Water, Water, Everywhere, and the Albatross Flies On

“At length did cross an albatross. Out of the fog it came.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Wisdom the Albatross returned to Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean recently, as she has for many years. She was tagged by researchers for the first time in 1956. Scientists say Wisdom is around 66 years old, the oldest wild bird ever documented. And she’s nesting again, laying another egg.

Wisdom the Albatross with her 2011 chick. Photo: Public Domain.

For much of the year, albatrosses are solo birds, flying alone for long stretches. I’m generalizing here, because there are several different kinds of albatross, but they have fairly common characteristics. By any measure, these birds are some of the most amazing creatures on the planet.

An albatross can fly for 10,000 miles at a stretch. It is capable of flying for six months at a time and of circumnavigating the globe in just 46 days. An albatross can make these journeys while barely flapping its wings. Huh?

Flying For Free

“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew. The furrow followed free.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

How can a bird fly for thousands of miles without beating its wings?

Image: Teara.govt.nz

If albatrosses barely move their wings during flight, how do they overcome gravity? They harness wind power in a maneuver called “dynamic soaring”. Scientists weren’t quite sure how it worked, so they affixed GPS trackers to some albatrosses in the Atlantic Ocean.

They saw these birds repeating the same basic movement again and again. It involves angling into the wind, gaining height to leverage the greater wind speed further above the ocean’s surface, and then turning back to swoop at speeds up to 67 miles per hour. As the albatross moves forward over the ocean, its path looks like a windy roller coaster or a wavy ribbon where one side’s turns are higher than the other’s.

This short video illustrates how dynamic soaring works.

While a female albatross like Wisdom spends many months nesting and raising one chick each year, she also spends much of her time gliding across the ocean. Like a lot of these birds, Wisdom has spent decades of her life flying solo.

What do they think about while they are up there gliding around? Their next meal? A few thousand miles is a long way to go for a fish or squid.

Lesbian Albatrosses Showcase Family Values (Maybe)

“Old men, and babes, and loving friends. And youths and maidens gay!” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Midway Atoll is a breeding ground for several kinds of albatross. Many of them, like Wisdom, are Laysan albatross. For the albatross that roam the North Pacific, Midway Island is a convenient resting place, lying roughly halfway between Asia and North America.

In 2007, U.S. First Lady Laura Bush visited Midway Island and saw the albatross colony firsthand. In a speech shortly afterwards, she took the opportunity to mention the albatross’ fidelity to their mates and the longevity of their relationships.

Former U.S. First Lady Laura Bush visited the Midway monument. Lots of curious onlookers in the background. Photo: White House.

The Laysan albatross became a poster child for family values. But a few more years of research made it clear that a conservative Christian like Mrs. Bush may not have been so pleased with those albatross’ alternative lifestyles. It turned out that many of the pairs were not male-female, but female-female.

Albatross Pair. Lateral Magazine.

Lots of Laysan albatrosses are gay. Sorry, Mrs. Bush. So much for the family values moment.

But in judging these birds’ family values, all we are doing is imposing flawed human standards on them. Anyone who suggests these birds do not practice family values is mistaken, because they are devoted partners and parents. When Mrs. Bush praised these birds’ commitments to one another, she wasn’t lying. Their relationships can last for a lifetime, each bird finding its mate again every year.

Since albatrosses look pretty much the same to us, Mrs. Bush simply missed that one detail: many of these loyal pairs contain two gals. Without knowing it, she was celebrating the family values exhibited by both same sex and opposite sex albatross pairs. They come together to nest and raise their young.

For some time, scientists had wondered why some albatross nests had two eggs in (or near) them. Each female albatross is capable of producing only one egg per year.

Two eggs meant…two ladies in one nest. Eeek! Lesbian birds! Tests of the birds confirmed their genders.

Companionship takes many different forms. In captivity, some animals from different species will pair up together due to lack of choices and probably a faded sense of what their own species looks like. Why many Laysan albatross pair up in same sex partnerships is not as clear, but it works for them, so who cares? Using the terms “gay” and “lesbian” for albatross probably is just a human construct anyway. Do they come together for sex? Probably not. There is a long list of animal species that engage in some homosexual acts, but that doesn’t seem to be the main point of these relationships. They come together for companionship and raising young together.

Inquisitr.com

Yes, it turned out that some of these gals were sneaking out and getting knocked up, then returning to their otherwise committed relationship.

What about the guys? Some of the biological dads had committed relationships with their own mates. And some of the dads were wanderer types. With two mother hens guarding a nest, I guess these dudes didn’t hang around to see if junior looked like them. Besides, why stick around when a 10,000 mile journey awaits?

The Modern Battles of Midway

“And with my crossbow, I shot the albatross.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Midway Atoll lies northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, in the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In World War II, this place was the scene of a decisive naval battle. Today, it is the setting for a different kind of battle. Plastic garbage of nearly every kind covers the high seas, littering the coastline of the two main islands at Midway.

A nesting albatross on Midway. Photo: Coastalcare.org

Birds pick up the plastic bits, thinking they are food. Plastic gets covered with algae and the smells of the ocean, so it even smells like their food.

The albatross’ main food source is squid, which often appears just below the water’s surface. They eat dead squid and fish also, which can float to the surface. Plastic floating in the ocean can look a lot like squid or fish.

One third of the albatross on Midway feed plastic to their chicks. Most albatross have plastic in their digestive organs. Wisdom the Albatross has survived the plastic so far, but albatross populations have plummeted. There may be other reasons for this, but the plastic surely is one of them.

In 2011, the albatross population on Midway got a preview of the effects of climate change. The Tohoku earthquake in Japan produced a tsunami which was 5 feet (1.5 meters) high when it reached Midway Atoll. The tsunami inundated much of the albatross’ nesting grounds, taking a heavy toll. In years to come, as sea levels rise, high tides and storm surges will continue to claim more of the islands.

Onward and Upward

“He prayeth well, who loveth well, both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best, all things both great and small.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

And the albatross flies on. We have learned so much about these fabulous creatures, uncovering some of their mysteries. Perhaps in learning about them, we will discover more about ourselves and our own place in the world.

References:
Thumbnail image: Albatross in Southern Ocean, Creative Commons via Flickr by Liam Quinn
Rime of the Ancient Mariner (text of poem): https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43997
Wisdom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_(albatross)
Wisdom Lays Again: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/wisdom-66-year-old-albatross-having-another-baby-180961400/
Albatross: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatross
Birds of Midway (also includes a page on Wisdom): https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Midway_Atoll/wildlife_and_habitat/Birds_of_Midway.html
Midway Atoll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Atoll
Dynamic Soaring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_soaring
Can Animals Be Gay? Award-winning NYT Story, Discussing Laysan Albatross and First Lady Bush’s Speech: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04animals-t.html