This albatross is not about to miss the bus

KNOWING how popular previous columns about birds have been with readers, I’m starting a new week with a couple of interesting avian matters.

Firstly, the exciting news. I’ve managed to combine the topic with a caption contest, offering a great prize.

As you can see from today’s photo, it relates to an albatross found sitting in the space reserved for bus parking at Taiaroa Head last Friday.

Otago Peninsula Trust marketing manager Sophie Barker says it was an adolescent male albatross, 5 or 6 years old, looking for a mate, and was banded ‘‘RLY’’, which stands for Red, Lime, Yellow.

‘‘It’s his first year back to Taiaroa Head — he came back at Christmas time. The Doc ranger has relocated it back to the breeding area on the headland, although we stopped and GPS’d it as a possible nest site’’

We are inviting readers to send us a caption which best reflects ‘‘RLY’s’’ situation as captured in the photograph.

Some rules: ONE entry per reader (honesty call, please), preferably emailed to thewash@odt.co.nz, and the captions must be brief (single sentence).

Entries close: Tomorrow (Tuesday, March 14), at 4pm.

The prize: One family pass (two adults and up to three children), to do a unique albatross tour (90 minutes), worth $120, generously offered by the Royal Albatross Centre.

Good luck.

Devoted mate

Our other bird story comes courtesy of Gavin Dann, of Alexandra, who has entered our ‘‘show us your garden’’ photo contest (his entry will appear later this week).

In January, Gavin and his wife Cathy noticed a male Californian quail would stand in one place for hours on end early in the morning before returning to repeat this unusual habit late in the afternoon.

‘‘The spot he always chose was about 15m away from the wood pile where a covey roosts at night. After a week of this we went to investigate and found a dead female lying where he always came to stand. We left her there and this behaviour continued for another 3 weeks, by which time she was merely a skeleton and he must have decided to move on with his life.

‘‘That was incredible devotion to his deceased mate, so the pair bonding must be very strong in this species of bird.’’

Lovely story from Gavin, which got me researching the topic of birds that mate for life. I’m putting paradise ducks on top of my Kiwi list, but here’s more, from a couple of overseas websites: lovebirds, swans, black vultures, albatrosses, turtle doves, bald eagles, scarlet macaws, whooping cranes, California condors and Atlantic puffins.

Remembering Roland

Last Friday we featured the story of Roland Chorazy, a Polish refugee in 1948, who wondered if anyone in Milton, where he lived with his parents Edward and Ethel, could remember them 65 years after they left the town which was so kind to them.

There were two calls, the first from Tom Lynch (83), of Milton, who well remembered Ted Chorazy, ‘‘a nice fellow’’ who worked in the Bruce Woollen Mill’s hosiery department alongside Tom’s brother, Joe. In those days the mill employed more than 400 staff.

The other caller was Sonia Lyders (nee Hayes), of Waitahuna, who remembered being at the old Toko primary school with Roland in the early 1950s. There weren’t enough classrooms at the school so the hall at the nearby St John’s church was used.

Sonia says she hasn’t forgotten Roland for two good reasons. Firstly he was the only one by that name she’d ever known and secondly, she recalls how he once stuck a rubber up his nose and had to go to the local doctor to have it removed!

‘‘I wonder if he still remembers that,’’ she said with a chuckle, adding: ‘‘He was a nice wee boy though; everyone liked him.’’