Rising Tide Images
'Tis the Season
Under a shady canopy of ironwood trees, this handsome male mōlī takes the first incubation shift. Laysan albatrosses with established pair bonds are the first of the season to arrive at the breeding colony. Males generally arrive first in mid-November and stake out a nesting site, females arrive a few days or so later. After a brief reaffirming courtship dance followed by mating, the couple return to nomadically soaring over the north Pacific for about two weeks to forage and fatten up for the rigors of nesting. The pair return to the nest where the female lays a single egg then departs to replenish the enormous energy deficit required to produce a beer can sized egg. The male takes the first incubation shift and fasts for two weeks until the female returns to relieve him. They alternate incubation duties and foraging with increasingly shorter shifts. If all goes well, the egg will hatch in about 60 days.
'Tis the Season
Under a shady canopy of ironwood trees, this handsome male mōlī takes the first incubation shift. Laysan albatrosses with established pair bonds are the first of the season to arrive at the breeding colony. Males generally arrive first in mid-November and stake out a nesting site, females arrive a few days or so later. After a brief reaffirming courtship dance followed by mating, the couple return to nomadically soaring over the north Pacific for about two weeks to forage and fatten up for the rigors of nesting. The pair return to the nest where the female lays a single egg then departs to replenish the enormous energy deficit required to produce a beer can sized egg. The male takes the first incubation shift and fasts for two weeks until the female returns to relieve him. They alternate incubation duties and foraging with increasingly shorter shifts. If all goes well, the egg will hatch in about 60 days.