The Chatham albatross is a medium-sized black-and-white albatross which breeds only on The Pyramid, a large rock stack in the Chatham Islands, New Zealand. It is sometimes treated as a subspecies of the shy albatross "Thalassarche cauta". It is the smallest of the shy albatross group.
Similar species: Petrels And Albatrosses
By Thibaud Aronson
All rights reserved
Uploaded Jul 7, 2025. Captured Jul 5, 2025 08:14 in C5M3+PFM, Puerto De Lomas 04570, Peru.
comments (5)
Absolutely a dream bird for me, the entire population of this albatross breeds on the Pyramid, a single sea stack barely over a km wide in the Chathams, way to the east of New Zealand. And then they casually cross the entire Pacific, flying up to 700 km a day, to come feed in the Humboldt current. They're mostly seen off Chile, but as more people watch the Peruvian waters, it's becoming apparent that it's a regular visitor in the south of the country, usually far offshore.
With a few friends we organized 2 back to back pelagic trips this weekend on a shabby fishing boat and had a blast! We saw 5 different albatross species, with up to 8 individual birds at a time, flying all around us or landing on the water to come check out our boat. This one was the star of course, one of the first we saw, barely 7 or 8 nautical miles out! The encounter was all too brief and he never came close, but still it was grins all around as this was only the 13th ebird record of that species for Peru. Plus, it was my 13th albatross species overall, so hey, lucky thirteen! Posted 2 months ago, modified 28 days ago
"The birds, once they depart the colony, spend five to seven years at sea."
Congrats on seeing this treasure! Posted one month ago