White-capped Albatross by ABUN wildlife artist Shary Page Weckwerth‎ from a photograph by Laurie Smaglick Johnson

Alan Tennyson (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand) has published in the journal Notornis on variation in bill colour in the White-capped Albatross Thalassarche steadi.

The paper’s abstract follows:

"The white-capped mollymawk (Thalassarche cauta steadi) and Tasmanian mollymawk (T. cauta cauta) have discreet breeding sites, but away from their breeding grounds, where their at-sea ranges overlap, they are difficult to identify.  The bill colour of these taxa has recently been considered to differ, but there is much conflicting information in published accounts.  Three key differences often discussed are the amount of yellow on the culminicorn, the amount of yellow on the cutting edge to the upper mandible, and the amount of darkness on the mandibular unguis.  In January 2018 I assessed these characters in 100 adult white-capped mollymawks at their Disappointment Island breeding site and found that each character was variably present.  The majority of white-capped mollymawks lacked a yellow base to their culminicorn and had a dark mark on their mandibular unguis. In contrast, it has been reported that the majority of adult Tasmanian mollymawks have yellow at the base of their culminicorn and lack a dark mark on their mandibular unguis. While these characters can be used as a guide to identify these taxa, a minority of individuals of each taxon show the ‘typical’ bill colours of the other taxon.  The amount of yellow on the cutting edge to the upper mandible varied between individual white-capped mollymawks, and so this is not a useful identification character."

This publication forms part of a compilation of 19 papers appearing in a special issue of the journal Notornis of Birds New Zealand that covers many aspects of the avifauna of the Auckland Islands. The special issue is also being made available as a 436-page book with the title Lost Gold: Ornithology of the subantarctic Auckland Islands.  Edited by Colin Miskelly and Craig Symes, it can be ordered for purchase (click here).  An interview with the two editors gives information about their work with the book.  Click here to access abstracts for all 19 papers.

Reference:

Tennyson, A.J.D. 2020.   Variation in the bill colour of the white-capped mollymawk (Thalassarche cauta steadi). Notornis 67: 333-340.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 11 April 2020

Book review:  Molly and the Monsters of Gough Island.  Written and published for children by Kate Lawrence.  2019.  Illustrations and photographs by Jaimie Cleeland and Kate Lawrence.  Hard cover and in full colour, 20×25 cm, 30 pp.

This book is about an albatross named Molly.  She lives on an island called Gough.  It starts with her as a chick.  Then her dad tells her about the monsters that eat the chicks.  These are the mice which arrived a long time ago.  Molly fears the mice, but she overcomes this and grows up.  The story goes on about how she fledges and discovers the thrill of flying.  In five years she will return and she hopes that by then the monster mice are gone and she can have chicks of her own.

There is more information after the story that talks about where Gough Island is.  Included is information on the deaths of albatross chicks and the research that the author did with Jaimie Cleeland during the 13 months she spent on the island in 2017/18.

I found the pictures very pretty and informative.  The style of writing is very good and the story had a nice flow to it; it is a page turner.  It is also very educational.  So overall I liked the book very much.

Kate Lawrence records the co-ordinates of a Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena on its nest on Gough Island

Alen Angel Wanless, Cape Town, South Africa, 10 April 2020

Editorial Notes:

 Alen Angel Wanless is the teenage son of Andrea Angel, Albatross Task Force Leader, BirdLife South Africa.  Andrea spent a year conducting seabird research on Gough Island over 2003/04, including working with the globally Endangered Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche chlororhynchos, the species to which Molly belongs, as did Kate Lawrence and Jaimie Cleeland 14 years later.

