DEEP DIVING CORMORANT FILMS ITS OWN HUNT

Courtesy of the Wildlife Conservation Society, this footage of an imperial cormorant fitted with a camera on its back as it dives for 40 seconds to ~150 feet (45 meters), hunts for minute on the seafloor, then catches a snakelike fish, which it carries to the surface to eat. 
  
Cool. But hopefully they take that camera off soon. Remember this study in Nature showing that the survival of king penguins wearing small bands on their flippers dropped by 16 percent, and that they produced 39 percent fewer chicks, and how this might have skewed the data on all kinds of research (notably, climate change)?
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• Claire Saraux, Céline Le Bohec, Joël M. Durant, Vincent A. Viblanc, Michel Gauthier-Clerc, + et al. Reliability of flipper-banded penguins as indicators of climate change. Nature 469, 203-206 doi:10.1038/nature09630

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ONLY GIRL SHEARWATERS FLY TO FRANCE

Puffinus shearwater. Credit: Jofre Ferrer via Flickr. 

  
The Balearic shearwaters (Puffinus mauretanicus) who breed on the Spanish Balearic Islands don't go far when they migrate... out the Strait of Gibraltar then north to summering grounds off the Atlantic coasts of Portugal and France.
  
Yet, curiously, only the females go to France. 
  
Perhaps because of these longer migrations, they also spend longer away from their breeding grounds than the males: 

• Median duration of time away for females: 91 days
• Median duration of time away for males: 83 days

Credit: Tim Guilford et al. PLoS ONE. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0033753.

These are the findings of a team of researchers who tagged 26 shearwaters with miniature geolocation trackers and followed their annual movements from the Balearic Islands. The results are published in a new paper in PLoS ONE.
  
You can see in the maps above the routes of the individual birds, each with its own color track:
  

• Inset map shows where all the birds occurred statistically half the time throughout the year.
• Larger maps shows where all the birds occurred statistically half the time on migration to and from their breeding islands.
• The colored circles mark where four birds made trips back into eh Atlantic after their migrations.
• The red symbol is the position of the breeding colony at Sa Cella cave on Mallorca.

  

Longline hooks. Credit: Isaac Wedin via Flickr.

The gender-specific migrations are more than a curiosity. They're vitally important knowledge since Balearic shearwaters are Europe's only critically endangered seabird. From the IUCN Red List:
  

This species has a tiny breeding range and a small population [known breeding population: ~3,200 pairs] which is undergoing an extremely rapid population decline owing to a number of threats, in particular predation at breeding colonies by introduced mammals [cats, genets, rats, rabbits] and at-sea mortality as a result of interactions with commercial fisheries [hooked and drowned on longlines]. Population models predict an extremely rapid decline over three generations (54 years), qualifying the species as Critically Endangered.

  

Balearic shearwater. Credit: Roger Montserrat via Flickr.

Obviously if you have a large proportion of the females flocking and feeding in one location then the entire species becomes susceptible to mass mortality fishing events like the one that killed ~50 birds off Spain in 1999-2000. As the authors note:
  

[F]or approximately ¼ of the year, a large percentage of the world's population of breeding birds will be vulnerable to [fisheries] by-catch in these two core areas within the territorial waters of Portugal and France.    

      
The paper:

• Guilford T , Wynn R , McMinn M , Rodríguez A , Fayet A , et al. (2012) Geolocators Reveal Migration and Pre-Breeding Behaviour of the Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus. PLoS ONE 7(3): e33753. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033753

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LISTENING IN ON DIVING MURRES

Thick-billed murres (Uria lomvia). Credit: Art Sowls, USFWS, via Wikimedia Commons.

There's an exciting new paper in Marine Ecology Progress Series (MEPS) that lets us listen in on diving murres to learn more about their feeding ecology. Specifically:

1. what prey they catch by day
2. what prey they catch by night (really exciting!)
3. and how they might find these prey that exist in patchy distributions

The lead author is Kelly Benoit-Bird, at Oregon State University, whose acoustics work I profiled in The BP Cover-Up, my cover article in Mother Jones last year. You can read about her MacArthur Foundation fellowship here.

Red arrow marks the Pribilof Islands. Credit: Aleut International Association.

