Two Shy Albatrosses interact

NOTE:  This post continues an occasional series that features photographs of the 31 ACAP-listed species, along with information from and about their photographers.  Here, Kris Carlyon, Section Head, Wildlife Health and Marine with the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania (NRE Tas), writes about the population research he has been involved with over the past 11 years on the globally Near Threatened Shy Albatross Thalassarche cauta, endemic to Tasmania, Australia.

Kris Carlyon on Macquarie Island

The long-term (now in its 42nd season) monitoring programme on Shy Albatrosses was instigated by Nigel Brothers in 1980/81.  Since then, there have been numerous contributions and collaborations from a range of government and university personnel (hence the attached publication list from several researchers).

Albatross Island from the air

I first visited 18-ha Albatross Island in the Bass Strait north-west of Tasmania, one of just three global breeding colonies for this species, in 2010.  This was my first field trip in my shiny new role with DPIPWE’s Marine Conservation Program (now NRE Tas) and set the tone for what has been an incredibly rewarding decade contributing to the long-term monitoring of Shy Albatrosses.  None of the three breeding islands is easy to visit.  However, access to Albatross Island in Tasmania’s north-west is relatively straightforward compared to the imposing rock pyramids of Pedra Branca and the Mewstone off the southern Tasmanian coastline, and it is here that the bulk of our monitoring efforts is undertaken.  Aerial photography provides an option for the regular monitoring of the two south coast colonies.

Shy Albatrosses wheel above Albatross Island

A 90-minute boat ride through the Hunter Island Group, followed by an intense offloading of the field team and a mountain of gear, heralds the start of one of two main monitoring trips to Albatross Island each year.  Watching the boat retreat into the agitated waters of the Bass Strait, leaving us to a week or more of living and working amongst these amazing birds, is a perpetual highlight.  A lengthy gear shuffle sees us set up camp in the huge sea cave at the north of the island, all the while welcomed by continuous chatter from the albatross colony above and barks from the island’s increasing fur seal Arctocephalus spp. residents; both species on the long road of recovery after sealers heavily exploited both the seal and albatross populations in the early 1800s.  As darkness falls and we eat dinner under torchlight, masses of Fairy Prions Pachyptila turtur return to the cave and commence their nightly and sometimes deafening chorus that continues unbroken until dawn.  I don’t sleep better anywhere else.

A Shy Albatross chick close to fledging (right) begs for a meal

The rest of the trip is a happy routine of long days amongst the wind and the birds.  On a good evening, some cheap wine amongst the tussock grass, watching curious albatross or an occasional White-bellied Sea Eagle Haliaeetus leucogaster glide overhead, is a great way to recover from hours of clambering over rough ground and dodging sharp beaks.  As the sun sinks below the waves of the western Bass Strait, evenings also offer the best light for photography and the addictive but unending pursuit of trying to capture a good image of these beautiful birds.

Shy Albatrosses on Albatross Island in the evening light

Our long-term population monitoring, including tracking and diet studies and investigation of climate-change impacts, tells the story of gradual colony recovery.  But these birds continue to face significant threats.  Like most procellariforms, the impacts from fisheries bycatch mortality and environmental change at breeding sites and foraging areas due to a changing climate are an increasing concern for the Shy Albatross.  Our precious trips to these island outposts certainly have a sobering serious purpose and become only more important as the impacts of global heating become more apparent.  Documenting population trends is now coupled with testing of climate adaptation tools to help ensure intervention options are available if needed.

Cleared for landing: a Shy Albatross returns to its nest site on Albatross Island,; photographs by Kris Carlyon

And, in the background, we continue to raise public awareness of our unique Tasmanian resident.  For this, a single photograph can prove invaluable.

With thanks to Sheryl Hamilton.

Selected publications:

Alderman, R., Gales, R., Hobday, A.J. & Candy, S. 2010.  Post-fledging survival and dispersal of shy albatrosses from three breeding colonies in Tasmania.  Marine Ecology Progress Series  405: 271-285.

Alderman, R., Gales, R., Tuck, G. & Lebreton, J.D. 2011.  Global population status of shy albatross and an assessment of colony-specific trends and drivers.  Wildlife Research  38: 672-686.

Alderman, R. & Hobday, A. 2016.  Developing a climate adaptation strategy for vulnerable seabirds based on prioritization of intervention options.  Deep Sea Research II 140: 2960-2967.

Baker, G.B., Double, M.C., Gales, R., Tuck, G.N., Abbott, C.L., Ryan, P.G., Petersen, S.L., Robertson C.R. & Alderman, R. 2007.  A global assessment of the impact of fisheries-related mortality on shy and white-capped albatrosses: conservation implications.  Biological Conservation 137: 319-333.

