Woeful, Wonderful Birdie

Fledgling Albatross with parents

Day after day, day after day
We stuck, nor breath nor motion
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean

Water, water everywhere
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink

The very deep did rot: oh Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
                                         -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798

The poor Albatross has gotten a bad rap. All because of a poem by an English sailor penned more than 200 years ago.

The Makai Golf Course on Kauai has been closed for play because of sheltering-in place regulations.  Due to Covid-19, operators of the world-famous private golf course have turned their eyes away from the trespassers, quietly allowing walkers a new trail during closure of the course.

Beyond the obvious beauty of the island setting, resting quietly beneath tropical trees on the fringe of the golf course, an unsuspecting walker might discover a rare and fetching view that can only be seen on a very few islands on Earth.

That would be a cute, albeit large, baby albatross being tended to by its loving parents.

Laysan albatrosses are magnificent seabirds with incredible wingspans of up to seven-feet, wingtip to wingtip. They range over the vast North Pacific Ocean, spending years at a time soaring over the largest span of water on the planet, sailing on wind currents as far north as the Arctic Circle.

Every so many years -- not days or months -- they find a remote island where they can land to breed. One such place is the island of Kauai, right here, curiously, alongside the golf course in Princeville.

It's not as if they were here first and have a bone to pick with strange people with sticks chasing small, dimpled balls. They arrived here to nest after the golf course was built. It does seem strange.

These curious birds look like a cross between a gigantic seagull and a large duck. On land they waddle awkwardly as though they might fall over at any second. They are definitely air creatures built to fly not to walk.

Breeding runs from November to August when the young fledgling launches from the precipice of a 175-foot cliff, on the far side of the eighth green? The bird's initial flight can last from three-to-four years.

Can you imagine hitting a golf ball that doesn't hit land for three or four years? Just sayin'.

About five miles east, Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge is a haven for a variety of Pacific seabirds, including Albatross.

Smaller, shallower Pacific island sanctuaries are now subject to rising sea levels, sending magnificent, soaring Albatross to mate and nest on the golf course in Princeville.