WISDOM'S CHICK

Wisdom's 2011 Chick that successfully fledged this summer.

Photo courtesy John Klavitter, USFWS.

This is a beautiful image of a young albatross alllllllmost fully feathered, but

still sporting a bit of juvenile softness, especially up there on the head.

Laysan Albatross chicks hatch at a size roughly the same as your fist.

Two weeks later they are double or triple this as adults feed them

pretty much every day, or perhaps every two days.

The young ones learn to identify their parents as they fight their way out

of the egg, a process that can last half a day or longer. At the same time, adults

identify with their little ones by smell, but maybe there are other clues, such as

behaviors and appearance. Afterall, every Albatross chick does not hatch at the same time, and so,

feathering differences may be clues that help sort out young when adults return

from 1,000 mile or longer feeding flights.

I watched adults soar onto Midway, land, and strut to their chicks as if nothing

could steer them from the correct young one...........This ability to locate also

reinforced by a nest site fidelity. The adult birds nest in the same location for as many

as 6 decades, a fact we know because Wisdom has been raising a chick that long!

When the above photo was taken, Wisdom's chick was still a few weeks away from fledging, an event you may not fully appreciate without seeing in person..........

Adult albatross have these incredible runways around Midway. They walk then run, then lift off FROM LAND.............They take flight like a jumbo jet, quite elegantly.

Fledglings??????

I watched this take place and it is quite amazing because the young birds take a lot of time to

leave the island........At first, they make their way to the very edge of the sea. On Midway, this means

they pad across sand to a most beautiful turquoise lagoon.......they might hop in the water one morning, only to go back ashore for a time. Next day they might hop in again, but at long last, sometime in July for the most part...........they swim out into the vast lagoon surrounding Sand and Eastern Islands.

The young are occasionally, but not often, preyed upon by Tiger Sharks as they swim away from the

place of birth.

The fledglings swim nearly all the way or even beyond the atoll rim - the remains of the island perimeter..............and with wind assist, lift off after a long swim. I can only imagine they have evolved to do this because the next year or two will find them ONLY at sea. And so, they must have adapted over time to be able to lift off (with a seven foot wingspan) from the ocean surface, not from a runway like that used by adults.

We know Wisdom has been able to feed this young bird without adding a lethal dose

of plastic. We also know, according to John Klavitter, that Wisdom feeds in areas

with a great deal of plastic.

What we do not know is how she avoids the toxic trash.........She does so at a time when

approximatley one million seabirds die each year from this cause of mortality. Keys to

her survival will be unlocked as more and more birds are fitted with Satellite tags

and as more young people find ways of studying birds in the wild.

I can imagine studies of albatross feeding behavior using more

sophisticated devices than exist at present.........How about Apple and Google and

Amazon joining forces to equip Wisdom's little one with a cam so we can

follow this young bird through its own 60 years of life!!!

What will we report at SOAR in the year 2071?

I'll leave that up to you kids.