“A jinrickshaw in Cape Town”, from the Cape of Diab Facebook group

In the past albatrosses and their eggs were exploited in various ways, mainly for food, but also for cultural purposes, as notably occurred in Hawaii (to be covered in a future post).

A hitherto unreported cultural (or at least decorative) use is depicted in an old postcard that has recently come to light.  Thought to be from around 1900 (late Victorian/early Edwardian), the photo from South Africa’s Cape Town shows a rickshaw puller with a pair of yellow-nosed albatross wings (not identifiable to species) strapped to his upper arms.  This is the only known case of such a use found.  Perhaps he found them washed up on the shore, or obtained them from a fishing vessel. In the same era, rickshaw pullers in South Africa tended to a cow horn head dress, presumably as an aid to attracting clients.  Just a few rickshaws survive in the country in Durban, aimed at the tourist trade.

Headdresses worn by Durban rickshaw pullers: past and present

With thanks to Michael Fortune and Peter Ryan.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 04 December 2020

Puzzle this one: Tristan Albatross and chick on Gough Island, photograph by Michelle Risi

“The days of our years are three score and ten” - Psalm 90, verse 10 (King James Bible).  It seems then that the ACAP Information Officer is several years past his sell-by date!  One outcome of this is that his field work with albatrosses and giant petrels on Gough and Marion Islands, conducted over near four decades since the late 1970s, is now a thing of the past and well into his eighth decade he can be properly described as an armchair marine ornithologist, armed with laptop rather than boots, rain gear, notebook and banding pliers.

Good then that he has recently discovered one can assemble jigsaw puzzles online, dragging pieces about the computer screen by mouse or touch pad until they click into place, all from the comfort of his self-isolating home in Cape Town by visiting https://www.jigsawplanet.com. Even better, is that the website has nearly 90 puzzles depicting albatrosses ready to be assembled.

A quick look though the website shows jigsaws available for 15 of the 22 albatross species (although not all are captioned to species).  Four examples selected here are of the Short-tailed Albatrosses, George and Geraldine on the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, a Grey-headed Albatross on Islas Diego Ramírez, a multitude of plastic pieces from the stomach of an albatross chick and a painting of a Tristan Albatross by ABUN artist Lois Davis for World Albatross Day 2020, from a photograph by Michelle Risi.

Puzzlers (it’s a word!) are able to choose how many pieces they wish to assemble for each puzzle, from 24 to 300.  Further, assembly effort is timed, so if you are of a competitive nature you can compare your completion time against the website’s fastest puzzlers.  Lastly, if you sign up you can load your own photographs so you and others can get puzzling with them, such as this one of a Tristan Albatross and chick on Gough Island, from a photograph (see above) by Michelle Risi.

Self isolating or in lockdown with spare time due to COVID-19?  Well get albatross puzzling!

*Although there are not (yet) many petrel and no shearwater puzzles.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 December 2020

UPDATE: BREEDING UNDERWAY

Geraldine incubates her 2020 egg, photograph by J. Plissner/USFWS

The male then sat with the egg until the afternoon of November 15, when the female returned and took over incubation duties. The male remained with the female for five hours before taking off and has yet to return for his next stint. We're expecting the egg to hatch sometime around January 1" - Pacific Islands: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Facebook Page.

 

George (left) and Geraldine return to Midway, photograph by Jon Brack, USFWS Volunteer

George and Geraldine, currently the only successfully breeding Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus pair outside of Japan, reunited last month on Sand Island, Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.  Last season the globally Vulnerable pair successfully fledged their second chick, after first meeting up on the island in 2016.

Read more about the Short-tailed Albatross pair here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer. 05 November 2020, updated 01 December 2020

Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross on Gough Island, photograph by Chris Jones

Peter Ryan (FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa) and colleagues have published open access in the annual journal Seabird on three new seabirds recorded from the Tristan da Cunha- Gough Islands in the South Atlantic: Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche carteri, Fairy Prion Pachyptila turtur and a gannet Morus sp..

The Endangered albatross, which breeds only on islands in the southern Indian Ocean, was seen on Gough Island on 17 January 2019 (click here for an earlier report).  Three other sightings are now reported at sea within the 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone around the Tristan da Cunha Archipelago.

Previously, two sightings of vagrant Salvin’s Albatrosses T. salvini have been made on Gough Island (click here).

References:

Ryan, P.G., Dilley, B.J., Risi, M.M., Jones, C.W., Osborne, A., Schofield, A., Repetto, J. & Ratcliffe, N. 2019.  Three new seabird species recorded at Tristan da Cunha archipelago. Seabird 32: 122-125.

Visser, P., Louw, H., Cuthbert, R. & Ryan, P. 2009. Salvin’s Albatross Thalassarche salvini on Gough Island, South Atlantic. Bulletin of the African Bird Club 16: 215–216.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 December 2020