Rising Tide Images
Mōlī Lunch
A male Laysan albatross, or mōlī, regurgitates a brownish oily stream of a meal into the open mouth of a one week old nestling. Parents alternate feeding duty, providing a daily meal for the first couple weeks, then less frequently as they forage further from the nesting colony. Departing for days, and then weeks, the chick will be left alone for longer periods until it fledges. The albatross parents wander for hundreds, often thousands, of miles to surface forage on squid, fish, and fish eggs, usually in ocean upwellings found with the acute olfaction of their tube noses. Rich, high-caloric oil derived from their prey is retained in the proventriculus portion of the stomach for feeding to the chick upon return to the nest. Banded O390.
Mōlī Lunch
A male Laysan albatross, or mōlī, regurgitates a brownish oily stream of a meal into the open mouth of a one week old nestling. Parents alternate feeding duty, providing a daily meal for the first couple weeks, then less frequently as they forage further from the nesting colony. Departing for days, and then weeks, the chick will be left alone for longer periods until it fledges. The albatross parents wander for hundreds, often thousands, of miles to surface forage on squid, fish, and fish eggs, usually in ocean upwellings found with the acute olfaction of their tube noses. Rich, high-caloric oil derived from their prey is retained in the proventriculus portion of the stomach for feeding to the chick upon return to the nest. Banded O390.