 Paula's story | |||
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The albatross is a large, magnificent seabird that is capable of soaring incredible distances without rest. Long viewed with superstitious awe by sailors — haven’t we all read Samuel Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner? — these birds spend most of their lives in the air, gliding over the open Southern Ocean.
Most people around the world have never caught even a glimpse of these unusual birds, because when the albatross does visit dry land, it often is on Campbell Island, a remote, uninhabited place south of the South Island of New Zealand, in the Southern Ocean. The birds come here to breed year after year, free from predators, before going back out to sea. On New Zealand’s South Island itself, a smaller colony of albatrosses started a breeding colony when one albatross couple got lost by accident on their way to Campbell Island, and others soon followed. The colony sits on a forbidding, windy promontory maintained by the country’s national park service, where the staff protects them from predators, and where a colony of Royal albatrosses returns year after year to lay and nurture their eggs.
By the way, albatrosses mate for life. They form a long-term bond with one partner, and usually the only thing that can separate them is death. Yet, they spend limited time together, meeting up only briefly once a year at their annual breeding grounds until their one egg for that year is laid. They then take turns incubating the egg and foraging for food. Eventually, both birds must search for food to keep their growing chick fed. Once their chick leaves the nest, the parents separate for the rest of the year, flying alone out to sea, and reuniting only when it's time to breed again.
Once a young albatross leaves its nest, at about 165 days, it may spend a year or more at sea without touching down on land. Because of the risk of shark attacks, they touch down in the water only briefly, to feed.
And about that feeding: The albatross has an amazing sense of smell, and can smell food in the water from up to 20 kilometers away. But following a scent trail on the open ocean isn’t easy. In 2008, researchers fitted 19 wandering albatrosses with GPS sensors and found that they often approach food by flying upwind in a zigzag pattern, which seems to improve their chances of tracing an intermittent odor plume to its source. And how is it that they can fly upwind so easily?
The wingspan of a wandering albatross measures up to four meters across, which makes it the largest bird on Earth in terms of wingspan. The albatross can soar 800 kilometers in a day, and can maintain speeds of nearly 130 kilometers per hour for eight hours straight without ever having to flap its wings. Part of the secret is locking joints, which let the birds keep its wings extended for long periods with no energy cost from its muscles. In addition, the birds have mastered something called dynamic soaring, which means they can fly along a continuously curved path in a way that takes energy from the wind, giving them, basically, an unlimited external energy source.
Albatrosses can be found in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific. They prefer Antarctic, sub-Antarctic, and sub-tropical waters. They primarily are found in the Southern Hemisphere with a few exceptions, such as a colony that returns every year to Oahu, in Hawaii. The albatrosses that breed in New Zealand often cross the planet to feed at the tip of South America, at 55 degrees latitude south.
Albatrosses live long lives. They can survive for many decades, some well beyond 50 years. The best-known example is a bird first banded by scientists at Midway Atoll in 1956, and named Wisdom by the researchers. Wisdom continued returning to Midway for more than 50 years, raising about 3 dozen chicks during her life. At 70, she was still breeding.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner goes on for days, as you probably know, but I’ll end with a very abbreviated few verses taken from different parts of the poem.
Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
*****
The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
*****
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
_________________________________
Jackie
The villagers in Viserny, a small village in Burgundy, woke one morning to the sound of tractors, cranes and electric saws
Alarmed, they gathered together and walked up the hill to see what was causing this noise. To their horror, trees had been cut, paths excavated leaving great tire imprints creating troughs of mud making it impossible to walk. Someone had been clearing the land cutting trees and plants directly behind their precious natural spring. The land had been sold to a Belgian company for wood.
There was never a water shortage even on the hottest days of summer, even during the drought of 1976 which caused hundreds of skeleton like cattle lowing in their fields.
The natural spring was located on a hill just above the small town. For centuries water has gushed out of the ground into the well providing the whole village with delicious fresh water and never the need to buy bottles.
Every morning Michel trundled up the hill to inspect the spring with his thermometer .
55 degrees was the perfect water temperature keeping bacteria at bay . Drinking this water gave the villagers a rosy complexion and no one ever had any problems with sciatica or arthritis. The doctors in the big town nearby had no patients from this village and most people had never been to the local hospital and some didn’t even know where it was .
That particular year Mme Barnier started to get peculiar aches and pains in her joints groaning each time she got up from her chair – 88 year old Raymond Berthier had a strange soreness in his stomach and admitted that he should go see a doctor for the first time in his life. Jojo had an argument with next door, became aggressive and tried to shoot his neighbor.