  
Research for the MEPS paper was conducted in Bering Sea off the Pribilof Islands, home to some 200 million breeding seabirds, one of the largest concentrations in the North Pacific.

The birds nest here because of the phenomenal seasonal abundance that cranks up in these waters each spring with the return of sunlight.

  

Phytoplankton bloom around the Pribilof Islands, Bering Sea. Credit: NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center, via the Earth Observatory.

Here's how multiple streams of data were gathered simultaneously as the researchers' boat motored along predetermined 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) long transect lines through the waters around the Pribilofs:

• An observer with binoculars stood on the bow of the boat, sighting murres flying through the air and/or foraging at the surface
• A 4-frequency echosounder system was used to provide nearly continuous information from underwater on the presence of zooplankton and fish (identified by their acoustic "signatures")
• To verify the truth of those acoustic signatures, net tows were made at the the beginning of each transect to capture fish and zooplankton
• At the start and finish of each transect, a CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) profile was conducted to a depth of 100 m (328 feet) or to within 5 m (16 ft) of the seafloor in shallower waters; the CTD also gathered data on dissolved oxygen and, through a transmissometer and a fluorometer, different data on the presence of fish and/or zooplankton

Common murres (Uria aalge). Credit: Michael Haferkamp via Wikimedia Commons.

  
This system allowed the team to observe thousands of bubble trails made by diving murres and correlate them with schools of krill, juvenile pollock, and squid—their primary prey.

Some of their findings:

• Individual diving murres were more likely to be found alone in shallow water (<100 m) during the day
• Aggregations of birds were more likely to be found in the outer shelf and slope zones (>100m) at night

Why? The authors suggest:

[T]hat murres use different tactics when foraging on prey in different habitats and likely reflects the differences in diet noted during the same time period, with parents feeding their chicks small fish that could be caught near the colony while consuming krill and squid that are primarily accessible in deep waters, far from the colonies at night. There was, however, no significant difference in the rate of bird detections during the day and night, suggesting that both periods are important for foraging despite these different tactics. These results indicate that using only daytime observations of murres as an index of habitat use and foraging activity can significantly skew any results drawn from those data, underestimating the importance of deepwater habitats and making the calculation of accurate energy budgets impossible. 

  

Murres on nests, Pribilof Islands, Alaska. Credit: Allen Shimada NOAA/NMFS/OST/AMD via Flickr.

   
As to how the birds find and track their prey—in deep water, often in the dark—the authors note:

The ability of murres to successfully track the abundance, density, and accessibility of prey that occurred at depths between 10 and 100 m (32 and 328 feet) raises questions about how they gather information to exploit these resources effectively, particularly at night. Birds could be directly detecting the prey using vision or chemosensory mechanisms. However, both would likely be inefficient for deep prey, and vision would not be effective at night when foraging activity is equal to daylight foraging activity.

  

Murre. Credit: christopher.woo via Flickr.

   
Possibilities include: 

• Birds cue to surface ocean color, which indicates the presence or absence of phytoplankton [see 3rd photo in this post, above]: no correlation was found
• Birds cue to a physical characteristic, such as temperature: a correlation was found between murres and warmer surface temperature 

Further possibilities revolve around birds cuing to other birds—something that seems obvious if you observe birds at sea... though obvious isn't always correct: 

While the hypothesis that colonies function as ‘information centers’, where group members can learn the location of food by following successful foragers, has largely been discounted... there have been a number of studies showing that the detection of other predators that are already exploiting a prey patch, a process known as ‘local enhancement’, can be an effective foraging strategy... Local enhancement occurs in another species of murre, but its importance is dependent on the predictability of prey... Substantial experimental and at-sea data suggest that local enhancement works whenever feeding groups are more conspicuous than food patches... which is likely to be the case for the deep prey observed here. The local enhancement hypothesis is supported by the prevalence of aggregation among acoustically observed murres... Whatever the reason for aggregating, murres in groups were spaced in a highly regular pattern with an average of 50 m between individuals, suggesting that, while grouped, birds may be attempting to avoid direct competition, a common cause of uniform spacing between individuals.

 

Patchiness of prey and distribution of birds. Click for larger image. Credit: Benoit-Bird, et al. MEPS. DOI:10.3354/meps09408.