Baker, G.B., Gales, R., Hamilton, S. & Wilkinson, V. 2002.  Albatrosses and petrels in Australia: a review of their conservation and management.  Emu 102: 71-97.

Brothers, N., Pemberton, D., Pryor, H. & Halley, V. 2001.  Tasmania’s Offshore Islands: Seabirds and other Natural Features.  Hobart: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.  641 pp.

Hedd, A. & Gales, R. 2001.  The diet of Shy Albatrosses Thalassarche cauta at Albatross Island, Tasmania.  Journal of Zoology 2 253: 69-90.

Hedd. A. & Gales, R. 2005.  Breeding and overwintering ecology of Shy Albatrosses in southern Australia: year-round patterns of colony attendance and foraging-trip durations.  The Condor  107: 375-387.

Mason C., Alderman, R., McGowan, J., Possingham, H.P., Hobday, A.J., Sumner, M. & Shaw, J. 2018.  Telemetry reveals existing marine protected areas are worse than random for protecting the foraging habitat of threatened Shy Albatross (Thalassarche cauta).  Diversity and Distributions  24: 1744-1755.

McInnes, J.C., Alderman, R., Deagle, B., Lea, M.-A., Raymond, B. & Jarman, S.N. 2017.  Optimised scat collection protocols for dietary DNA metabarcoding in vertebrates.  Methods in Ecology and Evolution  8: 192-202.

Thomson, R.B., Alderman, R.L., Tuck, G.N. & Hobday, A.J. 2015.  Effects of climate change and fisheries bycatch on Shy Albatross (Thalassarche cauta) in Southern Australia.  PLOS ONE   DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0127006.

Kris Carlyon, Marine Conservation Program, Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania, Hobart, Australia, 10 December 2021, corrected 28 December 2021

 ‘Buttons’ (see text) in incubating position

A total of 36 eggs was laid in November to commence the 2021/22 breeding season for New Zealand’s only mainland population of globally Endangered and nationally Naturally Uncommon Northern Royal Albatrosses Diomedea sanfordi on the end of the Otago Peninsula at Pukekura/Taiaroa Head.

Candling of eggs in the closely managed colony has revealed that 33 of the 36 eggs remain viable.  One egg was broken, with its parents then having left the headland for the season.  One pair laid an infertile egg, and one had an early dead embryo. One of the fertile eggs belongs to the male ‘Buttons', colour banded BOR (blue orange red).  “Buttons will be turning 33 early next year - let’s see if he lives as long as his amazing mum Grandma!”  Grandma reached a banded age of 51.5 years and an actual age of at least 60 years, regularly raising chicks until the year she disappeared (click here).

The breeding birds also include OGK and YRK (Orange, Green, Black and Yellow, Red, Black) who are the live-streaming Royal Cam pair for 2021/22, as they were two years’ previously when they fledged a chick named Atawhai (click here).  Successfully breeding Northern Royal Albatrosses take a year off and so only breed every second year.  In addition to the live-streaming service, the Royal Cam pair is on view to the COVID-19-vaccinated public from the Richdale Observatory; its fertile egg was laid on 9 November 2021.

Information from The Royal Albatross Centre Facebook page.

With thanks to Sharyn Broni, Department of Conservation Wildlife Ranger at Taiaroa Head.  Read her photo essay on the birds she monitors here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 09 December 2021

George and Geraldine in October 2021

The globally Vulnerable Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus pair is back for another breeding season on the USA's Midway Atoll – the sole pair that currently breeds on the North Western Hawaiian island.  Known as George and Geraldine, George was first seen back on Midway’s Sand Island on 20 October this year.  Several days later, Geraldine was photographed together with George.  On 26 October the male was found sitting on their new egg close to last season’s nest site.

They commenced breeding on the island in 2018 after first meeting up on the island in 2016 and have attempted breeding every year since.  So far, they have successfully fledged three chicks.  Read more about their years together here.

George (in more adult plumage) displays to his sitting mate, photographs by Jon Brack and Friends of Midway Atoll

A trail camera funded by the Friends of Midway Atoll will capture exchanges in between incubation stints.

John Cooper, ACAP information Officer, 07 December 2021

Black-browed Albatross pair on Bird Island

NOTE: This post continues an occasional series that features photographs of the 31 ACAP-listed species, along with information from and about their photographers.  Here Richard Phillips writes about his experiences with Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris.  Although listed as Least Concern globally, the population at South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)*, which is the third largest of any island group, has been in steep decline since the 1970s and is considered to be of high priority for conservation by the Albatross and Petrel Agreement.  Richard started his career working on UK seabirds at Glasgow and Durham Universities, and then joined the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in 2000, where he is now the Head of the Higher Predators and Conservation Group.  He has been Convenor or Vice-convenor of the ACAP Population and Conservation Status Working Group or of one of its predecessors, the Breeding Sites Working Group, since 2007.

