BYCATCH — KIM STEUTERMANN ROGERS

Next week, when the fisherman pulls the dead albatross off the hook, he will note her dull eyes and long slender wings hanging limp. He will jot down the number on the metal band circling the bird’s leg and report it, triggering a rescue mission for the bird’s surviving chick, waiting on a nest some 2,400 miles away.

But, today, she tilts her white-feathered head to the sleeping ball of down between her legs, gently preening with the tip of her four-inch-long serrated bill. Then, she steps off the nest and runs, heading into the wind, her six-and-a-half-foot wings outstretched, air tickling her flight feathers, welcoming her into its embrace. She heads north to nutritious cold water for fish and squid to feed her babe, riding the roller coaster of waves, up and over, up and over, recycling air into energy, clicking off latitudes at 45 miles per hour. She is called the grandest living flying machine on earth.   

---

Kim Steutermann Rogers spent a month in Alaska as a fellow at Storyknife Writers Retreat in 2016 and, again, in 2021. She was recognized for “Notable Travel Writing 2019” in Best American Travel Writing. Her science journalism has been published in National Geographic, Audubon, and Smithsonian; and her prose in Atticus Review, Bending Genres, Hawaii Pacific Review and elsewhere. She lives with her husband and dog in Hawaii. Read more of her work at kimsrogers.com and follow her on social media at @kimsrogers.