Wandering Albatross

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{{Taxobox | color = pink | name = Wandering Albatross | status = Conservation status: Vulnerable | image = 2001671_Wandering Albatross.jpg | image_width = 200px | regnum = Animalia | phylum = Chordata | classis = Aves | ordo = Procellariiformes | familia = Diomedeidae | genus = Diomedea | species = D. exulans | binomial = Diomedea exulans | binomial_authority = Linnaeus, 1758 }} The Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans), is a large seabird from the family Diomedeidae which has a circumpolar range in the Southern Ocean. It was the first species of albatross to be described, and was long considered conspecific (the same species as) the Tristan Albatross and the Antipodean Albatross (though a few authours still consider them all subspecies of the same species). Together with the Amsterdam Albatross it forms the Wandering Albtaross species complex. The Wandering is a member of the genus Diomedea (the great albatrosses), and is one of the best known and studied species of bird in the world.

Like the rest of the genus, the Wandering Albatross have the largest wingspans of any birds, between 2.5 to 3.2m. The length of the body is between 110-135cm, and the weight is from 6 to 11 kg. The plumage of the bird varies with age, but is white overall on breeding adults except for the tips and trailing edges of the wings. The Wandering Albatross is the whitest of the Wandering Alabtross species complex; the other species have a greate deal more brown and black on the wings and body as breeding adults. The large bill is pink, as are its feet.

It feeds on squid, small fish and on animal refuse that floats on the sea, eating to such excess at times that it is unable to fly and rests helplessly on the water.

The albatross lays one egg: it is white, with a few spots, and is about 4 inches long. At breeding time the bird in loose colonies on isolated island groups in the Southern Ocean; Crozet Islands, South Georgia, Marion Island, Prince Edward Island, Kerguelen and Macquarie Island. It builds large nests, large cones built of vegetation that are 1 metre wide at the base and half a metre wide at the cone. When nesting, it is obvious how far their adaptation to flying has gone. Their landings are often better described as semi-controlled crashes.

Sailors used to capture the bird for its long wing-bones, which they manufactured into tobacco-pipe stems. The early explorers of the great Southern Sea cheered themselves with the companionship of the albatross in their dreary solitudes; and the evil fate of him who shot with his cross-bow the "bird of good omen" is familiar to readers of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The metaphor of "an albatross around his neck" also comes from the poem and indicates an unwanted burden causing anxiety or hindrance. In the days of sail it often accompanied a ship for days, not merely following it, but wheeling in wide circles around it without ever being observed to land on the water. It continued its flight, apparently untired, in tempestuous as well as moderate weather.

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References

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition{{#if:{{{article|}}}| article {{#if:{{{url|}}}|[{{{url|}}}}} "{{{article}}}"{{#if:{{{url|}}}|]}}{{#if:{{{author|}}}| by {{{author}}}}}}}, a publication now in the public domain.

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