Chapter 394 Antarctic Gangsters (Illustration at the end of the chapter) Albatrosses are the birds with the longest wingspan in the world, easily exceeding three meters.
It is a true giant of the sky, and the largest seabird!
They reproduce by laying only one egg at a time, and their babies are also very large, weighing a pound at birth and growing to four or five kilograms after their downy fur has fully grown, reaching the height of a human knee.
These nests are typically located on open island highlands and are small discs made of mud and weeds.
Xia Zhining followed her teammates carefully through the nests. Suddenly, she pointed ahead and exclaimed, "Look! These nests are empty!"
Before the words were finished, a series of urgent and chaotic cries came from the sky: "Gah—Gah—".
Several pairs of adult albatrosses were frantically circling the empty nests, their calls loud and urgent, their wings flapping so fast they created a whooshing sound.
[Where's my chubby puppy?! I made sure it was well-fed before I left, and I put it right here! It's such a big thing, how could it just disappear?!]
My baby is missing too!
[Oh no, oh no! It's so fat, it waddles when it walks, what if it gets blown away by the wind!]
[Last time, the neighbor's chubby son was knocked over by a gust of wind!]
The parent bird was frantic, its huge figure casting a chaotic shadow.
An exceptionally anxious albatross father even tried to "scoop" the nest out with his large wings, as if he thought his child had simply fallen into an unseen crevice.
Xia Zhining carefully observed the edges of the empty nests and sensed the wind direction. She made a judgment: it was very likely that a strong wind blew away the round "fat balloons" inside the nests.
Albatross chicks grow slowly; it takes almost a year from hatching to being able to fly.
During their long "stay-at-home" lives, they are just a bunch of warm, fluffy balls of flesh.
If they are blown out of their warm nest by a strong wind and roll into a distant rock crevice or ice pit, they will have no chance of climbing back with their short legs and clumsy bodies.
Even worse, if these little guys get dazed from the fall or roll too far, they won't even have the strength to cry for help.
As for their parents... although they are loyal, they are a bit "single-minded" when it comes to finding their children.
Albatrosses have an ingrained habit: they almost never leave their nesting area to search for distant places.
They will persistently circle and call out above the empty nest, but rarely expand their range.
Sometimes, the child is lying pitifully dozens of meters away, but the parents are still standing there anxiously yelling.
For this reason, animal conservation organizations and scientific expeditions working in Antarctica often quietly act as "albatross keepers," regularly "collecting baby albatrosses" around their breeding grounds.
They carried each of the lost, chubby balls that had rolled far away back to their own individual rooms.
This can greatly improve their survival rate.
Clearly, these frantic albatross parents had also mistaken Xia Zhining and the research team members for "caretakers."
It was like finding a savior!
Several huge albatrosses swooped down, showing no fear of people, and immediately surrounded Xia Zhining.
They stretched their long necks, their bright black eyes filled with anxiety, and chattered at her in a cacophony of calls, their voices urgent yet tinged with a pitiful plea:
[Nursery worker! Have you seen my baby? He's grayish, chubby, and has a tuft of hair sticking up on his left rump!]
[Find mine first! My little one is the best... even though he's a bit greedy! Did you see one with a really round belly?]
[My little one just learned a new call from me yesterday! Can you hear that bird cawing nearby? That's it!]
Xia Zhining was eagerly surrounded by a group of "airborne parents" with wingspans of three meters, her ears filled with the anxious pleas of those who had "lost their children," making her feel like she had transformed into the director of a neighborhood committee.
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