KEY POINTS:
They are considered a sign of good luck when following a ship but bad luck if harmed or injured, so when a wandering albatross crashed into skipper Jason Wootton's game fishing boat, he made sure it received immediate first aid.
Now, the giant bird with a poor sense of direction is living the high life while recovering at a Whangarei bird sanctuary after its unscheduled landing off the Bay of Islands.
The 18-month-old wandering albatross, which was hopelessly trying to spread its wings and fly away when the Herald saw it yesterday, crashed into a boat full of Australians fishing for marlin and snapper about 20km off Cape Brett in the Bay of Islands on Sunday.
Skipper of the Te Ariki Nui, Jason Wootton, said he heard "a pretty big bump" before he looked up and saw the bird struggling on the deck with a busted right wing and broken leg.
"He must have hit a handrail before he ended up there but how he didn't see the boat in the first place well I don't know,"said Mr Wootton.
Not wanting to spoil a good day's fishing, the crew carried on with their catch but a friend wrapped the bird in a towel and ferried it back to Waitangi where Mr Wootton's partner rushed it to the Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre.
The centre's Robert Webb said the bird, nicknamed "Mistake", was probably following a massive food chain brought into New Zealand waters by warm Pacific currents to the north.
"There would likely have been a whole lot of small fish which attract bigger fish which in turn attract birds - this is what gamefishing boats look for," he said.
"To birds these food chains are just like a supermarket opening its doors to customers on a Boxing Day sale and an albatross goes in like a freight train."
The bird was severely distressed when it arrived at the centre.
"I thank the lovely people who brought him here but wrapping him in a towel was probably not the best thing, it nearly killed him and he was steaming and very dehydrated when we took it off him."
However, the bird, which Mr Webb said in its short lifetime could already have been to Antarctica and the United States, was making good progress ahead of a trip yesterday to a local veterinarian.
He has reportedly mingled well with the centre's duck fraternity.
And his recent diet of prawns, cooked mussels and about 2kg of fresh fish each day was enough to make his new caregivers a little jealous.
"This little bugger probably eats better than I do," said Mr Webb.
"But we need to give him all the strength he can get for when he eventually goes back to sea."
The wandering albatross spends the first three to four years of its life at sea before coming back to the place where it hatched to breed.
