Yesterday Alex and I made a visit to Jackie Stevenson's bird rescue to drop off an orphaned pukeko chick.
Before I left home she told me she had just received an albatross and I was thrilled to get the opportunity to see one up close.
We passed our fuzzy charge into Jackie's capable hands and watched as he had a feed and look around his little enclosure. When he is older he will be re-homed with other pukekos at a reserve.
Jackie's place is my idea of heaven.
Large portions of her home have been given over to birds and their care.
There were baby ducklings, a small song bird and the pukekos. The albatross had just been moved from the indoors because he had suddenly become more active.
Outside in her yard there were tame house finches, a ring necked dove and a pigeon that were clearly making themselves at home.
While I was telling her about our bird the phone rang with a call from a concerned family who had found a seagull in their back yard and wanted to drop him off.
She said I could have a look at the albatross so I walked over to its pen.
He was huge. I knew they were big birds but I had no idea how big (They have an average wingspan of between 8-11 feet).
I was able to get close and even stroke his back feathers while he sat calmly. Jackie said he was found in a field in Lincoln and brought in by a DOC ranger.
This is a very unusual place to find such a bird because it spends most of its life at sea and only breeds in select sub antarctic islands.
Every year a limited number of tourists pay around $5,000 and up to sail down to these islands and view breeding pairs sitting on their smoke stack shaped nests.
To say this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me is no exaggeration.
Jackie said the bird had no outward injuries but appeared to be disoriented and dehydrated. She reported that he had been eating fish and engaging in preening behaviors.
Before I left home she told me she had just received an albatross and I was thrilled to get the opportunity to see one up close.
We passed our fuzzy charge into Jackie's capable hands and watched as he had a feed and look around his little enclosure. When he is older he will be re-homed with other pukekos at a reserve.
Jackie's place is my idea of heaven.
Large portions of her home have been given over to birds and their care.
There were baby ducklings, a small song bird and the pukekos. The albatross had just been moved from the indoors because he had suddenly become more active.
Outside in her yard there were tame house finches, a ring necked dove and a pigeon that were clearly making themselves at home.
While I was telling her about our bird the phone rang with a call from a concerned family who had found a seagull in their back yard and wanted to drop him off.
She said I could have a look at the albatross so I walked over to its pen.
He was huge. I knew they were big birds but I had no idea how big (They have an average wingspan of between 8-11 feet).
I was able to get close and even stroke his back feathers while he sat calmly. Jackie said he was found in a field in Lincoln and brought in by a DOC ranger.
This is a very unusual place to find such a bird because it spends most of its life at sea and only breeds in select sub antarctic islands.
Every year a limited number of tourists pay around $5,000 and up to sail down to these islands and view breeding pairs sitting on their smoke stack shaped nests.
To say this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me is no exaggeration.
Jackie said the bird had no outward injuries but appeared to be disoriented and dehydrated. She reported that he had been eating fish and engaging in preening behaviors.
