All eyes on the prize

The albatross eggs at Taiaroa Head are being closely observed this breeding season after devastating thefts last year, writes Neville Peat.

With these words of wonder, Lance Richdale, a science adviser to Otago schools, recorded his first encounter in November 1936 with the royal albatrosses at the tip of Otago Peninsula. The sight was remarkable then and remains so: giant seabirds tending a giant egg comparable in proportion and weight to a pack of butter. Back then, the colony consisted of two or three nests scattered across the tussocky headland. For Richdale, it would be the focus of his research and protection spanning three decades, long enough for him to become a world authority on albatrosses thanks to the colony's accessibility. It remains the world's only albatross colony located on a mainland at the edge of a city.