Richard Phillips removes a tracking device from a Shy Albatross T. cauta on its nest on Albatross Island in 2013.  By using the armguard (made out a of rubber boot) and glove, the tape-mounted device can be removed in two minutes without any restraint.  The impacts of tracking are negligible, but provide data on movements and fisheries overlap with direct application to conservation; photograph by Rachael Alderman

The Black-browed Albatross is the most common albatross species, with a global population estimated at roughly 690 000 breeding pairs, and a circumpolar breeding range in the Southern Ocean. Most adults breed annually and, like all ACAP-listed species, lay a single egg. The egg hatches after 80 days of incubation and the chick is reared by both parents for four to five months. Black-browed Albatrosses feed mainly over shelf and shelf-slope waters, and at some sites, including South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)*, as well as over deep water farther offshore. Spatial segregation of birds from different populations (island groups) during the nonbreeding season is high, but not complete.

A Black-browed Albatross breeding colony on Bird Island, with the research station and La Roche (the highest peak on the island) in the distance.  The landmass on the right across Bird Sound is the main island of South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)*

By this coming New Year (2022), I will have worked on seabirds for 30 years. The time has flown by and I could not have asked for a better group of field assistants, students, postdocs, other colleagues and collaborators! For around a decade my fieldwork was on skuas, fulmars, gannets and kittiwakes around the United Kingdom, and then from 2000 my attention shifted to the various albatross, petrel and skua species in the Southern Ocean. However, the place where I have spent by far the most time is Bird Island, South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)*, with seven trips so far, and hopefully more to come.

Black-browed Albatrosses display behind an empty nest on Bird Island

As for many sites with breeding seabirds, Bird Island is an incredible place.  The island was discovered in 1775 by Captain James Cook, who came up with the name for good reason.  These days, hundreds of thousands of seabirds, and tens of thousands of seals, share the island with around 10 human inhabitants during the summer, and just four in the winter. The first visits to study albatrosses at Bird Island were in 1958-1964, with pioneering work led by the late Lance Tickell (1930-2014), whose magnum opus, “Albatrosses” was published in 2000.  The island was then visited by field parties in the summer from 1971-1981, and year-round thereafter, with the seabird monitoring and research programmes led by the late Peter Prince (1948-1998) and John Croxall CBE, FRS.  Along with a succession of postdocs and collaborators, they produced a wealth of papers on ecology and population dynamics of the island’s seabirds.

Automatic nest balances are used to measure meal mass and growth rates of albatross chicks

I first visited Bird Island in November 2000, having started at BAS just a few weeks before.  I still remember walking for the first time through (sub) Colony J to identify banded adults and check breeding success of Black-browed Albatrosses with field assistant, Daf Roberts, trying to work out why it was only me that was being pecked repeatedly in the back of the calf.  I’ve since spent many days deploying automatic weighing platforms or tracking devices (geolocator-immersion and GPS loggers, time-depth recorders and satellite transmitters) on several hundred Black-browed Albatrosses.  Fortunately, I now only get pecked occasionally when one of the birds quite reasonably reminds me to pay better attention.

 

Colour-banded Orange 607 stands on its empty nest made ready for the egg with some green lining,  photographs by Richard Phillips

The research on Black-browed Albatrosses has revealed diverse aspects of their behaviour and ecology, including diet, energetics, regulation of provisioning, diving, activity budgets and other aspects of foraging behaviour at sea, and environmental drivers of marine distribution and population dynamics.  In the 20 years since I was first in Colony J, its number of Black-browed Albatrosses has declined by 50% from 258 to 132 breeding pairs. Black-browed Albatrosses elsewhere on South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)* have declined at least as quickly as those on Bird Island, and over the same period that likely amounts to over 60 000 breeding adults lost without replacement from the island group.  A major focus of the work has therefore been on understanding threats to this species, which are changes in availability of Antarctic Krill Euphausia superba – one of their main prey items – and incidental mortality (bycatch) in longline and trawl fisheries.  We are particularly interested in identifying those fisheries that represent the greatest bycatch risk for Black-browed Albatrosses, accounting for sex, age and season.  This information has been used by ACAP, BirdLife International, other NGOs and governments to press for improvements to fishing practices, better monitoring of bycatch rates and improved compliance with bycatch-mitigation regulations.