 

The authors conclude:

Using this [fisheries acoustic] technique, we were able to observe the diving depths of individual birds, assess these dives in relation to [prey] patch size, density, depth, and type of prey both day and night, and show that birds on the surface were a good proxy for foraging effort taking place in a given area. The concomitance of these data is made possible by acoustic approaches and provides new insights into the predator−prey relationship. During the breeding season, diving murres in the southeastern Bering Sea show strong selection for prey patches with specific characteristics, and the high degree of overlap between murres and their prey at a range of scales shows effective information gathering about prey by these birds.  

 

Thick-billed murre. Credit: susanvg Susan van Gelder via Flickr.

  
The paper (♥ open access): 

• Benoit-Bird KJ, Kuletz K, Heppell S, Jones N, Hoover B (2011) Active acoustic examination of the diving behavior of murres foraging on patchy prey. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 443:217-235 DOI:10.3354/meps09408

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OCCUPY EAGLE!

Herring gull mobbing a white-tailed eagle. Credit: Markus Varesvuo/naturepl.com.

  
The situation: The breeding season, a mad-as-hell gull defending eggs or chicks, a gigantic maurading scavenger.

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CANADIAN SEABIRDS WALLOPED BY BP'S OIL

Northern gannet. Credit: Alan D. Wilson via Wikimedia Commons.

  
A new paper in early view in Biology Letters—a journal of the Royal Society—finds that Canadian migrant seabirds suffered disproportionately the lethal effects of BP's oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

Northern gannets (Morus bassanus) suffered the highest oiling among beach-wrecked birds recovered last year.

These are the largest seabirds in the Atlantic, who migrate from their Canadian breeding colonies to overwinter in the Gulf of Mexico. Adults return to the breeding colonies by about March—earlier than immature birds.

Winter positions of northern gannets from 4 of 6 North American colonies, where adults and chicks were banded and adults and juveniles tracked. Mean winter (Jan–Feb) positions from adults carrying GLS (2004–2010) and final positions from 18 juveniles with PTTs (2008–2010). Deepwater Horizon site (star) and associated slicks (grey) indicated. Credit: William Montevecchi, et al. Biology Letters. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.0880.

  
Due to these migration timetables, most of the northern gannets killed in the Gulf last year were likely immature birds.

Which means the real impact of their deaths will not show up until those birds would have reached sexual maturity—at about 5 or 6 years old—or betwen now and far beyond. Gannets can live at least 21 years.

From the paper:

Most adult gannets had returned to Canadian colonies by 20 April 2010, although more than 50,000 immature gannets were in the Gulf at the time and suffered oil-related mortality. Hence, two probable outcomes are (i) a lagged (likely difficult to detect) population decrease or (ii) mortality will be buffered by age-related life-history processes.  

A bonded pair of northern gannets. Credit: Al Wilson via Wikimedia Commons.

  
The authors found the story grew even more ominous when they compared numbers on how many gannets were overwintering in the Gulf of Mexico—numbers that differed hugely depending on the technology used:

• Old-fashioned technology: recovery of banded birds
• Modern technology: bird-borne global location sensors (GLS) and satellite tags (Platform Terminal Transmitters, PTTs)

The newer technologies revealed more than twice as many gannets overwintering in the Gulf. From the paper:

Extrapolation from band recoveries indicates that 13,318 adult gannets winter in the Gulf of Mexico, much less than the 66,124 estimate based on GLS data... PTT positions suggest an estimated population of 52,509 immature gannets in the Gulf compared with 41,587 extrapolated from banding recoveries. Extrapolating tracking data for all gannet age classes more than doubles the estimated number of birds using the Gulf, from 54,905 to 118,633 birds. 

Oiled gannet washed ashore on Cape Cod. Credit: Dennis Minsky at SeaNet.

  
Add to that the fact that dead or oiled birds found ashore represent only a fraction of the birds dead or dying at sea. From the paper:

Seabirds are among the most obvious and immediate indicators of wildlife and environmental damage during marine pollution events. In these circumstances, seabird mortality has been assessed by counting dead and dying animals along coasts. These assessments are biased towards animals that die near accessible well-populated coastlines, and as offshore winds and currents can reduce coastal-deposition of carcasses that sink after a few days, mortality is inevitably underestimated.

