The Waved Albatross, Phoebastria irrorata - is the only Albatross that lives and breeds in the tropics. It is the largest bird of the Galapagos Islands. They are medium-sized Albatrosses.
They are distinctive for their yellowish-cream neck and head, which
contrasts with their mostly brownish bodies. Even more distinctive is
the very long, bright yellow bill, which looks disproportionately large
in comparison to the relatively small head and long, slender neck. They
also have chestnut brown upper parts and underparts, except for the
breast, with fine barring, a little coarser on the rump. They have brown
upper-wings, back, and tail, along with a whitish breast and
underwings. They have blue feet. On land they walk with
a waddle and appear to be very clumsy, but in the air,
they are among the most graceful of all sea birds.
The Waved Albatross derives its name from the wave-like pattern of its feathers.
They spend part of the year at sea and do not travel very far, nor are they gone for
a very long time. From January through to March, they are
found in the Pacific east of the Galapagos, and along
the coasts of Ecuador and northern Peru. Many often congregate
in the Gulf of Guayaquil. They begin to return in mid-late
March, the males arriving first. Waved albatrosses mate
for life, so the male returns to the previous year's breeding
territory and waits for his partner to arrive.
Waved albatrosses, like other albatrosses,
engage in a very lengthy, noisy, and complex courtship
ritual. The dance involves bill-fencing, in
which the partners bend, face each other, and rapidly
slap their bills back and forth. In another step each
faces the other in an upright posture, sometimes poising
with bill wide open. The bills are then shut with a loud
clap. Sometimes the birds will clatter their bills rapidly.
The dance also involves bowing, and parading around one
another with the head swaying side to side in an exagerated
sway, accompanied by a nasal "anh-a-annhh" sound.
These steps are interspersed frequently with bouts of
bill fencing. The dance is longer and more involved in
new pairs, or in pairs that failed to breed in the previous
season.
Between mid-April and July the pair produces
one egg, which is incubated by both parents for about
two months. The chick is dark brown, and covered with
curly dark brown downy feathers. For the first few weeks
after hatching, one parent guards the chick while the
other forages for food. By the end of December, the chicks have
fledged, and they leave their nurseries with their parents
and head for the western Pacific. Although their parents
return to breed the following
year, the fledglings remain away for five to six years,
at which time they also return to begin breeding for the first time.
The primary food sources of the Waved Albatross are Squid, Fish and Crustaceans. When foraging the Waved Albatross finds points in the ocean where prey
will be more surfaced. They will forage 10 to100 km away from the place where the chicks are nesting to get food for them.