Albatross Print

While travelling South on The James Clark Ross we were often followed by albatrosses which fly a metre or so above the waves. Large birds with a 7’ wing span, they only ever come to rest during nesting - most of their lives are spent on the wing.
The British Antarctic Survey employs a met officer who was travelling South with us. I was able to get him to give me for each day I was South, a wind and pressure map. I also discovered that an albatross had been tagged and a map was available of 18 months of the flight of one of these birds. They are flying at the point where the cold current meats the warm, which is where the greatest collection of marine life is to be found. The resulting work combines this information - one day of wind over Antarctica and 18 months of the flight of the Albatross. Where there is the most complex tangle of lines is the nesting site of South Georgia.