Black-footed Albatross
From WikiBird
Contents |
Size
Length: ??cm (??in), Wingspan: ??cm (??in)
Field Marks
Almost all black plumage. Dark gray bill, head, body, wings, and legs. Undertail coverts and underside of flight feathers somewhat pale. White at base of bill. Sometimes has white on belly. 10% of individuals have white feathers at the base of the tail, and all adults have white markings around the base of the beak and below the eye. Its beak and feet are also all dark. Sexes similar. Immature: Less white on bill and belly.
Similar species
Similarly pelagic shearwaters and petrels are smaller with shorter wings. Also dark, but rare, first-year Short-tailed Albatross has pink bill and legs. Other albatross species have white bodies and heads.
Sounds
Feeding & Behavior
The Black-footed Albatross feeds in pelagic waters, taking fish, mostly the eggs of flying fish, squid and to a lesser extent crustaceans.
Habitat & Nesting
Nests are simple depressions scraped in the sand, into which one egg is laid. The egg is incubated for 65 days.
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Range
Northern hemisphere, nesting on isolated tropical islands. They nest colonially on isolated islands of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (such as Laysan and Midway), and the Japanese islands of Toroshima Island, Bonin, and Senkaku. Their range at sea varies during the seasons (straying farther from the breeding islands when the chicks are older or they don't have chicks) but they make use of great areas of the North Pacific, feeding from Alaska to California and Japan.
Resources
