Albatross

Share Top Five November 5, 2018

Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds related to the procellariids, storm petrels, and diving petrels in the order Procellariiformes (the tubenoses). They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific. They are absent from the North Atlantic, although fossil remains show they once occurred there and occasional vagrants are found. Albatrosses are among the largest of flying birds, and the genus great albatrosses have the longest wingspans of any extant birds, reaching up to 3.7 m (12 ft). The albatrosses are usually regarded as falling into four genera, but disagreement exists over the number of species. More info: Wiki

Below are photos and Images you may like:

#10 Royal Albatross Centre & Fort Taiaroa,More info:lonelyplanet

Taiaroa Head (Pukekura), at the peninsula’s northern tip, has the world’s only mainland royal albatross colony, along with a late 19th-century military fort. The only public access to the area is by guided tour. There’s an hour-long albatross tour and a 30-minute fort tour available, or the two can also be combined. Otherwise you can just call into the centre to look at the displays and have a bite in the cafe.

#9 Wisdom, the Albatross Meet Wisdom!,More info:friendsofmidway

Wisdom, a Laysan Albatross, is the world’s oldest known banded bird in the wild and breeds exclusively on Midway Atoll NWR. She was already an adult when banded in 1956. Like many other seabirds, Laysan Albatrosses delay sexual maturity until at least age 5 and may not breed successfully until ages 8 to 10. This means Wisdom was at least 65 years old in 2016! She has fledged at least eight chicks since 2006, and as many as 40 in her lifetime.

#8 Waved albatross,More info:wikipedia

#7 At Age 65, Wisdom the Albatross Hatches a Healthy Chick, more info:discovermagazine

#6 Rising sea temperatures threaten survival of juvenile albatross, more info:phys

Ecologists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) studied a population of black-browed albatross at Kerguelen Island, part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, where 200 breeding pairs have been monitored annually since 1979.

#5 Albatross chick recovering, more info: OtagoDailyTimes

#4 Climate Change May Swallow Albatross’ Nesting Grounds Sooner Than We Thought, more info : audubon

The winter of 2011 was a bad one for seabirds nesting at Midway Atoll, a remote spread of islands in the central Pacific. First, two big storms, hit, in January and February, causing large waves to flood the islands. Then in March the islands were washed over by the Tōhoku tsunami (the same wave that caused Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster).

The tsunami wreaked havoc in Midway too: All told, nearly 300,000 albatross nests were destroyed, along with the nests of many other seabird species. “From the storms, there was a lot of nest loss, a lot of eggs that were lost, and young chicks that were lost,” recalls Karen Courtot, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who monitors Midway’s seabirds.