I was only in one place where there are Albatross – black-browed - on Saunders Island where I was at The Neck.
They don’t look very big when their wings are folded, but their wing span is huge – unlike other birds which have two sections to theirs wings, albatross have three.
They can’t get off the ground if there is no wind – no problem when I was there. Like cormorants their nests are piles of mud, stones, sticks and guano with the chick sitting on the pile and the parents below – I assume that once the chick is too big the parent gives up sitting on the nest. A lot of grooming takes place. The chicks have a line of black which looks as if the beak is attached by black elastic.
There are ritual dances and beak tappings
The best place of all was the colony made up of albatross, rockhoppers and royal cormorants – they were happily co-existing and there was always something going on
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