19th June World Albatross Day

Albatrosses are among the most remarkable seabirds on the planet, known for their vast movements across the world’s oceans. And did you know Australia has its very own albatross species – the Shy Albatross? Sadly, Shy Albatross and other seabirds are threatened by H5 bird flu, and as the theme of World Albatross Day 2025 is Confronting the Silent Threat of Disease, we need to make sure that despite this looming threat, we help conserve these long-lived and simply beautiful birds.

Quite a few years ago now, I had a Year 2 reader who was smitten with birds. He had borrowed and read nearly every bird book that I had in the library, when one day he came in saying 'I need a book on albatrosses now!' He'd watched a documentary. As you can imagine there weren't any books about albatrosses and I felt I had let him down. Not long after this a series of books about the Life Cycles of Marine Animals arrived in the library and one of these books was this one, Laysan Albatross  by Michael Molnar. I quickly covered and catalogued it so that I could give it to this student. Luckily it fit the bill and subsequently became a favourite of his. 

If a student came in with this request now, I would find it much easier to find books for them.

• Wisdom: The Midway Albatross  by Darcy Pattinson

The oldest bird in the world, documented with banding, is Wisdom, the Midway Albatross. She was on Midway when the Japanese Tsunami hit and this is her amazing story of survival of manmade and natural disasters for over 60 years. She has survived the dangers of living wild, plastic pollution, longline fishing, lead poisoning, and the Japanese earthquake. At 65, she's still laying eggs and hatching chicks.