Rising Tide Images
Low Glider
A Laysan albatross executes a sunrise inspection of the breeding colony on the shoreline sand dunes of Ka’ena Point. I have observed this bird for multiple seasons and happy to see her return. Auxiliary banding data (O220) indicates she was ringed as an adult in March 2007 by PRC.
Though awkward on land, albatrosses are magnificent in the air. Airborne albatrosses are masters of dynamic soaring requiring little metabolic energy or wing flapping. Bones lock into position requiring no muscle to keep the six-foot wing span extended. This mōlī has returned from months and tens of thousands of miles of nomadic solitary foraging at sea to reestablish its pair bond with a monogamous mate. Males with established pair bonds generally arrive first in mid-November and stake out a nesting site, females arrive a few days or so later. After a brief, but elaborate, 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 and incubation.
Low Glider
A Laysan albatross executes a sunrise inspection of the breeding colony on the shoreline sand dunes of Ka’ena Point. I have observed this bird for multiple seasons and happy to see her return. Auxiliary banding data (O220) indicates she was ringed as an adult in March 2007 by PRC.
Though awkward on land, albatrosses are magnificent in the air. Airborne albatrosses are masters of dynamic soaring requiring little metabolic energy or wing flapping. Bones lock into position requiring no muscle to keep the six-foot wing span extended. This mōlī has returned from months and tens of thousands of miles of nomadic solitary foraging at sea to reestablish its pair bond with a monogamous mate. Males with established pair bonds generally arrive first in mid-November and stake out a nesting site, females arrive a few days or so later. After a brief, but elaborate, 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 and incubation.