The authors note that gannets may be shifting their winter range to the Gulf in response to overfishing of menhaden—their primary winter prey—in Atlantic waters.

Northern gannet in flight. Credit: Andreas Trepte via Wikimedia Commons.

 
And the authors noted possible signs of oil fouling on birds returning to their Canadian breeding colonies:

In April 2011, at their southernmost colony, Cape St. Mary's Newfoundland, gannets on inaccessible cliff-sites were observed and photographed with dark soiled plumage that looked like oil, but this could not be verified by chemical analysis. Tracking, survival and physiological measurements at gannet colonies during 2011 are evaluating other potential repercussions and informing management about conservation concerns.

The paper:

• William Montevecchi, David Fifield, Chantelle Burke, Stefan Garthe, April Hedd, Jean-François Rail, Gregory Robertson. Tracking long-distance migration to assess marine pollution impact. Biology Letters. 2011. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.088.

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UPDATE: NEW ZEALAND OIL SPILL THREATENS PENGUINS

A family of little blue penguins, Eudyptula minor, exit their nest burrow. Credit: Noodle snacks via Wikimedia Commons.

  
The New Zealand Herald reports the country is facing one of its worst ecological disasters as the stricken tanker Rena is now in danger of breaking apart. The ship grounded 20 kilometers/12 miles off Tauranga Harbour, near the Bay of Plenty, on the North Island, after striking a reef on Wednesday.

UPDATE: 22:07 GMT, 9 OCT 2011: New Zealand's MetService has issued a severe weather watch for the Bay of Plenty, with strong northeasterly gusts and heavy rains possible in the region today [Monday, New Zealand time]. Officials are advising that oil will start reaching shore at Bay of Plenty's Papamoa beach on Wednesday. Questions remain as to why the large ship hit a well-documented reef in calm waters.

The Rena is carrying 1,700 cubic meters/450,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil. The race is onto siphon off—or at least contain—the oil before the ship sinks. From the New Zealand Herald:

More resources and special equipment [are] likely to be needed during the operation. An offshore boom barrier device to ring-fence the oil—measuring about 1250m [three-quarters of a mile]—was being transported from Australia along with three heavy skimmers to scoop it from the water. A salvage architect was due to arrive from Holland, with further expert help from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority also on their way.

Site of the grounding of the MV Rena, off the North Island of New Zealand. Satellite image courtesy of NASA/JPL/NGA.

  
Meanwhile, heavier weather is bearing down on New Zealand, including a forecast for rain and strengthening northeasterly winds on Monday—when the pumping operation is slated to begin.

Most worrisome, it's spring in the southern hemisphere, and many seabirds along New Zealand's coast are breeding. This is prime egg-laying/chick-hatching season for little blue penguins (called fairy penguins in Australia), who come ashore en masse each dusk to exchange incubation duties or feed their chick, before departing again en masse before dawn to hunt.

(The sound of little blue penguins calling at dusk in New Zealand. Credit: Benchill (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.)

So far, seven oiled birds—five little blue penguins and two cormorants—have been taken to a wildlife center at Tauranga Harbour. The New Zealand Herald reports:

"It's a very difficult situation and the reality is that we are going to see a significant oil spill," [Transport Minister Steven] Joyce said. "So far it's been reasonably small, so I think everybody's preparing for the worst. We are dealing with a very serious situation ... and I don't think anybody is under any illusions."

If you haven't met Cookie, the 'ticklish' little blue/fairy penguin at the Cincinnati Zoo, here he is, a sweet ambassador for his kind.

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KLEPTOPARASITISM

Kleptoparasitism: 

klepto: Greek κλέπτης ("thief") and κλέπτω ("steal") + parasitos: παράσιτος ("person who eats at the table of another")

Meaning: The parasitic theft of captured prey, nest material, etc., from animals of the same or another species; such as the theft by a gull* of a featherwight GoPro camera from a tourist on the French Riviera.

*Possibly a European herring gull (Larus argentatus).

(European herring gull. Credit: Kulac via Wikimedia Commons.)

The gull video reminded me of another wild travel video shot by a sea turtle on a "stolen" underwater camera.

The sea turtle video is more likely a case of entanglement than of kleptoparasitism.