The newly weds Tim and Julia argued all day long – slept apart and generally started to hate each other . The children in the village school became unruly, distracted and uncontrollable – lessons had to be stopped. The teacher abandoned the class . Nobody turned up to the few gatherings planned and generally a very morose atmosphere hung over the village. Something was amiss.
Michel went as usual to check on the spring waters. He first took a sample and was horrified to discover that there were bacteria in his pipette – then he took the temperature of the water and discovered that it was above normal, well above normal in fact 60° instead of 55°. Just a few degrees more changed the nature of the water from transparent to yellow
What has happened to our water the villagers cried - and realized that the destruction of the trees was causing havoc to their precious spring.
Armed with axes, screwdrivers, knives and even scissors they descended on the tractors and vehicles left overnight and dismantled engines, cut tires rendering them useless. They worked all night and the following morning the Belgian workmen unable to cut down any more trees limped dejectedly out of the village and were never seen again. New trees were planted and grew the water gradually descended to its normal temperature of 55° and bacteria disappeared, villagers enjoyed health and happiness once again.
I’m not suggesting that we should take things this far when we have a case of environmental destruction, as we could rapidly all find us in prison. But, this is just a reminder that we can act and should act accordingly trying our best to save our forests and our planet.
_______________________________________________________________
Sarah's post
55° 3 – Christmas party
(02.12.2023)
The Christmas party at the firm has never been one of my favourite events. Some of the staff put up what they esteem to be attractive decorations, destined to make us all feel cheerful. They serve a small assortment of things that pass for food and there’s an open bar. And they get in a small band that plays a variety of dance music interspersed with Christmas carols. Maybe it gets more lively if you stay long enough. But for the time I usually stay, there are only a few couples out on the dance floor, plus a few of the single female staff, and most everybody else is just hanging around the bar. They call me the Lone Ranger, but I don’t mind. That’s the way I’ve always been. Besides, I’m a little too old for all that; I’d rather be at home in my armchair with my pipe, listening to Schubert. At these company socials, there’s no Schubert and you can’t smoke. But the fête can be helpful to some people.
For instance, last year I was sitting there, nursing my drink and trying to calculate how much longer I had to stay before I could decently leave, when a young co-worker from the meteorology department came and sat down next to me.
“Ho! Something not right, Greg?” I asked, at the sight of his woebegone countenance.
He just nodded, but appeared even more dejected than before. I looked round the room, and a little further off I spied a colleague on whom, I was pretty sure, my friend Greg had a crush.
“Say,” I said. “There’s Sharon sitting over there, and all you fellows are neglecting the women. Why don’t you go over and speak to her.”
“I have.”
“Don’t tell me she didn’t respond.”
He looked wretched, but he consented to explain though it was clearly torture to him.
“I went over and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned round and gave me such a smile I was thrown for a loop. All I could think to say was, ‘You’re sitting on my coat.’ Which she was, by the way. Just like that her expression changed. ‘By all means, take your coat,’ she said, moving over, and her smile had gone to about 55°.”
“Fahrenheit or Celsius?” I asked trying to lighten the atmosphere.
“Fahrenheit of course. Not exactly frosty, but like the hostess who says ‘How delightful to see you’ when you can tell she’d rather you hadn’t come. I’ve blown it, totally.”
“Hmm,” I said. “I’d suggest you go right back there, put your coat down again where you picked it up, and when she looks at you again, as she will, you give her a smile of 55° Celsius and you ask her to dance.”
“I can’t dance,” he said. “I don’t know any of these new dances, only the waltz I learnt when I was ten and my mother forced me to go to dancing lessons.”
And the next number, which started at that very moment, was as it happened, a waltz.
He looked at me doubtfully, so I just pushed him in the right direction and turned my back on him, so as not to give him a chance to protest or make him feel he was watched. When I glanced back a few minutes later, I saw the two of the moving awkwardly to the rhythm of the music. But as I continued to look, their movements grew more and more fluid and relaxed, and soon they swirled gracefully out of sight.
I turned away again, but I suddenly felt rather jolly. Not to spoil things, I downed the rest of my Scotch and left the party before my mood changed again.
This year I’m almost looking forward to the Christmas festivities. Greg stopped by my desk the other day and said he and Sharon were having a few friends in after the party, and would I come?
“Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll leave early.” Such tact! He knows me well. + 675 wds
