The Power of Albatross Partnerships

Wenfei Tong0:00

This is BirdNote. For most albatross species, raising a chick is a real challenge. Waved albatrosses produce such slow-growing, needy offspring that females lay only a single egg every two years, and both parents need to share the load until youngsters can hunt on their own. [albatross crying] Albatrosses tend to pair for life, and it can take a while to find the right partner, so some species don't start breeding until they're 10 years old, with some individuals even waiting till they're 20. Reunited pairs go through an elaborate synchronized ritual of braying, wing spreading, and bill tapping to reaffirm their bonds before getting down to the business of breeding. [albatross tapping] In Hawaii, biologists were puzzled to find that some Laysan albatross pairs had not one but two eggs. Then they found that some of the birds going so faithfully through the ritualized series of courtship displays were both female. [albatross crying] Although the eggs were fertilized by males that had since died or were from other pairs, the females were bonded to each other. Many of these female couples remain together for years. They can't successfully raise both offspring, but their combined efforts are necessary