Black-browed Beauties

I was lucky enough to see the Yorkshire Black-browed Albatross several times over a few years, as it graced the Bempton Cliffs Gannet colony, and it remains the best rarity I have seen in the UK. To get the opportunity to see this species in the mighty Southern Ocean was a dream come true, and despite the other fantastic birds we saw, this species was never demoted to 'just another Black-brow'. They are truly superb birds, with a gentle, almost mystical quality, conveyed by the simplest of eye make-up: a black brow line. Masterful fliers, they rode the wind with ease, disappearing to unbelievably low levels in the troughs between swells, before arcing up majestically, with scarcely a flap of their two-and-a-half metre wingspan. 

 

Our first encounter was slightly surreal, being from the shore at Ushuaia, as these birds cruised in off the South Atlantic into the Beagle Channel. From the moment we departed the quay in Ushuaia port, they were our constant companions as we made our way towards one of their major breeding areas - the Falkland Islands. Here we visited a large colony at New Island where we were able to immerse ourselves in its sights and sounds. 

 

Large, fluffy grey chicks perched precariously atop mud chimney nests, eagerly awaiting the return of a parent, with a regurgitated squid breakfast.

The returning adults usually engaged in some rather gorgeous pair-bonding, a courtship display involving bill rubbing and pointing, fanning of their short grey tails, interspersed with lots of high-stepping and rather drunk-like swaying. Sometimes the excitement would be too much and birds would then strut around with beak agape, trumpeting joyously. 

 

 

 

Away from the large colonies on the Falklands, Black-brows tailed us across the open ocean to South Georgia, and then down to the South Shetlands, where we found large numbers feeding in the melee of seabirds and cetaceans on vast krill swarms. Black-brows are one of the commonest albatrosses, with a circumpolar breeding distribution of about 600,000 pairs, of which two thirds nest on the Falklands. The population is decreasing and is classified as Endangered, due to the usual issues of long-line fisheries, predation of eggs and young at breeding colonies by introduced non-native mammals and starvation caused by plastic ingestion. Hopefully, with all these issues being addressed, Black-brow numbers may gradually recover.