Summer has arrived and with it the departure of many of our foraging albatrosses and petrels to their breeding islands in the southern Oceans around New Zealand, the storm-ravaged islands in the Roaring 40’s and South Georgia. These birds have been replaced by several species of seabirds that have come down from the northern hemisphere to enjoy our warm summer weather and the nutrient rich Benguella current.
I have just returned from a very successful eight-day trip. During this trip, I continued with our ongoing research project testing Tori Lines. Bird numbers were low, with the majority being pomarine skuas and Sabine’s gulls.
There were still several albatrosses around, mainly juvenile white-capped and Atlantic yellow-nosed albatrosses. There were a few magnificent adult Atlantic yellow-nosed Albatrosses in breeding plumage, one of the prettiest albatrosses with their black bills with bright yellow stripe, grey head and neck and black smudged “eye liner”. These head markings are offset by the starkly contrasting black and white plumage on the body; altogether an impressive bird. Watching them glide effortlessly past the vessel a few metres from my vantage point is always a pleasure.
The trip started with fine windless weather and then progressed into a couple of days of pretty foul weather with five metre waves and strong winds. The vessel was only 33 m long and 13 m wide with a very stubby bow so waves breaking over the bow sprayed right to the back, wetting me and my notes every time we crashed into one. The ship, although short and stubby, was also very high so we bobbed around like a plastic duck in a bathtub.
After the sea had calmed down somewhat to a three-metre swell, we were doing an afternoon trawl when after about an hour or so there was a sudden silence, the tori lines went slack and started to drift towards the back of the vessel. All forward motion had ceased. We had broken down 290 nautical miles out of port!
After drifting for a while, rocked around by the swell, the captain managed to get power onto the winches so the net could be retrieved. After much head scratching and many consultations with the company’s shore based engineers the captain and his two assistants eventually managed to fix the problem after about seven hours. At one stage, serious consideration was given to towing us back to port. Fortunately, this did not happen as a 290 nautical mile tow into three metre swells at four knots would have been unpleasant!
Once the vessel was fixed we carried on fishing for the remaining day of the trip. The crew was very interested in the work I was doing and they all commented on how well the tori lines seemed to work. On return to port, I gave the skipper a complete set of tori lines that he said he would use during trawling. Once again it has become obvious that the fishermen do not want to kill birds and are keen to help save the albatross.