A colour-banded Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus was photographed flying at sea by Daniel López Velasco on 10 November this year, 200 nautical miles south-east of Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina.

The giant petrel was banded as a chick with White ADE (or ADF) and sexed as a female on Gran Robredo Islet, Chubut, Argentina in 2005, making it a 12-year old. San Robredo supports one of the four colonies of Southern Giant Petrels that occur on the coastal islands of Patagonia.

With thanks to Antonio Gutierrez, Flavio Quintana and Daniel López Velasco.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 16 November 2017

Northern Royal Albatrosses Diomedea sanfordi (globally Endangered and nationally Naturally Uncommon) at Taiaroa Head on New Zealand’s South Island have commenced their new breeding season. So far a 141 colour-banded adults have been clocked in to the mainland colony at the end of the Otago Peninsula. Thirty eggs have been laid to date, two of which are currently in an incubator with the potential to foster them out to good parents later on. Seven eggs were candled to see if they were fertile this week, with five confirmed as viable. The other two eggs were too early in their development to tell.

“In November we hope for some more nests and then December will see our 'teenage' birds around - some of whom it will be their first time touching land again in 5 years!”

A Northern Royal Albatross stands guard over its downy chick at Taiaroa Head, photograph by Lyndon Perriman

In the previous (2016/17) breeding season 23 chicks fledged out of 38 eggs laid by 36 pairs (two of the 36 breeding attempts were by female-female pairs which laid a total of four eggs.

The live-streaming “Royal Cam” will soon be back in operation over the new season: "Regarding the webcam, at this stage we plan on leaving it in its current location but re-positioning it so it will point at the GO/WO nest. We will zoom in to give a better view of nest activity there. We will do this right away so the camera will be turned off for a wee bit today while we carry this out. As mentioned last week, we are just waiting for the birds to settle on their nests before we change the camera’s location to give the up-close view of past seasons. Each time we change the location of a camera or work on a camera it disturbs the birds so we try to minimise this as much as possible."

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 16 November 20

Gabriel Bousquet (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA) and colleagues have published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface on their study of dynamic soaring in albatrosses.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Albatrosses can travel a thousand kilometres daily over the oceans. They extract their propulsive energy from horizontal wind shears with a flight strategy called dynamic soaring. While thermal soaring, exploited by birds of prey and sports gliders, consists of simply remaining in updrafts, extracting energy from horizontal winds necessitates redistributing momentum across the wind shear layer, by means of an intricate and dynamic flight manoeuvre. Dynamic soaring has been described as a sequence of half-turns connecting upwind climbs and downwind dives through the surface shear layer. Here, we investigate the optimal (minimum-wind) flight trajectory, with a combined numerical and analytic methodology. We show that contrary to current thinking, but consistent with GPS recordings of albatrosses, when the shear layer is thin the optimal trajectory is composed of small-angle, large-radius arcs. Essentially, the albatross is a flying sailboat, sequentially acting as sail and keel, and is most efficient when remaining crosswind at all times. Our analysis constitutes a general framework for dynamic soaring and more broadly energy extraction in complex winds. It is geared to improve the characterization of pelagic birds flight dynamics and habitat, and could enable the development of a robotic albatross that could travel with a virtually infinite range.”

Amsterdam Albatross of Ile Amsterdam, photograph by Kirk Zufelt

Read popular articles on the paper here and here.

Reference:

Bousquet, G.D. Triantafyllou, M.S., Slotine, J.-J.E. 2017. Optimal dynamic soaring consists of successive shallow arcs.  Journal of the Royal Society Interface DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2017.0496 + supplementary information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 15 November 2017

ACAP Latest News has reported before that introduced House Mice Mus musculus have taken to attacking breeding Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and Laysan P. immutabilis Albatrosses on USA’s Midway Atoll (click here).

Mice are the sole rodent and non-native mammal present on the atoll since Black Rats Rattus rattus were eradicated in 1996. The new habit, which has resulted in fatalities, was first noticed in just a few areas in December 2015, being recorded again the next breeding season over a much larger area. “When 2016 rolled around we were on the lookout for mice predation. And sure enough we started seeing the same attacks on albatrosses - only this time it was a much greater number of birds and it was much more widespread. It was across the entire island” (click here and here for gruesome photographs and night-time videos of mice attacking Laysan Albatrosses).

Mouse attacks on Midway albatrosses during the 2015/16 breeding season, photographs by US Fish & Wildlife Service and Robert Taylor

Midway is the third island where House Mice are known to kill breeding albatrosses, either (or both) chicks and adults on their nests, following Gough and Marion in the southern hemisphere; both islands where plans are afoot to eradicate then in the next few years (click here to access a selection of news items for these two islands)

With the 2017/18 breeding season about to start the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service “is committed to protecting and conserving the seabird colony on Midway Atoll and finding solutions to this growing crisis.” The service is working with partners to develop a long-term plan address the increasing threat of these invasive predators to seabirds on Midway Atoll.

See more here: “Warning: This album contains graphic images of wounded albatross. Viewer discretion is advised.”

Selected References:

Davies, D., Dilley, B.J., Bond, A.L., Cuthbert, R.J. & Ryan, P.G. 2015. Trends and tactics of mouse predation on Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena chicks at Gough Island, South Atlantic Ocean. Avian Conservation and Ecology 10(1): 5. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ACE-00738-100105.

Dilley, B.J., Schoombie, S., Schoombie, J. & Ryan, P.G. 2016. ‘Scalping’ of albatross fledglings by introduced mice spreads rapidly at Marion Island.  Antarctic Science 28: 73-80.

Duhr-Schultz, M. 2016. From the field. Updates from the Refuge Biology Program. Gooney Gazette II Winter 2016/2017. pp. 8-9.

Kepler, C.B. 1967. Polynesian Rat predation on nesting Laysan Albatrosses and other Pacific seabirds. The Auk 84: 426-430.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 14 November 2017