WANDERING ALBATROSS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23707, 14 January 1939, Page 14

WANDERING ALBATROSS

FORCED LANDING IN PADDOCK STRANGE VISITOR AT HORORATA (Special to Daily Times) CHRISTCHURCH. Jan. 13. A wandering albatross with a wing span of 9ft 6in was found to have made a forced landing in a paddock at Hororata this morning. The bird was found by Mr W. R. Oliver, of the Downs road, and was wandering about among some cows, which were obviously disturbed by the strange giant. It was not injured, but was very tired, so that Mr Oliver had little difficulty in catching and examining it. He found that it was grey, with wings that were white underneath. It weighed about 201 b or 251 b in his estimation, and measured 9ft 6in from wing tip to wing tip. It had a pink bill and grey webbed feet, and was apparently a young bird, because Mr Oliver said it "had a baby squeak. Except for a few pecks at Mr Oliver when he first caught it, the bird was not fierce. Inquiries at the Canterbury Museum revealed that the bird was probably a wandering albatross, Its size was too great for a giant petrel, which is also grey. There are records, a museum official said, of albatrosses having come inland at Auckland and Little River and landed because of fatigue. Albatrosses cannot rise off flat land, needing a large expanse of water to take the air. There is a small lake near the paddock where the bird was found in the property of Mr G. Smith, a neighbour of Mr Oliver, but attempts will probably be made to help the bird into the air from a steep hill. The bird possibly comes from the Otago Heads nesting place, which is the only known nesting ground of albatrosses on the Dominion’s coasts.