Banded Albatrosses
We often see color-banded Albatrosses on our pelagic birding trips. These birds nest on several islands in the Hawaiian Archipelago, and some also nest on Guadalupe Island about 150 miles off Ensenada, Baja California. Many are banded each year, either chicks just before fledging or adults on nests. With many excellent photographers on our trips, and many Albatrosses coming to our chum, we can often get readable photos and find out where and when these birds were banded. This adds to our appreciation for their amazing lives, and by reporting the bands to the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory, it adds to the scientific understanding as well.
On the August 15th trip we saw three color-banded birds. The Laysan Albatross sported a bright orange-red band coded 5K71. That format and color is used on Guadalupe Island, and this was the fourth Guadalupe bird we have seen here. One of the Black-footed Albatrosses had a dark red band with white letters (BC25); that bird was banded as an adult in 2019 on Midway Island, where it breeds. The other banded bird had a yellow band with black letters (AP29) and was banded as a chick in 2008 on Tern Island in the French Frigate Shoals.
Laysan Albatross photo by Tim Bray.
That brings our count of banded Black-footed Albatrosses to 13 over the last three years. Eight were from the French Frigate Shoals; apparently that population is most fond of foraging here. Three birds were banded on Midway Atoll and two on Laysan Island.
Many of the Black-footed Albatrosses we see here in spring and early summer are feeding chicks back in the Hawaiian Islands. One such was “EL97” who came to the boat in April and hoovered up chum tossed out by the deckhand; its skill suggested a practiced technique. That bird was originally banded on Midway Island as a chick in 1994, so it is now 31 years old, and it was seen on a nest this January.
They fly all the way out here, a straight-line distance of around 2,300 miles, taking as little as four days; feed for a week or more, and then fly back to feed the chick. They can fly for days without landing and without flapping, using a special technique called “dynamic soaring,” and they store a concentrated oily paste (dewatered squid and fish) in a special gland. These adaptations allow them to nest on remote islands where there were no mammalian predators, but where food resources are scarce. Tracking devices have revealed that some Laysan Albatrosses will make single foraging runs covering over 7,500 miles, leaving the chick for up to three weeks at a time.
Black-footed Albatrosses are sometimes so abundant offshore here that we almost forget what amazing birds they are. Their population is threatened by several factors: introduced mammals on their nesting islands, floating plastic trash, longline fisheries, and climate change. An ambitious project is under way to establish a new breeding colony on Guadalupe Island, in hope of reducing their vulnerability to the factors affecting them in the Hawaiian archipelago. The first chicks hatched there three years ago and have already been seen returning to the island, although they will typically not mate and nest until at least eight years old. We hope to see a banded Guadalupe Black-footed here one day.
