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The
Southern Ocean, including around New Zealand and southern Australia, is
blessed with a plethora of pelagic (oceanic) seabirds. And there are ample
opportunities for sea-birders, either hard-core (they’re a weird bunch!) to
indulge their obsession; or itinerants and dabblers, to whet/appease their
interest and, usually, add a few birds to swell their life lists. I fall
essentially into the latter group, though I am a member of the Australasian
Seabird Group (ASG), a member of the Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association
(SOSSA), and am coming up for my tenth trip on their renowned/notorious pelagic
trips out of Wollongong on the redoubtable Sandra K.
Last
year, I participated in the “SOSSA pelagic” on 7 July, my first
pelagic since 2002, and my first Sandra K trip with a decent (digital) camera.
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| Buller's Albatross is a stunning bird! |
Buller’s
Albatross is essentially a bird of the seas around New Zealand, though it forages
into south-eastern Australian waters and there are seasonal movements by some
birds across the southern Pacific to the Humboldt Current off the coasts of Chile and Peru in western South America.
The
breeding grounds are located on isolated islets in several of New Zealand’s
offshore island groups. These include the Snares (latitude 48.03 S) and
Solander Islands (46.57 S) off South Island, the Sisters and Forty-fours of the
Chatham Island group to the east of New Zealand (43.75 S), and a small number
of pairs breed on a tiny islet, Rosemary Rock, in the Three Kings Islands group
off the north-western tip of the North Island (34.18 S).
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| The broad yellow bill stripes, top and bottom, are characteristic of the Buller's Albatross. |
Birds
of the southern population (from the Snares and Solander Islands) lay eggs in
January with the chicks fledging in August-September. The more northerly population
(Chatham and Three Kings Islands) however, starts earlier, laying in
October-November with fledglings in June-July.
Because
of this, the two populations have long been considered sub-species, but recent
trends mean they are sometimes considered as separate species – Buller’s
Albatross in the south, and Pacific Albatross Thalassarche platei in the north.
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| Buller's Albatross off Wollongong, NSW, July 2013. |
Whatever their specific status, they are very similar morphologically
and distinguishing them at sea is probably unreliable, despite the Pacific form
being attributed with a larger/wider bill, a silver-grey rather than silver-white
cap, and darker hood and feet. Further
genetic, morphological and behavioural data may help sort things out.
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| Buller's Albatross following the Sandra K - off Wollongong, NSW, July 2013. |
The
diet of Buller’s Albatross is mainly fish, cephalopods (squid etc), crustaceans
and salps (weird barrel-shaped planktonic tunicates - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salp ).
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| Buller's Albatross scrambling for berley off Wollongong, NSW, July 2013. |
There are probably
somewhere in the order of 60,000 Buller’s Albatross (approximately 45% bulleri and 55% platei). Young birds may start returning to the breeding islands
three years after fledging, but probably don’t start breeding until 10 to 11
years of age.
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| Sleek, beautiful lines of the Buller's Albatross. |
The
Buller’s Albatross is sometimes called Buller’s Mollymawk,
and if distinguishing between the two sub-species/species, bulleri is also known as the Southern Buller’s Albatross, while platei might be referred to as Northern
Buller’s Albatross, Pacific Albatross or Pacific Mollymawk. If you were French
or Spanish it would be Albatros de Buller, and Herr Schmidt would know it as
the Bulleralbatros.
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| Buller's Albatross off the stern of the Sandra K - off Wollongong, NSW, July 2013. |
So Mr Buller’s name
is firmly attached to this bird, it being given by Walter Rothschild* when
naming the bird Diomedea bulleri in 1893 (Diomedea platei was
described five years later, in 1898, by Reichenow*).
Diomedea was the original genus name for
albatrosses, conferred by Linneaus in 1758, and refers to Diomedes, King of
Thrace of Iliad fame, though the connection to albatrosses is a little
convoluted and might possibly not have been the best choice. The genus Thalassarche
was first raised by Reichenbach* in 1852, when he split the albatrosses into
four genera, with Thalassarche encompassing the smaller southern
albatrosses or mollymawks. Thalassarche
means leader or ruler of the sea from Greek thalassa = sea, and arkhos, -archy =
leader or ruler.
But getting back to bulleri,
the name honours Sir
Walter Lawry Buller*, a New Zealand lawyer and naturalist who dominated the
field of New Zealand ornithology. Born in 1838, the son of a Wesleyan
missionary, he is best known in ornithological circles for his book, A history of the
birds of New Zealand, initially published in 1873, and later expanded and republished
in 1888 with chromolithographic plates by J. G. Keulemans.
* References and links for further reading:
http://www.acap.aq/en/acap-species
(and go to the Buller’s Albatross pdf link)
Albatrosses. WLN Tickell, 2000. Yale University
Press.
Australian
Bird Names – a complete guide.
Ian Fraser & Jeannie Gray, 2013. CSIRO Publishing.
Whose
Bird? Bo Beolens and Michael
Watkins, 2003. Yale University Press.
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