Prior to her year on Gough Island Kate Lawrence worked with albatrosses as a Field Biologist on Austrealia's sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island over 2013/14 and 2014/15.  She has written to ACAP Latest News: " 'I have been showing the baby to everyone and asking what they think it is and they always say a penguin!' was one response I got when I sent a photo of a Light-mantled Albatross chick, alone and alert on its nest on Macquarie Island, to family and friends. It reinforced to me how privileged I was to be working with such amazing creatures, species that many people do not get the chance to encounter in their lifetime.  World Albatross Day is an opportunity and a reminder to share our experiences far and wide, to highlight the conservation needs of these majestic birds and to spread the albatross love!”

White-chinned Petrel on Disappointment Island, Auckland Islands, photograph by Kalinka Rexer-Huber

Kalinka Rexer-Huber (Parker Conservation, Dunedin, New Zealand) and colleagues have published in the journal Notornis on the breeding numbers of White-chinned Petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis on the Auckland Islands.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“In New Zealand’s subantarctic Auckland Islands, the island-wide population size of white-chinned petrels (Procellaria aequinoctialis) is unknown.  On ten islands in the group, surveys for burrow distribution were followed by whole-island burrow counts or stratified random sampling of white-chinned petrel habitat.  White-chinned petrel burrow density, burrow occupancy, and slope-corrected surface areas were used to calculate the breeding population size.  Burrows were patchily distributed and most abundant in dense megaherb communities.  White-chinned petrel burrow density at Adams Island was 701 burrows/ha (95% CI: 480–803 burrows/ha). Burrow occupancy was 0.59 ± 0.02 (mean ± se) at the start of incubation.  An estimated 28,300 (10,400–44,800) white-chinned petrel pairs breed on Adams Island. Including the small colonies on Ewing, Monumental, and Enderby Islands (together c. 100 pairs) and the estimated 155,500 breeding pairs on Disappointment Island, the Auckland Island group has an estimated 184,000 (95% CI: 136,000–237,000) pairs of breeding white-chinned petrels”.

With thanks to Kalinka Rexer-Huber.

This publication forms part of a compilation of 19 papers appearing in a special issue of the journal Notornis of Birds New Zealand that covers many aspects of the avifauna of the Auckland Islands. The special issue is also being made available as a 436-page book with the title Lost Gold: Ornithology of the subantarctic Auckland Islands.  Edited by Colin Miskelly and Craig Symes, it can be ordered for purchase (click here).  An interview with the two editors gives information about their work with the book.  Click here to access abstracts for all 19 papers.

Reference:

Rexer-Huber, K., Thompson, D.R. & Parker, G.C. 2020.  White-chinned petrel (Procellaria aequinoctialis) burrow density, occupancy, and population size at the Auckland Islands.  Notornis 67: 387-401.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 09 April 2020

"All for One, One for All - ALBATROSS", by ABUN founder, Kitty Harvill

Seven World Albatross Day 2020 posters designed from ACAP's collaboration with Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) over January and February 2020 are now available for downloading from this website’s ‘World Albatross Day” section accessible from the home page.  Alternatively go directly to the images to obtain free high-resolution versions suitable for printing at A3 size here.

More WAD2020 and related posters by Owen Davey, Michelle Risi and Jamie Watts  (some of which are downloadable at high resolution) can be viewed from here.

Please note all the downloadable electronic poster images are only made available for personal display or for use when engaging in activities that will aid in drawing attention to the conservation crisis faced by the world’s albatrosses.  They may not be used for personal or commercial financial gain.  ACAP is not able to contribute to the costs of printing the posters other than by supplying the images by electronic means.

Read more about the ABUN collaboration here, which included the creation of a nine-and-a-half-minute music video.

Grey-headed Albatross on Marion Island, photograph and poster design by Michelle Risi

With grateful thanks to ABUN artists Kitty Harvill, Mary Ingrum, Jan Phethean, Di Roberts, Maureen Rousseau and Anne Shoemaker, and to Owen Davey, Michelle Risi, Graham Robertson and Jamie Watts for use of their poster images.  Ruth Cooper kindly designed the ABUN posters for ACAP.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 08 April 2020