A Waved Albatross at Punta Suárez, Isla Española, The Galapagos; photograph by Ken Logan, 2013

A general introduction

With this post ACAP Latest News commences an occasional series that features photographs of the 31 ACAP-listed species, along with information on their photographers.  It is hoped the series will inspire readers to support the conservation of the world’s albatrosses and petrels.

The series starts with the globally Critically Endangered Waved Albatross Phoebastria irrorata of Ecuador, photographed by South African amateur, but definitely serious, birder, Ken Logan.  For more information produced by ACAP on this species view freely downloadable posters and an infographic produced for World Albatross Day 2021, as well as a detailed Species Assessment and an illustrated Species Summary.

Ken Logan, with his ever-present and at the ready camera

Kem Logan writes to ACAP Latest News:

“I did not find birding until I was 40 - way too old to start when your ears and eyes are already past their best.  I was a chartered accountant by profession - and as a busy corporate guy based in Johannesburg only managed to bird locally here in Africa until I retired.  I was an active birder and was Chair of the Witwatersrand Bird Club for a number of years and Secretary of the Sandton Bird Club for some time as well.

“”I retired in 2007 at the age of 63 and my wife and I have birded the world ever since.  Having seen most of the birds in southern Africa, I decided a great retirement project would be to try and photograph them all.  Today I never bird anywhere without my camera and have managed to photograph 4396 of the 6600 birds I have seen worldwide.

We went to Antarctica in 2008, my first time at sea with a camera and only then did I realise the challenge that photography at sea really was.  By then I had already seen most of the Albatrosses that visit South African waters on “pelagics”, mainly with Ian Sinclair out of Durban and Cape Town, but it was when crossing the Drake Passage and watching those birds cope effortlessly with whatever the weather threw at them that I fell in love with albatrosses.  Maybe it was the Tristan Albatrosses that followed our ship from Gough and Nightingale Islands for three days across most of the Atlantic Ocean on our way back to South Africa in 2009 that made me realise just how special these birds really are.

“I have seen them all but one - the Amsterdam Albatross - maybe I will get to visit Amsterdam Island one day - and I have photographed all the albatross species I have seen but one - Buller’s.  Maybe I will get lucky with another Buller’s when we travel down the west coast of South America next year.

Waved Albatrosses display at at Punta Suárez

A Waved Albatross chick losing its down prior to fledging

“We visited the Galapagos Islands in 2013, deliberately choosing the eastern islands as the Waved Albatross breeds only on Española in the Galapagos.  In 2017 we planned a pelagic trip out of Westport, Oregon, USA in the hopes of seeing Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses - and despite some seriously bad weather we did manage to get out and find them.  Australian and New Zealand waters are probably the best in the world for albatrosses. We have done pelagics out of New Zealand and have visited the country’s sub Antarctic islands with Heritage Expeditions.  It was off Australia’s Macquarie Island on the same expedition that I saw my one and only Chatham Albatross as we have never visited the Chatham Islands themselves.

“In 2019 we visited Japan and on our way by ferry to the Izu Islands we saw our first Short-tailed Albatrosses.  But it was only in the following month, having joined another Heritage Expedition trip and spent a month sailing from New Zealand past New Caledonia and the Solomons, on through Micronesia and back to Japan, that we had a wonderful morning with more Short-tailed Albatrosses off Toroshima where they breed.

A Waved Albatross in flight

A Waved Albatross at Punta Suárez

“I have just completed my first photobook on albatrosses, a great project to while away the weeks we can no longer travel because of the COVID pandemic.”

With thanks to Ken Logan.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 04 August 2021

Streaked Shearwater at sea

Aran Garrod (Department of Natural Environmental Studies, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan) and colleagues have published in the open access journal PLoS One on studying foraging behaviour of Streaked Shearwaters Calonectris leucomelas by deploying video and acceleration loggers.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The study of seabird behaviour has largely relied on animal-borne tags to gather information, requiring interpretation to estimate at-sea behaviours. Details of shallow-diving birds’ foraging are less known than deep-diving species due to difficulty in identifying shallow dives from biologging devices. Development of smaller video loggers allow a direct view of these birds’ behaviours, at the cost of short battery capacity. However, recordings from video loggers combined with relatively low power usage accelerometers give a means to develop a reliable foraging detection method. Combined video and acceleration loggers were attached to streaked shearwaters in Funakoshi-Ohshima Island (39°24’N,141°59’E) during the breeding season in 2018. Video recordings were classified into behavioural categories (rest, transit, and foraging) and a detection method was generated from the acceleration signals. Two foraging behaviours, surface seizing and foraging dives, are reported with video recordings. Surface seizing was comprised of successive take-offs and landings (mean duration 0.6 and 1.5s, respectively), while foraging dives were shallow subsurface dives (3.2s mean duration) from the air and water surface. Birds were observed foraging close to marine predators, including dolphins and large fish. Results of the behaviour detection method were validated against video recordings, with mean true and false positive rates of 90% and 0%, 79% and 5%, and 66% and <1%, for flight, surface seizing, and foraging dives, respectively. The detection method was applied to longer duration acceleration and GPS datasets collected during the 2018 and 2019 breeding seasons. Foraging trips lasted between 1 − 8 days, with birds performing on average 16 surface seizing events and 43 foraging dives per day, comprising <1% of daily activity, while transit and rest took up 55 and 40%, respectively. This foraging detection method can address the difficulties of recording shallow-diving foraging behaviour and provides a means to measure activity budgets across shallow diving seabird species.”

