What is the Biggest Flying Bird in the World?
It’s wandering albatross!
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The wandering albatross, snowy albatross, white-winged albatross, or goonie (Diomedea exulans) is a large seabird from the family Diomedeidae, which has a circumpolar range in the Southern Ocean. Albatrosses are among the most spectacular gliders of all birds, able to stay aloft in windy weather for hours without ever flapping their extremely long, narrow wings. The wandering albatross is one of the two largest members of the genus Diomedea (the great albatrosses), being similar in size to the southern royal albatross.
It is one of the largest, best known, and most studied species of bird in the world, with it possessing the greatest known wingspan of any living bird. This is also one of the most far-ranging birds. Some individual wandering albatrosses are known to circumnavigate the Southern Ocean three times, covering more than 120,000 km (75,000 mi), in one year. The most interesting fact about them is that they need wind to fly!
Wandering Albatross – The Biggest Flying Bird in the World!. Today we will know about their diet, habitat, and many more. So, Here we go…
Wandering Albatross Flying (from natgeo)
How they can be identified?
The wandering albatross has the longest wingspan of any living bird, typically ranging from 2.51 to 3.5 m (8 ft 3 in to 11 ft 6 in. As a result of its long wingspan, it is capable of remaining in the air without flapping its wings for several hours at a time. The length of the body is about 107 to 135 cm (3 ft 6 inches to 4 ft 5 inches) with females being slightly smaller than males. Adults can weigh from 5.9 to 12.7 kg (13 to 28 lb), although most weighed at 6.35 to 11.91 kg.
Immature birds have been recorded weighing as much as 16.1 kg during their first flights. Their feathers vary with age, with the juveniles starting chocolate brown. As they age they become whiter. The wandering albatross is the whitest of the albatross species complex, the other species having a great deal more brown and black on the wings and body as breeding adults, very closely resembling immature wandering albatrosses. They also have a salt gland that is situated above the nasal passage and helps desalinate their bodies, due to the high amount of ocean water that they imbibe.
What do they eat?
Albatrosses feed primarily on squid or schooling fish. They are also familiar to mariners because they sometimes follow ships in hopes of eating on donations or garbage.
They can also make shallow dives. It’s very rare that they have seen dived into the water to hunt a fish.
Where are they found and what about their numbers?
The wandering albatross breeds on South Georgia Island, Crozet Islands, Kerguelen Islands, Prince Edward Islands, and Macquarie Island, is seen feeding year-round off the Kaikoura Peninsula on the east coast of the south island of New Zealand
and it ranges in all the southern oceans from 28° to 60°.
Wandering albatrosses spend most of their life in flight, landing only to breed and feed. Distances traveled each year are hard to measure, but surely they go for a long trip (though without their GF ;-). One bird was recorded traveling 6000 km in twelve days.
In 2007, there were an estimated 25,500 adult birds, counted 1,553 pairs on South Georgia Island, 1,850 pairs on Prince Edward Island, 1,600 on Marion Island, 2,000 on the Crozet Islands, 1,100 on the Kerguelen Islands, and 12 on Macquarie Island for a total of 8,114 breeding pairs. The South Georgia population is decreasing at 1.8% /year. The good news is that The levels of birds at Prince Edward and the Crozet Islands seem to be stabilizing.
Albatrosses mate for life but it’s both too much fun and sad!
As Wandering Albatross mate for life, picking up the right partner is a major decision. All species of albatross have some sort of complicated mating dance. Especially for the Laysan albatross, the dance has 24 separate, complex steps, and it takes years for males to learn them all. And until the young males can master the choreography, they won’t find a mate
. The females may be picky, so if a male’s sequence of quacks, whistles, wiggles, and neck thrusts doesn’t impress her, she’ll just move on to the next one. (Lol)
Wandering Albatross Couple
Wandering Albatross – The Biggest Flying Bird in the World!
But! But! But! Do you know? They are called the most romantic couples of the animal kingdom. But Why?
Because the percentage of the divorce rate among them is very low ;-). Isn’t it good? Albatrosses are so long-lived, these pairs can continue for decades. For this reason, it’s been said that albatrosses are the “most romantic” bird. And as a human being shouldn’t we inspired by them???
Dear Albatross, Wish You A Happy Marriage Life!
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What about their Breeding?
Albatrosses mostly come to land to breed. This activity occurs in colonies that are usually established on remote oceanic islands, where groups and pairs exhibit mating behavior. The single large white egg, laid on the barren ground or in a heaped-up nest, is hatched by the parents.
The growth of the young albatross is very slow, especially in the larger species; it attains flight feathers in 3 to 10 months, then spends the next 5 to 10 years at sea, passing through several preadult feathers before coming to land to mate. Albatrosses live long and may be among the few birds to die of old age.
Threats to Albatrosses
According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN Red List), Wandering Albatross is in Vulnerable status. Some albatross species were heavily hunted for feathers that were used as down and in the manufacture of women’s hats. The other biggest threats are invasive species at the birds’ nesting grounds, and fishing vessels, which unintentionally trap birds when they’re hunting tuna and other commercial fish.
At the land, albatrosses are threatened by mice. Wait! What? Mice? Yes, you heard it right. But How? Well, With the arrival of human ships, cats and rats, and mice also are invited. For instance, Gough Island in the South Atlantic is one of the most important seabird colonies, home to 24 different species of birds and multiple types of albatross. But the colony is gradually preyed upon by invasive mice that have evolved to be a much larger than normal size without the presence of predators. [Hakai Magazine]
Perhaps, as they have no other predators that would attack them this way, Albatross has not evolved a way to defend themselves against a mouse attack, and so some of the adults sit motionless, letting “the mice bite on their flesh while they steadfastly hatch their egg.” The good news is that on many important bird islands, conservationists are launching aggressive mouse-eradication programs to attempt to save the remaining birds. [National Geographic]
Wandering Albatross
Now at sea, albatrosses face a different threat: fishing vessels. Albatrosses are pretty good at detecting fishing vessels — so good that researchers think the birds, equipped with tiny radar detectors
.
Large fishing vessels have onboard fish processing facilities where fish heads and tails and stomachs are removed and dumped back into the sea, which attracts all sorts of seabirds. But as the ship is dumping fish stomachs, it’s simultaneously dropping the giant fishing net back into the ocean for the next catch.
Seabirds, including albatrosses, get caught in the net cables and pulled underwater, then drown. And longline fishing boats, in which a 30-mile-long (48 kilometers) floating fishing line is set with hundreds of covered hooks, also attract seabirds which see the enticing meal from the surface, but get caught on the hooks and drown.
BirdLife South Africa has reduced albatross deaths in the local trawl fishery by 99% by simply encouraging boats to use bird-scaring streamers
bird-scaring streamers
and shifting the time that the boats dump out the fish waste to after the net is set. But worldwide there’s still much more work to be done when it comes to encouraging commercial fishers to practice more seabird-friendly fishing techniques.
Quick Analysis
- Albatrosses can live to 60 years and beyond.
- They mate for life and some do not find another if their partner dies.
- They have the longest wingspan of any bird, reaching up to 3.5m (11.5ft).
- They need wind to fly!
- An Albatross is capable of traveling 10,000 miles in a single journey and extends its journey above the ocean of the earth in 46 days – manages to fly without expending almost any energy. Yes, it really happened!! In 2005, it was found that a grey-headed albatross had flown 13,670 miles around the world in the Southern Hemisphere in 46 days.
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