Northern Royal Albatross anxiety? (1 Viewer)

I've been enjoying the Northern Royal Albatross cam from New Zealand, which has been tracking the progress of a mated pair and their chick from egg to now: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/royal-albatross/

I notice that when a human comes by (they check these endangered birds regularly), the adult on the nest (usually the male) does something akin to grinding its teeth. I saw the chick do this, too. I wonder if this is a common way these birds show annoyance or anxiety. Any ideas?

No ideas but an interesting question. . ..

I can't give you an answer specifically about Northern Royal Albatrosses, but bill clapping, or a number of other behaviours involving uttering various low pitch sounds are associated with anxiety or nervousness in albatrosses. I was lucky enough to have worked for quite a few years with Black-browed Albatrosses on the Falklands and those behaviours are the norm. Albatrosses that are not used to see humans around the nesting areas will be invariably more nervous than the ones that are used to and habituated to human presence. However, some of those that see humans daily are still quite nervous, perhaps due to past experiences (with humans or predators?), but this is me speculating. On the opposite extreme, the ones less nervous will attempt to socialize with humans; in colonies I had to visit all nests on a daily basis some of the individuals would be rather tame indeed. A lot more would be there to say about this, but yes, it's a normal (and expectable) behaviour.

Thanks, Rafael. That's pretty good confirmation of something I just speculated about.

If the birds have been ringed they may remember the eperience.

occasional said:

If the birds have been ringed they may remember the eperience.

Click to expand...

All BBA on the colonies I was studying were ringed and that is thus irrelevant to explain differences in individual behaviour. Albatross ringing is not a traumatic experience, as they barely react: adults are ringed in the nest while incubating and only the leg is pulled gently from underneath the body to do that (I've done that to hundreds of individuals); some individuals will be nervous (and will bite strongly during the procedure) and most wont, already before they get a ring.