Too long on the nest? Delayed fledging in Sooty and Wandering Albatrosses

Peter Ryan (FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa) and colleagues have published in Volume 28 of Seabird, the annual journal of the (UK) Seabird Group, on exceptionally long chick-rearing periods in Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans at Marion Island and a Sooty Albatross Phoebetria fusca at Gough Island.  The paper concludes that “additional observations may shed further light on this puzzling phenomenon.”

Sooty Albatross chick on Gough Island, photograph by Marienne de Villiers

Reference:

Ryan, P.G., Ferreira, C., Perold, V., Osborne, A. & Jones, C.W. 2015.  Failure to launch: evidence of protracted parental care in albatrosses.  Seabird 28: 48-51.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 25 February 2016