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AN EXCELLENT YEAR ON RASA ISLAND

Isla Rasa, Mexico, view from the hut, looking out over the estero. Photo ©Julia Whitty.

I'm back from Mexico's remote Isla Rasa, a tiny outpost in the Gulf of California and one of the most important seabird breeding islands in the world.

The island covers a bare 138 acres/56 hectares. Yet it's home to half a million birds—many more if it's a good enough year for the birds to produce eggs, incubate them, and hatch their chicks.

Heermann's gulls and a cardón cactus, both endemic to the Gulf of California and the Baja Peninsula. Photo ©Julia Whitty.

(Heermann's gulls and a cardón cactus, both endemic to the Gulf of California and the Baja Peninsula. Photo ©Julia Whitty.)

Some 95 percent of all Heermann's gulls (Larus heermanni) nest on Isla Rasa. These are small, pretty, polite gulls—compared to some of their larger Larid relatives.

Heermann's gull: 

• length 19 inches/48 centimeters
• wingspan 51 inches/129 centimeters

Great black-backed gull: 

• length 30 inches/76 centimeters
• wingspan: 65 inches/165 centimeters

Grand Central Station Valley, Isla Rasa, Mexico. Photo ©Julia Whitty.

In the photo above, you can see the nesting territories of the gulls dotting the island's valleys. 

Gulls also nest throughout the rocky hillsides and ridgelines.

Heermann's gull. Photo ©Julia Whitty.

In fact Heermann's gulls nest on every square inch of this sunbaked, windswept island—except where thickets of cholla cactus have taken hold... and where colonies of terns have usurped them.

Elegant tern colony in the midst of Heermann's gulls, Isa Rasa, Mexico. Photo © Julia Whitty.

In the photo above you can see how in one valley elegant terns (Thalasseus elegans) have successfully muscled into the territories of gulls. 

Elegant terns, Isla Rasa, Mexico. Photo ©Julia Whitty.

The terns nest closer together than the gulls. 

This, and the fact that they move into gull territories en masse and often under cover of night, means they generally get what ground they want—even though they're smaller birds:

Heermann's gull: 

• length 19 inches/48 centimeters
• wingspan 51 inches/129 centimeters

Elegant tern:

• length 17 inches/43 centimeters
• wingspan 34 inches/86 centimeters

Heermann's gulls and elegant terns, Isla Rasa, Mexico. Photo ©Julia Whitty.

Here's what the two species look like nesting side-by-side.

You can probably already tell from the numbers of birds in the photos that's it's been a very good year so far on the island.

Heermann's gull chick and eggs. Photo ©Julia Whitty.

By the time I left, chicks were hatching everywhere and the whole island was transformed from the calm (in comparison) business of incubating to the furious business of feeding tiny insatiable stomachs.

In a forthcoming Mother Jones article I'll be writing more about why this year may be the best for the Gulf's seabirds since the mid-19th century. 

UPDATE: Read my Mother Jones article about Enriqueta Velarde, the Power of One, here.

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OCEAN BIRDS

American white pelican, Pelecanus erythrorhynchos. Photo by Manjith Kainickara via Wikimedia Commons.

Northern gannet, Morus bassanus. Photo by Andreas Trepte via Wikimedia Commons.

Great crested tern, Thalasseus bergii. Photo by Martin Pot (en:User:Martybugs) via Wikimedia Commons.

Atlantic Puffin, Fratercula arctica. Photo by Thomas O'Neil via Wikimedia Commons.

Blue-footed booby, Sula nebouxii. Photo by Rileypie via Wikimedia Commons.

Rockhopper penguin, Eudyptes chrysocome. Photo by Ben Tubby via Wikimedia Commons.

Spectacled eider, Somateria fischeri. Photo by Laura Whitehouse, courtesy USFWS, via Wikimedia Commons.

Long-tailed duck, Clangula hyemalis. Photo by Wolfgang Wander via Wikimedia Commons.

Penguin, via.

Unknown, via unknown (saltwater or fresh?).

Red phalarope, Phalaropus fulicarius. Photo by Andrei Taranchenko via Wikimedia Commons.

Smew, Mergellus albellus. Photo by Thermos via Wikimedia Commons.

White-faced storm-petrel, Pelagodroma marina. Photo by Aviceda via Wikimedia Commons.

