This adult waved albatross on Hood Island (or Espanola) is preparing to breed. You can see the wavy pattern of feathers on the chest that give the bird its name. The albatross does not build a nest; it needs merely to find a suitable spot among the boulder fields. Here it scrapes a rough depression that serves as a nest. |
"And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen...
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Rime of the Ancient Mariner 1798
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