Albatross nesting on Tern

Aloha kakou!  The albatross are nesting on Tern starting this week -- We already have three eggs in the ka'upu (black-footed albatross) plots! 

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are home to most of the breeding albatross in the world.  New nesters will continue to come in and lay new eggs over the next couple months.  Albatross come back to the same place each year, and lay only one egg at a time.  They generally come back to lay every other year, and don't lay another one that year if the first is lost, so survival of each chick is more important that for species that lay lots of eggs.  (This kind of strategy, where you invest a lot of time and energy into one offspring, is typical for long-lived species like albatross -- and humans.) 

One of the first moli (Laysan albatross) returning to nest on Tern this year.  'Aa (masked booby) in the background.
Photo by Keith Burnett.

These magnificent birds fly thousands of miles across the North Pacific, eating squid, but also fish.  They return to the place they were born to nest, though.  You may see the same bird behind a fishing boat in the Bering Sea, and find it nesting here in Hawai'i.  It is during this time that they often ingest plastics, when they see something brightly colored in the water, thinking it some yummy fishy goodness. 

Both moli and ka'upu populations were declining in the early 1990s.  The moli populations appear to be increasing since that time, but are more difficult to assess since their interannual nesting numbers vary a great deal from year to year.  The ka'upu return more regularly, and are increasing slowly but surely over the past ten years.  The ka'upu (black-footed albatross) in the photo below was banded as a 'teenager' in 2006, nested in 2007 and 2008, and then was gone in 2009. 


One of the first ka'upu (black-footed albatross) returned to nest on Tern this year. 
Photo by FWS Volunteer Keith Burnett.

Albatross chicks born on Tern get a plastic yellow-and-black band on their left foot (seen on this ka'upu).   Each bird also has a metal band on its right leg, in case the plastic band breaks -- but its much harder to read those bands, and less disturbing to the bird to read the big-lettered plastic bands.  These bands help us to identify the bird whenever it returns. 

Welcome back, albies!