I soar high above the Taiaroa Head (Pukekura) Nature Reserve in southern New Zealand, my bird's-eye view taking in the stunning scenery around the rocky headland where I hatched eight months ago, and have since been nurtured by my mother and father. Immediately below me is the grassy area where other chicks of my cohort are nearly ready for their first flight. Some parent birds have returned from fishing to feed their offspring, perhaps for the last time before the young birds fly off.
There have been 21 of us youngsters this season. About 200 adult birds call this place home, with about half making landfall each year to find their lifelong mate or to nest. Our species is on the endangered list, but here at Taiaroa Head (Pukekura), the only mainland Albatross colony in the Southern Hemisphere, we are under protection by dedicated field rangers who assist with predator control and supplementary feeding.
We have quite a few neighbours. There is a large colony of red-billed gulls nearby, with an estimated 3,000 breeding pairs. What a racket they make! Otago shags (cormorants) also choose to breed here, building their distinctive chimney-pot nests nearby. Many seabirds find this windswept location to their liking – spoonbills, terns, petrels, shearwaters, and other species of albatross and gulls. There are also fur seals on the rock platforms below the cliffs, and visitors can see about 200 little penguins coming ashore at dusk to their burrows at one of the accessible beaches.
Now I am gliding high on gleaming wings above the nature reserve's visitor information centre and observatory buildings that are designed to blend into the landscape. The red and white lighthouse is a bold landmark, but it is dwarfed by the dramatic coastal cliffs. Waves are surging in to thunder against the cliffs today, swirling the huge rubbery strands of bull kelp. On other days it can appear tranquil. It is a beautiful place to be at any time, enjoying the colours of sea and sky as the weather changes.
Being here feels wild and remote, as if it is miles away from human habitation, but surprisingly the nature reserve is within the city boundary of Dunedin (population approximately 129,000), which is nestled only a 40-minute drive away at the head of the Otago Harbour.
Taiaroa Head (Pukekura) will always be my home, but I will be absent for many years at sea before I return to breed as a mature adult, help raise my chick, then return to my free-wheeling life across the Southern Ocean between New Zealand and Chile in South America. I will come and go throughout my two-year cycle of breeding seasons. If life is kind to me I will live for an average of 42 years, but as the ocean warms it will have an impact on my food sources of fish and squid. If I can't find enough food to keep up my own strength, it will affect my breeding capability, and I also won't be able to feed my chick properly. Dangers are many for wildlife.
This place will always draw me back, and to make my species feel welcome, each year when the first albatross returns, the Town Hall bell and church and school bells are rung to celebrate and share the good news with the residents of Dunedin.
Today's the day! The wind is blowing forcefully, so my heavy body will be supported during take-off. Stepping awkwardly towards the edge of the rugged cliff, my wings held out in anticipation, a gust of wind raises me aloft. I flex my wings experimentally, then with more certainty as the air current takes me higher. What an amazing feeling! I am flying – the first of this season's Royal Albatross chicks in my colony to be fully fledged and leave home. When I've finished growing, my wingspan could measure 11 feet, and I'll be able to ride the wind nearly 500 miles in a day!
I soar high above the Taiaroa Head (Pukekura) Nature Reserve in southern New Zealand, my bird's-eye view taking in the stunning scenery around the rocky headland where I hatched eight months ago, and have since been nurtured by my mother and father. Immediately below me is the grassy area where other chicks of my cohort are nearly ready for their first flight. Some parent birds have returned from fishing to feed their offspring, perhaps for the last time before the young birds fly off.
There have been 21 of us youngsters this season. About 200 adult birds call this place home, with about half making landfall each year to find their lifelong mate or to nest. Our species is on the endangered list, but here at Taiaroa Head (Pukekura), the only mainland Albatross colony in the Southern Hemisphere, we are under protection by dedicated field rangers who assist with predator control and supplementary feeding.
We have quite a few neighbours. There is a large colony of red-billed gulls nearby, with an estimated 3,000 breeding pairs. What a racket they make! Otago shags (cormorants) also choose to breed here, building their distinctive chimney-pot nests nearby. Many seabirds find this windswept location to their liking – spoonbills, terns, petrels, shearwaters, and other species of albatross and gulls. There are also fur seals on the rock platforms below the cliffs, and visitors can see about 200 little penguins coming ashore at dusk to their burrows at one of the accessible beaches.
Now I am gliding high on gleaming wings above the nature reserve's visitor information centre and observatory buildings that are designed to blend into the landscape. The red and white lighthouse is a bold landmark, but it is dwarfed by the dramatic coastal cliffs. Waves are surging in to thunder against the cliffs today, swirling the huge rubbery strands of bull kelp. On other days it can appear tranquil. It is a beautiful place to be at any time, enjoying the colours of sea and sky as the weather changes.
