Lehua is a small, uninhabited island sanctuary in the USA’s Hawaiian chain that supports populations of breeding seabirds, including small numbers of ACAP-listed Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and Laysan P. immutabilis Albatrosses (click here).  Following an unsuccessful attempt in 2009 to eradicate the island’s Pacific Rats Rattus exulans, a second attempt was made this year over August and September with three successive poison bait drops by helicopter (click here).

Lehua Island

Black-footed Albatrosses on Lehua Island, photograph by Eric Vanderwerf

It is usual to wait two years with no sign of rats before formally confirming a treated island is rodent free. However, according to news reports this week the signs for Lehua are already good a month after the last bait drop with no rat sightings or sign and abundant seabird breeding activity recorded on a post-treatment visit: “the island was full of fat, healthy wedge-tailed shearwater [Ardenna pacifica] chicks and we saw no negative impacts of the bait drop.” (click here).

A 28-minute documentary entitled “Lehua Island - Restoration of a Tropical Bird Paradise” will be shown on Hawaii TV this weekend (click here for viewing details).

Read more news reports on the eradication attempt here and here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 October 2017

The globally Near Threatened and nationally Vulnerable Shy Albatross Thalassarche cauta is endemic to Australia, breeding on only three islands around Tasmania. In an attempt to improve its breeding success on Albatross Island it was announced in June that artificial nests would be trialled this summer breeding season because monitoring has shown that pairs breeding on high-quality nests have a higher breeding success than those on poorer quality nests. (click here). “[Natural] nests range from a barest scrape on the rocks to a high sculptured pottery-like pedestal”.

A total of 120 nests has now been manufactured and taken to the Bass Strait island by helicopter. They have been placed in breeding areas with low-quality natural nests, with most being reported in use by the birds. Rachael Alderman, marine biologist at the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment who has long studied the bird reports: “the albatrosses using the artificial nests are displaying all the usual courting rituals, territorial behaviours and nesting activities that we would expect to be associated with a natural nest. In most cases the pair has added their own mud and other material.”

“The nests, made of mud brick and aerated concrete, have been specially designed to mimic the properties of natural nests. They weigh between 12 kg and 20 kg and are 45 cm wide and 30 cm high. Researchers positioned the artificial nests just as the birds were starting to stake out nest sites and begin construction.” (click here). Eggs have already been laid in some of the artificial nests.

Artificial nests get unpacked on Albatross Island

An artificial nests gets placed next to a Shy Albatross

Two Shy Albatrosses take occupation of artificial nests

An incubating Shy Albatross had added mud to its artificial nest

A Shy Albatross has settled down in an incubation position on its well-plastered artificial nest

The project is being funded by the Tasmanian and Australian Federal Governments, WWF-Australia, the CSIRO and the Tasmanian Albatross Fund. If the artificial nests prove to be successful it is intended that more will be introduced.

Read more here and here.

An earlier intervention on the island that trialled insectidal spraying against avian pox resulted in increased chick survival in treated areas (click here).

Photographs taken in October 2017 by Matthew Newton, WWF-Australia

With thanks to Rachael Alderman, Matthew Newton and Robert Vagg.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 October 2017                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Gabriela Oliveira (Waterbirds and Sea Turtles Laboratory, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Brazil) and colleagues have published in the journal Marine Biodiversity on a first record of Scopoli’s Shearwater Calonectris diomedea in the south-west Atlantic Ocean.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Knowledge of marine biodiversity has been increased by combining modern and traditional tools that render species identification an accurate process. In addition, understanding the ecological differences between closely related species is critical for effective conservation. Calonectris (Aves: Procellariidae) is a four-species genus of phenotypically similar pelagic seabirds; three of the four species inhabit the Atlantic Ocean. However, this taxonomic splitting has not been completely recognised in the New World, hindering our understanding of species-specific nonbreeding distributions because of misidentification in nonbreeding areas. Here, we have presented the first Scopoli’s shearwater, Calonectris diomedea, in the southwest Atlantic Ocean by using morphometrics, stable isotope analyses, and bill and plumage colouring. Although the southwest Atlantic Ocean is a common nonbreeding area for the sister species, Cory’s shearwater, Calonectris borealis, and Cape Verde shearwater, Calonectris edwardsii, it has been considered a potential nonbreeding area for Scopoli’s shearwater. This study contributes to the separation of Cory’s shearwater from Scopoli’s shearwater and provides a record of the latter in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean, thus contributing to a better understanding of the nonbreeding range of Scopoli’s shearwater in the New World.”

