The southern royal albatross turns up reliably on the subantarctic legs of Southern Ocean voyages, tracking ships and riding the wind off the stern for hours at a time. It nests in scattered colonies on Campbell Island and the Auckland Islands, and travellers heading further south sometimes pick it up again near Macquarie Island, well outside its breeding grounds.
It is worth pausing on deck for: this is one of only two albatross species, alongside the wandering albatross, to exceed three metres across the wings, and some recent measurements suggest it may actually be the heavier bird on average, even if the two remain close enough in size that observers rarely agree which is larger in the field.
Because it breeds on remote, low-lying islands rather than open ocean, seeing one on the wing near land — rather than as a distant shape astern — is one of the small privileges of the subantarctic route.
