Ahoy Mr. Albert Ross! (Written Jan 21, 2013)
The sky is again moon-less and inky-black, the scattered clouds through which the stars struggle to sparkle cast a foggy hue as I begin my 12-3am watch. Monitoring the sonobuoys, Maria and I detect “Man-made” tones emitted by two approaching vessels but otherwise all is quiet and my bunk beckons.
“Can you see the colour of the beak, did you say there’s a yellow band on the beak, now I can see it too, it’s a Yellow-nosed Albatross. Now we are heading towards the Sub Tropical Convergence”. Curt speaks on the radio to the team atop about the identification of a seabird circling Whale Song. I stumble into the wheelhouse at 7am to see what’s happening and learn that about fifteen blue whale calls have been heard in the 0445 am sonobuoy deployment just as we crossed the drop-off from 200 metres to 3000 metres. The calls were faint, but this is all the encouragement the crew needs, we have blue whales on our gadget!
In the wheelhouse, while we monitor the acoustics, Skipper is on full alert peering out the windows attentively looking for things. Thus far Flesh-footed Shearwaters are making an over-enthusiastic appearance! At 0815 am on the acoustic recordings we have three more blue whale calls on the freshly deployed DIFAR sonobuoy, we are 38.5 nm SW of Albany in 1950 metres of water. When will see these blues? We absolutely can’t wait!
Apparently, according to our clocks it is Monday. Doesn’t feel the slightest bit like a Monday out here, everyday is wonderfully the same! The sky is heavy and laden with clouds, although the warm sun kindly breaks through bringing severe glare on the port side and the sea a greasy appearance. We have a south-westerly 2 metre swell with a long period of 80 metres between crests. The breeze is 13-15 knots from the SE and all is ok, there are whales in the area and we are on a mission to find them!
Sperm whales make an appearance in the acoustic monitors with repetitive “clapping” indicating foraging behaviour. We are directly south of a series of underwater canyons, Albany Canyon, being the second most western of these, after Wilson Canyon, among which the sperm whales may be feeding. However, the seabirds circling us vie for our attention, particularly several more Yellow-Nosed Albatross, a couple of Shy Albatross and for a real treat, a Wandering Albatross! This huge bird, surprisingly airborne despite their massive size, is still midway through moulting and so the brown hood and bonnet-shaped plumage indicating juvenile age-class is somewhat faded but still evident. Comically, this creature with approximately 3 metre wingspan looks just like a pink-beaked goose wearing a neat bonnet, flying high above the waves with a extremely stern face as if concentrating extra hard!
Albatross, in the Genus Diomedea, the large long-winged oceanic roaming seabirds are affectionately known by birdos, twitchers or birders as “Mr. Albert Ross”. At least ten species are recognised, the Wandering Albatross being the largest. They gracefully glide and soar using the updraft from the waves to sustain flight for long periods of time with little need for wing-flapping. A unique feature of the Wandering Albatross is the great overall size and white coloration of the underwing. Mature males at 8 to 10 years gain almost entire white plumage on the upper and lower wings. Females are a similar size to males, but never become as white as old males.
With the sunset sonobuoy deployment at 1944 pm at 36 09.9S and 119 00.6E wonderful cetacean whistles are detected on the sound system – we have friends in the waters and skies! Whale Song is now 96 nm SE of Albany and heading ESE towards a concentration of chlorophyll, situated in the Sub-Tropical Convergence, where we seeking feeding blue whales. The presence of albatross is indicative of our south-easterly course and more cool-water species, avian and cetacean will appear in the next few days. The cool breezes from the south we are certain contain penguin gas! Ha! Resty prepared tasty steaming plates of meat-lovers Filipino noodles and tofu-topped spicy noodles for our evening meal accompanied by Tas’s delicious Orange and Poppy-seed Cake drizzled with lemon icing, these delights thaw the hungry, chilled and weary visual observers. After a particularly fun and rousing washing-up session by 5 very bouncy crew members (even with dish-washing playlist!) all personnel (excepting the Watch-keeper, of course) catch some well-earned rest before the next events planned tomorrow.
Well done Team Whale Song, everyone is doing a fantastic job at all their various jobs!
Take care,
Mich
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