---
title: "A Laysan Albatross moves from the French Frigate Shoals to Kauai"
---

# A Laysan Albatross moves from the French Frigate Shoals to Kauai

*![Laysan French Fr igate Shoals 3](https://www.acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Birds/Albatrosses/L/Laysan/Laysan_French_Fr_igate_Shoals_3.jpg)Laysan Albatross FV85 on Kauai, photograph by Hob Osterlund*

 A Laysan Albatross *Phoebastria immutabilis* with colour band FV85 was recently photographed incubating on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.  The band’s alphanumeric was not from a series known to be used on the island so it was assumed it had come from another breeding locality.

 ![Laysan French Fr igate Shoals 2](https://www.acap.aq/images/Laysan_French_Fr_igate_Shoals_2.jpg) 

 Photographer Hob Osterlund, Founder of the Kauaʻi Albatross Network, contacted the USA’s [Bird Banding Laboratory](https://www.usgs.gov/labs/bird-banding-laboratory) with the bird’s details and heard back with a Certificate of Appreciation “in record time”.  It was metal and colour banded as a chick on 20 June 2009 on Tern Island, French Frigates Shoals in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, some 700 km from Kauai.

 ![Laysan French Fr igate Shoals 1](https://www.acap.aq/images/Laysan_French_Fr_igate_Shoals_1.jpg)*The mystery Laysan Albatross on Kauai, photograph by Hob Osterlund*

 What the albatross was up to and where between 2009 and 2025 is, and is likely to remain, unknown.

 Information and photographs from the [Facebook page](https://www.facebook.com/hob.osterlund) of Hob Osterlund – with thanks.

 *John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 12 December 2025*