Watching Albatross in flight was pretty spectacular!
There were hundreds of them at Kaena Point the afternoon I set out for the hike. Some of the Albatross seemed to be showing off their skills by gliding around like speeding bullets with the ocean wind. You probably can’t tell in the photos, but these beauties have the largest wingspan of any bird – up to 11 ft.Beginning to hunker down for mating season soon, I got to watch one male try to start a courtship with s female. I’m not sure if the female was having any of his strutting and wing flapping since she blooped down to only watch him swagger around.
There’s a semi funny story about the natural reserve area, Kaena Point, these Albatross are living. The reason there is a fence around the area is to keep out bird predators like the mongoose. Funny part about the mongoose, they are an invasive species brought to Hawaii in the late 1800’s by sugar cane plantation owners to help control the rat population. Problem with that idea was rats are nocturnal while mongoose are active during the day. Bad move by humans…haha. The albatross began to take a small dip in numbers before eventually being put on list for conservation.
I’m just happy I got a couple good flight photographs of these big birds!