Garrod, A., Yamamoto, S., Sakamoto, K.Q. & Sato, K. 2021.  Video and acceleration records of streaked shearwaters allows detection of two foraging behaviours associated with large marine predators.  PLoS One doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254454.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 August 2021

White-capped Albatross by Ellyn Bousman Lentz‎, from a photograph by Laurie Smaglick Johnson

Elizabeth (‘Biz”) Bell (Wildlife Management International Ltd, Blenheim, New Zealand) has produced s report for the Conservation Services Programme of the Department of Conservation on seabirds captured in New Zealand fisheries over 2019/2020.  White-chinned Petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis (Vulnerable) and White-capped Albatrosses Thalassarche steadi (Near Threatened) accounted for half of the 250 returned corpses (comprising 24 taxa) examined; 173 from trawl fisheries and 82 from longline vessels.  The report is the latest of a series produced annually over the last two decades (see the report’s cited references).

The report’s Abstract follows:

“New Zealand w aters support a diverse range of seabird species, but much of the commercial fishing activity in the region overlaps with their ranges. The accurate identification of seabirds captured in New Zealand fisheries is vital for determining the potential impact of fisheries on these populations. Between 1 July 2019 and 30 June 2020, a total of 844 seabirds were reported as incidental interactions with commercial fishing vessels by on‐board New Zealand Government observers; of these 250 were returned for necropsy and 594 were interactions (298) or photographed (296) as dead or alive captures.  There were 250 seabirds comprising 24 taxa incidentally killed as bycatch and returned for necropsy. Birds were returned from 16 longline (n = 82 seabirds), 35 trawl (n = 163 seabirds) and five set net (n = 5 seabirds) vessels and were dominated numerically by five species: white‐chinned petrel (n = 80, 32%), New Zealand white‐capped albatross (n = 43, 17.2%), sooty shearwater (n = 28, 11.2%), Salvin’s albatross (n = 27, 10.8%) and Buller’s albatross (n = 27, 10.8%). These five species accounted for 82% of all returns. All birds returned from longline fisheries had injuries consistent with being hooked in the bill, throat, or wing. In contrast, most birds (74.2%) returned from trawl fisheries were killed through entanglement in the net, cod‐end, or pound, with 18.4% likely to have been killed by warp interaction or entanglement. Eight birds were killed by striking the deck of the trawl vessel. Birds had the same mean fat scores in comparison to birds from the last fishing year, and discards, including offal, appear to continue to be an attractant for many seabirds.  In addition to the seabirds that were returned for necropsy, examination of the Ministry for Primary Industries Central Observer Database (COD) and images provided by Government observers gave a total of a further 594 seabirds that were reported as interactions or photographed (as dead or alive captures) aboard 51 fishing vessels (and may include some non‐capture interactions). Almost half (47.3%) of the seabirds reported in these interactions were released alive.  Out of these 594 records of seabird interactions, photographs were taken of 296 seabirds consisting of 15 taxa. Image quality varied widely, with poor images being particularly common for birds that were alive and seen on‐board for short periods. Images of dead birds have improved with multiple images taken for each specimen. Recommendations are made to improve photo‐identifications in the future.”

Reference:

Bell, E.[A.]. 2021. INT2019-02:  Identification of seabirds captured in New Zealand fisheries, 1 July 2019- 30 June 2020.  Blenheim: Wildlife Management International Ltd.  32 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 30 July 2021

Black-browed Albatrosses breeding on Steeple Jason

Sarah Crofts and Andrew Stanworth (Falklands Conservation) have produced a report that details results of monitoring study populations of eight seabird species, including the ACAP-listed Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris and the Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus, that bred in the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)* during 2020/21.

Extracts from the report’s summary follow:

“The Falkland Islands support seabird populations that are of global importance; both numerically, and in terms of conservation status. Accordingly, fluctuations in local populations may substantially affect the global conservation status of these species.

The Falkland Islands Seabird Monitoring Programme (FISMP) monitors Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua) at 11 sites (17 colonies), Southern Rockhopper Penguin (Eudyptes c. chrysocome) at five sites (14 colonies) and Magellanic Penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) at one site (one colony). King Penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) and Black-browed Albatross (Thalassarche melanophris) are monitored at single, but key sites, in terms of population numbers.  Southern Giant Petrel (Macronectes giganteus) is monitored at one site (two colonies), Imperial Shag (Phalacrocorax atriceps) at three sites (four colonies) and Brown Skua (Catharacta antarctica) at one site (four colonies).

Black-browed Albatross breeding pair numbers at the monitoring sites at Steeple Jason showed an overall decrease of 1 % when compared with 2019. Taking into account annual fluctuations, the overall FISMP trend suggests a stable population. The overall breeding success in 2020 remained below the annual average for the sixth consecutive year, although was improved when compared with 2019.

A Southern Giant Petrel breeding on Steeple Jason

Photographs by Ian Strange

Southern Giant Petrel breeding pair numbers at Steeple Jason increased by 6 % when compared with 2019. The overall increase reflected the positive trend at the Neck colony, whereas the Northwest colony continued to decline. In 2020, breeding success of 15 % was well below the long-term annual average of 32 %.”

With thanks to Michelle Winnard, Communications and Marketing Officer, Falklands Conservation.  45 pp.

Reference:

Crofts, S. & Stanworth, A. 2021.  Falkland Islands Seabird Monitoring Programme - Annual Report 2020/2021 (SMP28).  Stanley: Falklands Conservation.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 July 2021

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