References:

Bentley, L., Kato, A., Ropert-Coudert, Y., Manica, A. & Phillips, R.A. 2021. Diving behaviour of albatrosses: implications for foraging ecology and bycatch susceptibility.  Marine Biology  doi.org/10.1007/s00227-021-03841-y.

Bonnet-Lebrun, A.-S., Collet, J. & Phillips, R.A. 2021. A test of the win-stay–lose-shift foraging strategy and its adaptive value in albatrosses. Animal Behaviour 182: 145-151.

Catry, P., Phillips, R.A., Forster, I.P., Matias, R., Lecoq, M., Granadeiro, J.P. & Strange, I.J. 2010. Brood-guarding duration in black-browed albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris: temporal, geographical and individual variation. Journal of Avian Biology 41: 460-469.

Clay, T.A., Small, C., Tuck, G.N., Pardo, D., Carneiro, A.P.B., Wood, A.G., Croxall, J.P., Crossin, G.T. & Phillips, R.A. 2019. A comprehensive large-scale assessment of fisheries bycatch risk to threatened seabird populations. Journal of Applied Ecology 56: 1882-1893.

Crossin, G.T., Phillips, R.A., Trathan, P.N., Fox, D.S., Dawson, A., Wynne-Edwards, K.E. & Williams, T.D. 2012. Migratory carryover effects and endocrinological correlates of reproductive decisions and reproductive success in female albatrosses. General and Comparative Endocrinology 176: 151-157.

Frankish, C.K., Manica, A. & Phillips, R.A. 2020. Effects of age on foraging behavior in two closely related albatross species. Movement Ecology 8: 7.

Froy, H., Lewis, S., Nussey, D.H., Wood, A.G. & Phillips, R.A. 2017. Contrasting drivers of reproductive ageing in albatrosses. Journal of Animal Ecology 86: 1022.

McInnes, J.C., Jarman, S.N., Lea, M.-A., Raymond, B., Deagle, B.E., Phillips, R.A., Catry, P., Stanworth, A., Weimerskirch, H. & Kusch, A. 2017. DNA metabarcoding as a marine conservation and management tool: A circumpolar examination of fishery discards in the diet of threatened albatrosses. Frontiers in Marine Science 4: 277.

Mills, W.F., Xavier, J.C., Bearhop, S., Cherel, Y., Votier, S., Waluda, C.M. & Phillips, R.A. 2020. Long-term trends in albatross diets in relation to prey availability and breeding success. Marine Biology 167: 29.

Pardo, D., Forcada, J., Wood, A.G., Tuck, G.N., Ireland, L., Pradel, R., Croxall, J.P. & Phillips, R.A. 2017. Additive effects of climate and fisheries drive ongoing declines in multiple albatross species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 114: E10829-E10837.

Phalan, B., Phillips, R.A., Silk, J.R.D., Afanasyev, V., Fukuda, A., Fox, J., Catry, P., Higuchi, H. & Croxall, J.P. 2007. Foraging behaviour of four albatross species by night and day. Marine Ecology Progress Series 340: 271-286.

Phillips, R.A., Silk, J.R.D., Croxall, J.P., Afanasyev, V. & Bennett, V.J. 2005. Summer distribution and migration of nonbreeding albatrosses: individual consistencies and implications for conservation. Ecology 86: 2386-2396.

Phillips, R.A., Silk, J.R.D., Phalan, B., Catry, P. & Croxall, J.P. 2004. Seasonal sexual segregation in two Thalassarche albatross species: competitive exclusion, reproductive role specialization or foraging niche divergence? Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 271: 1283-1291.

Poncet, S., Wolfaardt, A.C., Black, A., Browning, S., Lawton, K., Lee, J., Passfield, K., Strange, G. & Phillips, R.A. 2017. Recent trends in numbers of wandering (Diomedea exulans), black-browed (Thalassarche melanophris) and grey-headed (T. chrysostoma) albatrosses breeding at South Georgia. Polar Biology 40: 1347-1358.

Tuck, G.N., Phillips, R.A., Small, C., Thompson, R. B., Klaer, N. L., Taylor, F., Wanless, R. M. & Arrizabalaga, H. 2011. An assessment of seabird-fishery interactions in the Atlantic Ocean. ICES Journal of Marine Science 68: 1628-1637.

Wakefield, E.D., Phillips, R.A. & Matthiopoulos, J. 2014. Habitat-mediated population limitation in a colonial central-place forager: the sky is not the limit for the black-browed albatross. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.28833.

Richard Phillips, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 07 December 2021, updated 13 December 2021

*A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur y Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.