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Albatrosses are considered by many to be the most majestic of all Antarctic birds. Their long, narrow wings are strikingly graceful. Equally impressive are the large heads featuring massive hooked bills. Their bodies are mainly white and they have long necks, short legs, and mostly short tails. Albatrosses are supreme gliders; with modified wings to maximize the updrafts and thermals over the open ocean. Albatrosses are best observed during rough weather, when high waves create strong uplifting air currents, enabling them to remain aloft with hardly a wing beat for hours on end.
Albatrosses spend the better part of their lives on the wing, gliding and circling the wind systems of the Southern Ocean.
There is thought to be a total of 750,000 breeding pairs of the 13 species of these massive birds.
Adult Albatrosses share incubation, brooding and feeding of the single chick.
Adults have been recorded flying up to 550 miles per day at speeds of 50 mph, and in a single foraging flight they can cover an incredible 1800 to 9300 miles, a distance greater than the diameter of the earth.
Albatross mortality is high in the first year, but those which survive often surpass 50 years, making them one of the most well-travelled animals in the world.
In today's world, their main threat is being snared in gill-nets and caught on longline hooks.
In folklore the Albatross carried the soul of dead mariners. Should a sailor kill the bird, bad luck would fall upon him for the rest of his natural life. This belief was not universally held, as Albatross feet were once used as tobacco pouches.