Being here feels wild and remote, as if it is miles away from human habitation, but surprisingly the nature reserve is within the city boundary of Dunedin (population approximately 129,000), which is nestled only a 40-minute drive away at the head of the Otago Harbour.
Taiaroa Head (Pukekura) will always be my home, but I will be absent for many years at sea before I return to breed as a mature adult, help raise my chick, then return to my free-wheeling life across the Southern Ocean between New Zealand and Chile in South America. I will come and go throughout my two-year cycle of breeding seasons. If life is kind to me I will live for an average of 42 years, but as the ocean warms it will have an impact on my food sources of fish and squid. If I can't find enough food to keep up my own strength, it will affect my breeding capability, and I also won't be able to feed my chick properly. Dangers are many for wildlife.
This place will always draw me back, and to make my species feel welcome, each year when the first albatross returns, the Town Hall bell and church and school bells are rung to celebrate and share the good news with the residents of Dunedin.
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Writing Prompt Write a 400 to 700 word essay describing a place. This should be a descriptive short story, make sure you describe the place very well. This place you are describing can not be a place in your imagination, dreams, ext. It has to be a real place, preferably a place you know very well. You do not have to have been to this place, and this can be a made up story. Be creative and descriptive! |
Author note, from the Internet:
Albatross Colony - Otago Peninsula, New Zealand
The breeding albatross arrive at Pukekura in September each year. The large white egg, weighing up to 500g (just over a pound), is laid during the first three weeks of November. The parents then share the incubation duty over a period of 11 weeks - one of the longest incubation periods of any bird.
Chicks hatch during late January and early February. The parents take turns at guarding it for the first 30 to 40 days, and also share feeding duties where the chick is fed regularly throughout the day. At 100 days the chick's down reaches a maximum length of 12cm (nearly 5 inches), important to keep it warm throughout the approaching winter months.
At the start of spring in September, the fully fledged chick wanders from the nest, tests its outstretched wings and eventually takes off with the aid of a strong wind. Nearly 12 months after their arrival at Pukekura, having cared for egg and chick over a period of 300 days, the albatross parents leave the colony to spend a year at sea before returning to breed again. The young albatross spends the first three to 10 years at sea; many then return to this unique headland to start another generation of royal albatross on Pukekura.
No less an authority than British naturalist Sir David Attenborough has described the Otago Peninsula and Taiaroa Head as ''a unique and very special place that every visitor to Dunedin should see'', and it's not hard to see why. With the southern hemisphere's only mainland breeding albatross colony at Taiaroa Head, it's possible for visitors to see these majestic seabirds with a wingspan of three metres (11 feet) soaring at speeds of up to 120 km per hour (nearly 75 miles per hour). Visit between September and November to see the breeding birds arriving at the headland and building nests. December and January see parents incubating their eggs. Chicks hatch from late January to early February, growing to 10-12 kilo (26 pound) giants over the next few months, when viewing is superb and, aided by a strong gust of wind, take their first flight in September.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. Albatross Colony - Otago Peninsula, New Zealand
The breeding albatross arrive at Pukekura in September each year. The large white egg, weighing up to 500g (just over a pound), is laid during the first three weeks of November. The parents then share the incubation duty over a period of 11 weeks - one of the longest incubation periods of any bird.
Chicks hatch during late January and early February. The parents take turns at guarding it for the first 30 to 40 days, and also share feeding duties where the chick is fed regularly throughout the day. At 100 days the chick's down reaches a maximum length of 12cm (nearly 5 inches), important to keep it warm throughout the approaching winter months.
At the start of spring in September, the fully fledged chick wanders from the nest, tests its outstretched wings and eventually takes off with the aid of a strong wind. Nearly 12 months after their arrival at Pukekura, having cared for egg and chick over a period of 300 days, the albatross parents leave the colony to spend a year at sea before returning to breed again. The young albatross spends the first three to 10 years at sea; many then return to this unique headland to start another generation of royal albatross on Pukekura.
No less an authority than British naturalist Sir David Attenborough has described the Otago Peninsula and Taiaroa Head as ''a unique and very special place that every visitor to Dunedin should see'', and it's not hard to see why. With the southern hemisphere's only mainland breeding albatross colony at Taiaroa Head, it's possible for visitors to see these majestic seabirds with a wingspan of three metres (11 feet) soaring at speeds of up to 120 km per hour (nearly 75 miles per hour). Visit between September and November to see the breeding birds arriving at the headland and building nests. December and January see parents incubating their eggs. Chicks hatch from late January to early February, growing to 10-12 kilo (26 pound) giants over the next few months, when viewing is superb and, aided by a strong gust of wind, take their first flight in September.
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