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title: "Poetry in the service of albatrosses and petrels"
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# Poetry in the service of albatrosses and petrels

Albatrosses have appeared in many poems, probably most famously in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's *[Rime of the Ancient Mariner](http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/)*, written in 1798.  Lance Tickell in his book *Albatrosses* devotes 12 pages to the subject (Chapter 18: The Mariner Syndrome), quoting extensively from a number of poems, including Coleridge's rime.

 Less often written about in verse it seems are petrels and shearwaters of the family Procellariidae (although it has been suggested that Coleridge's albatross was really a giant petrel).  More certainly, South African [Roy Campbell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Campbell_(poet)) (1901-1957) in his poem*One Transport Lost* wrote of White-chinned Petrels (Cape Hens) *Procellaria aequinoctialis*:

 ''For them the wave, the melancholy/Chant of the wind that tells no lies/The breakers roll their funeral volley/To which, the thundering cliff replies.

 The Black Cape-Hens in decent crêpe/Will mourn them to the last event/The roaring headlands of the Cape/Are lions on their monument."

 ![](https://acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Birds/Petrels/W/White_chinned/white-chinned petrel_by_Ben Palan.jpg)

 "Black Cape-Hens in decent crêpe".  Photograph by Ben Phalan

 Two recently published light-verse poems are quoted in full below.  The ACAP-listed species they refer to are the Atlantic Yellow-nosed *Thalassarche chlororhynchos* and the Tristan *Diomedea dabbenena* Albatrosses on Gough Island in the South Atlantic, and the Wandering Albatross *D. exulans* on Marion Island in the southern Indian Ocean.

 **A Gonydale Companion**

 The path goes up with little trace/Half hidden by bracken's green embrace/Bog ferns help us as we pass/Battling through the sedge and grass

 Skirting skua and molly chicks as we rise/Our climb is watched by avian eyes/Below us petrels have dug their breeding holes/Traps for unwary boots and hiking poles

 There is little talking on the way/Brow sweat our silent language of the day/We stop to drink, but then prevail/For gonies await us in their dale!

 At Hummocks the path opens to the view/We smile - and greet ourselves anew.

 *JCII, Gough Island, January/February 2008*

 **Swartkop "Short-drop"**

 At Swartkop lives an albatross/Who's calm and peaceful, seldom cross./Far from the madding crowd is she/But not averse to company

 And when a human comes to rest/Atop the nearby strange white nest,/She dips her head and turns her gaze/And wonders at its horrid ways

 For not even a chick, newly fed,/Would make a mess inside its bed...

 *MdV, Marion Island*

 ![](https://acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Birds/Albatrosses/W/Wandering/wandering_albatross_swartkop_toilet_marienne_de_villiers.jpg)

 "the nearby strange white nest".  Photograph by Marienne de Villiers

 Any more poems about ACAP-listed species out there?

 With thanks to Marienne de Villiers.

 **References:**

 Bourne, W.R.P. 1980/81.  The Ancient Mariner's albatross.  *Sea Swallow* 31: 56-57.

 Brown, R.G.B. 1981.  Was Coleridge's ‘Albatross' a Giant Petrel?  *Ibis* 123: 551.

 Cooper, J. 2009.  A Gonydale companion.  *Tristan da Cunha Newsletter*44: 24.

 De Villiers, M.S., Chown, S.L. & Cooper, J. 2011.  *Prince Edward Islands Conservation Handbook*.  Stellenbosch: SUN PRESS.  80 pp.

 Tickell, W.L.N. 2000.  *[Albatrosses](http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300087413)*.  Mountfield: Pica Press.  448 pp.

 *John Cooper, ACAP Information 0fficer, 10 August 2011*