Wandering Albatross
Diomedea exulans
The bird with the widest wings in the world, which spends most of its life gliding over the open ocean.
The wandering albatross, which the IUCN now calls the snowy albatross, has the longest wingspan of any living bird, nearly 3.5 m from tip to tip. It hardly flaps at all: it glides on the wind across the Southern Ocean, scooping squid and fish from the surface, and it only comes to land to nest on a few remote islands. It lives for decades, finds one partner and raises a single chick every second year. That slow way of life is why losing even a few birds to fishing hooks hurts so much.
On the conservation status
Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List (assessed by BirdLife International in 2018), with about 20,100 adult birds. The main cause of its decline is accidental catches on longline fishing hooks.
- Length
- 107–135 cm (3.5–4.4 ft)
- Wingspan
- Nearly 3.5 m (11.5 ft)
- Weight
- 8–12 kg (18–26 lb)
- Lifespan
- Often 50 years or more
- Diet
- Squid, fish and crustaceans
- Eggs
- 1, every second year
The good stuff.
Wings made for gliding
The wings are long and narrow, and the bird can lock its shoulders so they hold out straight without effort. It glides on the wind, rising and falling along the waves, and barely has to flap.
Ten thousand kilometres on one trip
While raising a chick, a wandering albatross makes feeding trips of up to 10,000 km in 10 to 20 days, then flies all the way back to the nest to feed it.
Partners for life
Wandering albatrosses pair up and usually stay together. Each pair raises one chick every second year, so a couple can share a lot of years. In one study on the Crozet Islands, about 13% of birds split from their partner at some point.
A very slow family
The parents take turns sitting on a single egg for about 11 weeks, then feed the chick for roughly nine months more. It takes so long that the parents rest for a year before breeding again.
Born brown, grows up white
Young wandering albatrosses are chocolate brown. They get whiter each year, and the oldest males end up almost completely white, with just the tips and back edges of the wings still black.
Hooks on the line
Albatrosses follow fishing boats looking for bait and scraps, and some bite the baited hooks on longlines and drown. Scientists estimate fishing kills around 100,000 albatrosses a year, of many species. Special fishing gear, like lines that scare birds away, can prevent a lot of it.
Wait, really?
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It was named "wandering" for the huge distances it travels over the ocean.
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To court, a pair spread their wings, wave their heads and clack their bills together while braying.
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The wandering albatross used to be counted as a group of subspecies. Scientists have since split off several of them as their own species, including the Antipodean, Tristan and Amsterdam albatrosses.
What it sounds like
At the nest, a loud mix of screams, whistles, grunts and braying, plus bill-clapping when a pair greet each other. At sea it's mostly quiet.
We haven't found a recording we're allowed to share yet, so for now this one is a description.
Where you might see one
Almost never from land. It nests on remote Southern Ocean islands such as South Georgia, the Crozet and Kerguelen islands and Marion Island, and spends the rest of its time over the open ocean.
The trouble
- Longline fishing hooks, which drown birds that go for the bait
- Plastic and lost fishing gear in the ocean
- Storms and a changing climate around the nesting islands
One real thing
Choose seafood from fisheries that use bird-friendly gear, such as lines that scare birds away. Ask for it at the market, and look for labels from groups that check how fish are caught.
More ways to helpYour field notes
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