Rising Tide Images
Sky Callers
Albatross have unique, complex, and long duration courtship rituals that result in lifetime monogamous pair bonding. The courtship dance includes bill fencing, bobbing, preening, and often synchronized “sky calling” as a part of the repertoire. Rapid beak clapping, grunts, and whistles provide an aural component. Scent is likely also involved in mate recognition. The entire ritual repeats each breading season after the pair return from months of nomadic solitary foraging at sea. These two mōlī were banded and identified as O013 at left, a male banded as an adult in 2004 at Kuaokala, and V830, banded as an adult at Ka’ena in 2021.
Sky Callers
Albatross have unique, complex, and long duration courtship rituals that result in lifetime monogamous pair bonding. The courtship dance includes bill fencing, bobbing, preening, and often synchronized “sky calling” as a part of the repertoire. Rapid beak clapping, grunts, and whistles provide an aural component. Scent is likely also involved in mate recognition. The entire ritual repeats each breading season after the pair return from months of nomadic solitary foraging at sea. These two mōlī were banded and identified as O013 at left, a male banded as an adult in 2004 at Kuaokala, and V830, banded as an adult at Ka’ena in 2021.