Return of the albatross

Grey head awaiting the return of its partner

September is the month when the winter finally feels like it is coming to an end. After months of deserted colonies the albatross finally start to return. From the 1st September I started visiting the Grey-headed albatross colonies to await the first bird coming back. The first bird was a female seen back on the 13th September in colony E. She was first observed on the island in 1989 as an adult making her over 30 years old! Since then she has raised three successful chicks out of 17 breeding attempts. Hopefully the 2014 season will see her fourth success.

Grey head coming in to land

Within a couple of week the grey heads had returned in force and the colonies are noisy once again. They have been making renovations to the nests and are getting reacquainted with the partners that they haven’t seen for almost two years since they last bred. I have been visiting the main study colonies every day and recording which individuals are back. This is fairly easy to do, but very time consuming, as most of the birds have plastic darvic rings that can easily be read at a distance. 

Any birds returning without darvics tend to be young birds returning for the first time. Chicks do not receive darvics only a metal ring as the mortality rate is too high to justify the expense of the darvics. I've been doing my best to catch as many young birds as possible and put a darvic on them. This only takes a couple of minutes but it very valuable to do, as it reduces future disturbance trying to read the metal ring. 

Grey head pair preening each other to renew their bond after a couple of years apart

The Black-browed albatross are slightly later to return as their breeding season is shorter than the grey heads so they don't have to get started quite as soon. It wasn't long though before they were home and their loud distinctive call was filling the air. It's definitely a noise I'd missed over winter.

 Before the eggs are laid I had to put nest tags in every nest that might possibly be used so that once the birds start breeding I'll be able to keep track of each nest and can record lay dates, and both adults ring numbers. This was a pretty big task as the colonies are spread out across the island, and I needed to put in hundreds of tags. I had a pretty heavy bag for a couple of days!

Black browed albatross pair on their nest site

Wandering albatross chick ringing- they're so grown up!

It seems a long time ago that I was visiting the Wanderer study area every day awaiting the arrival of the first Wandering albatross egg, which finally arrived on the 12th December 2012. The eggs are extremely hefty weighing in at around 500g, so not surprisingly the birds that emerge from them turn out to be very large indeed. The chicks spend the winter months being battered by snow, wind and rain hunkering down on their nests, awaiting the next meal brought back by one of their devoted parents.  By mid August the chicks are large enough to be ringed and receive their very own metal ring with a unique seven digit number that will identify them for life. The chicks in the main study area also receive a darvic, which is a plastic coloured ring with three digits on it. The reason for this is that at fledging time I have to visit the study area daily to see when each chick fledges. With the darvic rings I don’t have to get too close to be able to see who is who, thereby minimising disturbance to the birds. They live up to their name of wandering albatross, as just before fledging they leave the nest and can walk fairly big distances to find the best spot for takeoff. It really helps to have the darvic rings to avoid confusion. 

A friendly chick sporting a metal ring and a darvic

In mid-August I got out the ringing pliers and what looked like far too many rings and began. There are just fewer than 500 chicks to ring this year, which does sound a lot, but 20 years ago there were at least double this number.  Ringing can only be done on dry days, which on Bird Island aren’t all too common, so although it is now approaching the end of September I still haven’t quite finished. Ringing an albatross chick is a whole different ball game to ringing the smaller birds I was used to before I came to the island, but you soon get used to it. The chicks definitely have their own personalities, with some being very placid and barely batting an eyelid, whereas others are feistier and peck you in the legs/bum while you are getting the ring on. However once the ring is on most of them have a little shake and flap and settle back down on the nest. Every single chick on the island gets a ring, so Jerry (penguin man) has been helping me ring chicks in the further away areas of the island.

Chick showing off his new darvic

A Giant Petrel "helping" me whilst out ringing.

I’m saving a few chicks for when my replacement Jess arrives in just under seven weeks. I will need to train her in how to handle these big chicks ready for her to do it all again next year.

Another of my favourite chicks showing off his brand new feathers.

The chicks are now losing their fluffy white down, and their dark grey body feathers and white faces are coming through. Over the next few years they will become as white as their parents. They will spend the next few years at sea, wandering the oceans going as far away as Australia, South Africa, and South America. Some have even been known to make full circumnavigations of the globe, which we have learned from putting geolocators on them. Hopefully I’ll get a few more back this year so we can see where they have been.

Chick practicing flapping to strengthen the wing muscles.