Scopoli's Shearwater at sea, photograph by 'Pep' Arcos

Reference:

Oliveira, G., Nunes, G.T., Marques, F.P. & Bugoni, L. 2017. Scopoli’s shearwater, Calonectris diomedea, in the southwest Atlantic Ocean. Marine Biodiversity doi.org/10.1007/s12526-017-0798-9.

John Cooper, ACAP information Officer, 17 October 2017

Regular readers of ACAP Latest News will not be surprised to hear that as ACAP’s honorary Information Officer I have a good collection of books on procellariiform seabirds in my personal library – helpful as I research articles for the ACAP website. Among them are 17 books, nearly all on albatrosses, aimed at children that I have been collecting (and reviewing) over the last decade or so. Of these, no less than four have the North Pacific’s Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis as their subject bird. I also have two popular books on the Laysan Albatross that will be accessible to older children and to young adults. So is there space for yet another one on the bird?

Caren Loebel-Fried’s A Perfect Day for an Albatross published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology this August is, according to the advertising blurb, aimed at children aged six to thirteen years. My own take is that it is best aimed at the younger child in this range. As I read the text I got the feeling it’s a book to read out loud to young children at bedtime while they look at the author’s illustrations. By age thirteen I think children should be ready to read about albatrosses in more than just a picture book: Hob Osterlund’s Holy Mōlī, also on the Laysan Albatross, comes to mind.

The book describes the return of a young female Laysan Albatross, named Mālie (meaning “calm” or “serene” in the Hawaiian language), to Midway Atoll, an island the author has visited, after four years at sea. Mālie meets a male albatross called Kumukahi (”beginning” or “origin”) and after a few years of displaying together they commence to breed. Kumukahi takes over incubation duty and Mālie goes foraging at sea, catching squid and flying fish eggs and having the perfect day of the book’s title.

The award-winning author from Volcano Village on the “Big Island" of Hawai’i has created the book’s illustrations by hand carving linoleum blocks and then transferring their images with oil-based ink to hand-made Gampi paper. She then colours the prints with pencils and back ink (click here). The ensuing illustrations, which appear on every page, are bold and striking. I particularly liked the ones of the two albatrosses mutually displaying against the bright orange rays of a setting sun and of Mālie seemingly plunging through a maelstrom to seize a squid. The books ends with some factual information on albatross biology and conservation, helpful to answer questions that a child might raise.

"Reuniting":  Mālie and Kumukahi together.  The original print is being auctioned with proceeds going to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (click here)

"A perfect day"

The four other children’s books on Laysan Albatrosses in my library are in contrast all illustrated with paintings, not prints. Garbage Guts by Heidi Auman has a conservation theme as her albatross, Aria, struggles to deal with plastic pollution, having ingested bottle tops, toothbrushes and the like. Bryan Knowles’ Where Albatrosses Soar relates a story told in rhyme by a father to his son. Wisdom the Midway Albatross by Darcy Pattison with illustrations by Kitty Harvill is about the world's oldest known Laysan Albatross, first banded in 1956, and at last report still going strong (click here). The fourth book, Albatross of Kaua’i. The Story of Kaloakulua, written and illustrated by Susan Dierker, is the story of a real chick of the same name (referring to a phase of the waning moon) watched from its egg stage to fledging in 2013 via a “trosscam” mounted next to a nest on Kaua’i and operated by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

Twenty-five years or so ago if I then had all five books I would have read them to my daughter and then asked her which one she preferred. Who knows, one day I might be able to ask the question of a grandchild! Until then, I can recommend Carin’s latest book to parents looking for a gift for their pre-teen child. It can only help install and encourage a respect and love for the magnificent beings that albatrosses truly are.

The book is stated by the publisher as the first of a children’s series that “focuses on a fascinating bird species”. Perhaps a future book in the new series might take the rarer Black-footed Albatross P. nigripes that breeds alongside the Laysan Albatross on the low-lying atolls of the North-Western Hawaiian islands as its main subject. So far the score is 5:0 in favour of the more abundant Laysan!

With thanks to Caren Loebel-Fried.

Reference:

Loebel-Fried, C. 2017. A Perfect Day for an Albatross. Apex: Cornell Lab Publishing Group. Unpaginated [40 pp.]. ISBN 978-1-943645-27-5. Hardcover, many colour illustrations. USD 15.95. www.cornelllabpg.com.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 17 October 2017