This year it’s the Northern Royal Albatross asking for your vote

It’s Bird of the Year (BOTY, Te Manu Rongonui o te Tau in Te Reo Māori) time again in New Zealand.  For the 22nd year since inauguration in 2005, New Zealanders, and the rest of the world, are invited to choose their favourite bird that occurs in New Zealand.  A total of 75 birds is in the mix this year.

Āwheo, the Royal Cam 2025/26 Northern Royal Albatross chick, artwork by Gill Winter, after photographs by Sharon Dunne and Cindy Giesle

Three of them are ACAP-listed species, the Endangered Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi, the Vulnerable Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni and the Endangered Westland Petrel P. westlandica.  Three other procellariforms are on the list, including the Endangered Hutton’s Shearwater Puffinus huttoni, a species regularly featured in ACAP Latest News.

Libby Manning, BOTY-NZ2026 Campaign Manager for the Northern Royal Albatross, received the Michelle McCormack Award in June this year

As in previous years, “champions” are being appointed to encourage votes for their favourite bird. The Royal Albatross Centre has taken the lead for the Northern Royal Albatross, with Libby Manning, an award-winning guide and educator at the centre, as Campaign Manager.  Libby has written to ACAP Latest News: “Bird of the Year is an opportunity for people to back their favourite native New Zealand birds.  Voters get to pick from five native species, and while there is no official prize for the winner the competition generally raises quite a lot of media and awareness.  Albatross have never won Bird of the Year before, and this year the Northern Royal Albatross is debuting, replacing the Antipodean Albatross.  The competition is open to anybody with a valid email address, and we are hoping to get seabird lovers across the world behind our campaign to raise awareness for albatross ecology, threats, and conservation.”

The six “parties”

This year the candidates have been grouped into six categories or “parties” - Tree Birds, Sea Birds, Shore Birds, Floor Birds, Shy Birds, and High Birds.  A vote for each bird will also count as a vote towards their wider party. Libby adds: “So alongside campaigning for albatross[es] we will also be encouraging people to vote for an 'all sea bird' candidate list”.

No procellariiform has ever been made New Zealand’s BOTY, and only two species of seabirds have made the top step, the Yellow-eyed Penguin Megadyptes antipodes twice (click here).

Campaigning has already started, with voting taking place from Friday 4 September to Sunday 20 September.

With thanks to Libby Manning.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 11 August 2026

Far outside its normal range: a dead Waved Albatross from central Chile, photograph by Jorge Viscarra

What seems to be the most southerly record for a Waved Albatross Phoebastria irrorata (Critically Endangered) is of a bird found dead on the coast of Chile at 36.7°S on the Isla de lo Reyes Rocuant Beach, Bahía de Concepción in the Biobío Region of Chile by Jorge Viscarra on 08 August 2026, as reported on eBird.

Waved Albatrosses breed on the equator in The Galapagos (with a few pairs on La Plata Island).  Their normal at-sea range is to the coastal waters of Ecuador and Peru, the “extreme north of Chile” and occasionally northwards to off Colombia and Panama.  A record from close to the city of Concepción in central Chile is thus well outside the species’ normal range, noting that the maritime boundary between Peru and Chile is at 18.3°S, some 2000 km north of the Concepción bird, that was found 4500 km from its most likely breeding locality of Española Island in The Galapagos.

Information from the Facebook page Pelagics. Seabirds birding worldwide posted by Alvaro Jaramillo.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 10 August 2026

Colour-banded Northern Royal Albatross off Chile

A colour-banded Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi (Endangered) was photographed in Chilean waters on 05 July 2026 by Claudio Véliz.  The bird was marked with plastic band black 535 and metal band R-67933 on 30 January 2022 as an adult of unknown sex by Mike Bell of Toroa Consulting in a study plot on Motuhara (The Forty Fours), Chatham Islands, New Zealand.

Close up of the plastic band; the metal band is just visible on the left leg, photographs by Claudio Véliz

With thanks to Dave Boyle and Claudio Véliz for information via Pelagics. Seabirds birding worldwide.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 08 August 2026

Black-browed Albatrosses breeding on Steeple Jason.  The bird centre front has died from Highly Pathogenetic Avian Influenza,  photograph by Alastair Baylis

Long-term seabird monitoring programme has been undertaken on several important seabird species breeding in the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas* since 1989.  The latest report from the environmental NGO, Falklands Conservation, by Amanda Kuepfer and Andrew Stanworth, is for the 2025/2026 season and was released last month. It updates long-term trends and discusses associated threats and conservation actions for nine species, including for the island group’s three ACAP-listed breeding species: Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris, Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus and White-chinned Petrel Procellaria aequinoctialis.

Reference:

Kuepfer A. & Stanworth A. 2026.  Islands Seabird Monitoring Programme – Annual Report 2025/2026.  Stanley: Falklands Conservation.  61 pp and 2m 32s video.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 06 August 2026

A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur e Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.