Sanderlings, Calidris alba. Photo by Mbz1 via Wikimedia Commons.

Australasian gannets, Morus serrator, on the nest. Photo by Follash via Wikimedia Commons.

Common murres, Uria aalge, colony. Photo by Duncan Wright via Wikimedia Commons.

Ivory gull, Pagophila eburnea. Photo by jomilo75 via Wikimedia Commons.

Far eastern curlew, Numenius madagascariensis. Photo by 

Duncan Wright courtesy USFWS, via Wikimedia Commons.

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UPDATE: WISDOM SURVIVED!

(Photo from Wild Encounters. Many other beauties here of albatross and the ever-lovely fairy terns. Well worth a visit.)

Many thanks to friends and readers who pointed out this BBC article reporting that Wisdom, a 60-year-old Laysan albatross mother, survived the tsunami that killed many thousands of birds on Midway Atoll. 

I'm guessing that Wisdom's part of the atoll wasn't submerged...? I'm hoping her chick survived too...?

Seems to me the world could use more Wisdom DNA.

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DID THE TSUNAMI KILL "WISDOM?"

(Laysan albatross Wisdom, seen here with her chick at Midway Atoll, March 2011, before the tsunami. Credit: John Klavitter/U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, via Wikimedia Commons.)

I've tweeted a few times of late about the remarkable Laysan albatross named Wisdom. She's at least 60 years old—the oldest-known wild bird in the US. 

A few months ago she returned to Midway Atoll in the northwestern Hawaiian Archipelago, found her mate, laid an egg, and recently hatched a chick. 

Now the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports that tsunami waves from Japan's massive quake devastated Midway's seabird breeding rookeries, completely washing over one of the islands and partially submerging the other two. Tens of thousands of albatrosses died, adults and chicks. 

(Calculated wave height of the 2011 tsunami originating near Sendai, Japan.  Credit: NOAA.)

If you click on the image above you'll see the larger version, with the main Hawaiian Islands located in the center-right. The Hawaiian Archipelago tracks west-northwest from there, with Midway just visible near the far end of the island chain, embedded in the high-wave tsunami zone marked in red.

The albatross chicks on Midway were killed by the waves because none have fledged this early in the season. Laysan albatrosses have extremely long dependency periods—64 days of incubation, followed by 165 flightless days before they fledge and leave the island.

(Laysan albatross chicks with a few embedded adults, Midway Atoll. Credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Mark Logico, US Navy, via Wikimedia Commons.) 

The adults were likely killed because they don't readily abandon their young.

Plus these are big birds of the open ocean. It takes them a long time to lumber across the water or the beach to get airborne. Midway's old runways turn out to be extremely useful for this purpose.

In the absence of wind, they can't takeoff or land. The Birds of North America Online describes their flight like this:

Depending on wind strength, take-off may be difficult, requiring a long run with the head outstretched, the bird flapping its wings and literally running. Take off from water is similar, requiring furious paddling with the webbed feet. Landings can be equally difficult, especially in birds that have been at sea for months, or in light winds. In the absence of the braking effort of a strong wind, landing birds may occasionally tumble on landing.

Midway is home to about 450,000 of the world's 590,926 breeding pairs of Laysan albatross. The IUCN Red List deems the species Near Threatened.

Some 25,300 black-footed albatrosses also live on Midway Atoll and presumably took some tsunami losses too.

(Black-footed albatross, Midway Atoll. Credit: Forest & Kim Starr, via Wikimedia Commons.)

Plus one pair of short-tailed albatrosses arrived this year. This species breeds on islands off Japan and China and is deemed Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List—with a total global population of only 2,364 individuals. 

A few months ago I tweeted the exciting news that this pair had appeared on Midway—an encouraging sign the species' range might be expanding.

Now, in the wake of the tsunami waves, US Fish and Wildlife officials have found one short-tailed albatross chick, returned it to a nesting area, and installed a remote-controlled camera to monitor it. But they haven't found the parents. 

(Short-tailed albatross. Credit: US Fish and Wildlife Service, via Wikimedia Commons.)

No word yet that I've heard on Wisdom's fate. This late in the breeding season few if any birds will try to lay another egg and start the long cycle again.

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