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Albatrosses of the genus Thalassarche regularly turn up as vagrants in breeding colonies of conspecifics, where they may display, build nests and sometimes lay eggs with a partner of another species

In the second half of the 1990s a vagrant Salvin's Albatross T. salvini was present among a mixed colony of Black-browed Albatrosses T. melanophris and Macaroni Penguins Eudyptes chrysolophus at Cañon des Sourcils Noirs, Presqu'ile Jeanne d'Arc in the south-east of France's Kerguelen Island in the southern Indian Ocean.

The bird was observed over at least three seasons (1995/96 to 1997/98) when it was photographed in November 1996 and again in January 1997 at an empty nest site.  This is the bird briefly referred to in the second edition of Hadoram Shirihai's 2007 "A Complete Guide to Antarctic Wildlife" on p. 117.

Elsewhere in the Southern Indian Ocean, four pairs of Salvin's Albatrosses were reported breeding on Ile des Pingouins, Iles Crozet in November 1986 by Pierre Jouventin.  However, there has been no confirmation of their continued occurrence ever since that time, although a visit to the island is planned for 2012.

Click here for the ACAP Species Assessment of the Salvin's Albatross.

For photographs of vagrant Salvin's Albatrosses ashore elsewhere in the Southern Ocean click here.

Reference:

Jouventin, P. 1990.  Shy Albatrosses Diomedea cauta salvini breeding on Penguin Island, Crozet Archipelago, Indian Ocean.  Ibis 132: 126-127.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, with Olivier Durie and Frédéric Jiguet, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Pierre Jouventin, Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive & Henri Weimerskirch, Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé.  2 February 2010.