The albatross is the common name applied to large seabirds of the family Diomedeidae in the order Procellariiformes, which includes the petrels and shearwaters and two families of storm petrels.
Thirteen species of albatross can be found mainly throughout seas of the southern hemisphere, from the Antarctic region north to the Tropics.
Albatrosses are nomadic birds that spend months wandering great distances over the oceans. They sleep on the ocean surface, drink seawater, and feed on cuttlefish, offal, crustaceans, other small marine animals, and refuse from ships.
The Albatross can glide on an air current for several days and are believed to even sleep while in flight. It apparently dozes while cruising at 25 mph.
The wandering albatross has a wingspan of around 10 feet and spends most of its life in the air, landing only to find a mate and breed.
They can cover enormous distances, flying as far as 10,000 miles in 33 days, or up to 600 miles in one day.
At sea albatrosses often follow a ship for days, diving to recover refuse from the wake of the ship. They are seldom harmed because of a superstition held by sailors that killing the bird brings bad luck.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Ancient Mariner, which tells the tragedy of a sailor who deliberately shoots down one of the great birds, was based on the old superstition of sailors that ill luck attended the killing of an albatross at sea.
Wisdom is the oldest known wild bird. The Laysan albatross was 62 years old (at least) when on December 3, 2014, she hatched a healthy chick in the U.S. Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Wisdom has outlived several mates and raised anywhere from 30 to 35 chicks.
Wisdom was reunited in 2002 with the man who first tagged her in 1956. Having spent 40 years apart, Chandler Robbins picked her up by chance among a colony of more than 250,000 nests and discovered she’d also become the oldest albatross to ever give birth to a chick.
The albatross returns to land only to breed, at which time they perform a stylized courting ritual of elaborate bowing and posturing.
Albatrosses nest on barren islands, close to shore; the nest usually is a depression in the ground containing a single egg. When hatched, the nestling is covered with brownish down, and it grows to adulthood relatively slowly.
Albatrosses can live over 50 years and mate when they’re 5-years-old. They stay with the same partner for 45 plus years making it among the longest relationships in the animal world.
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| Albatross |
Thirteen species of albatross can be found mainly throughout seas of the southern hemisphere, from the Antarctic region north to the Tropics.
Albatrosses are nomadic birds that spend months wandering great distances over the oceans. They sleep on the ocean surface, drink seawater, and feed on cuttlefish, offal, crustaceans, other small marine animals, and refuse from ships.
The Albatross can glide on an air current for several days and are believed to even sleep while in flight. It apparently dozes while cruising at 25 mph.
The wandering albatross has a wingspan of around 10 feet and spends most of its life in the air, landing only to find a mate and breed.
They can cover enormous distances, flying as far as 10,000 miles in 33 days, or up to 600 miles in one day.
 |
| Albatross |
At sea albatrosses often follow a ship for days, diving to recover refuse from the wake of the ship. They are seldom harmed because of a superstition held by sailors that killing the bird brings bad luck.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Ancient Mariner, which tells the tragedy of a sailor who deliberately shoots down one of the great birds, was based on the old superstition of sailors that ill luck attended the killing of an albatross at sea.
Wisdom is the oldest known wild bird. The Laysan albatross was 62 years old (at least) when on December 3, 2014, she hatched a healthy chick in the U.S. Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Wisdom has outlived several mates and raised anywhere from 30 to 35 chicks.
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| "Wisdom" with her newly hatched chick, at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in March 2011 |
Wisdom was reunited in 2002 with the man who first tagged her in 1956. Having spent 40 years apart, Chandler Robbins picked her up by chance among a colony of more than 250,000 nests and discovered she’d also become the oldest albatross to ever give birth to a chick.
The albatross returns to land only to breed, at which time they perform a stylized courting ritual of elaborate bowing and posturing.
Albatrosses nest on barren islands, close to shore; the nest usually is a depression in the ground containing a single egg. When hatched, the nestling is covered with brownish down, and it grows to adulthood relatively slowly.
Albatrosses can live over 50 years and mate when they’re 5-years-old. They stay with the same partner for 45 plus years making it among the longest relationships in the animal world.
65% of the world’s black-browed albatross bird population can be found on the Falkland Islands.
Source Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia
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