Lady Hawk

Royal Albatross ~ WYL Has Returned To His Nest! 💖 Egg Is 63 Days Old 💖 BOK Leaves To Forage! 1.15.26

WYL has returned to his nest to begin his incubation duty of their 63 day old fertile egg. They greeted each other with skycalls and allopreened one another as they had some quiet time together. It was a smooth business as usual changeover for WYL when BOK got up. BOK did some light gardening before she got up to leave to forage in the sea. Update from Sharyn Broni: "The fertile egg was laid on the 6th of November so is now 63 days old. Eggs are incubated for an average of 79 days before hatching so this egg is now over halfway through the incubation period. Give or take a few days, the chick is due to hatch near the end of January 2026. Visual checks for pipping at Plateau nest will start on the 18th of January. BOK has been on the nest for 8 days. Shorter changeovers are now likely. WYL’s GPS tracks shows that he travelled over 2000 km in the last 8 days. 2025/26 season update Hatching has started. With the first 2 eggs in the early pipping stages. Forty-seven eggs were laid in total this season, 2 eggs have broken and 2 were infertile, one has been determined a late dead embryo, and the rest are viable so far. Loses are inevitable, our work maximises the number of chicks fledging but cannot prevent all negative outcomes. Parents take turns incubating their large, single egg for the long incubation period until the chick hatches. Incubation stints can be quite short at the beginning and the end of the eggs incubation but often become quite long during the middle as they need to find enough food for themselves and the new chick to come. If a parent is on the nest for 13 days, we remove the egg to the incubator room for safe keeping as there is a risk of desertion. The toroa are happy to incubate a dummy egg. Hydration and supplementary feeding can be provided to toroa who have been on the nest longer than 15 days. When hatching is close the parents may start taking shorter foraging trips and more frequent turns on the nest. Many adolescents have arrived, and gams have been seen on the headland and the surrounding ocean on windy days. Feeding trips are interspersed with time on the headland. It generally takes 2 inexperienced birds 3 seasons to find a mate before they start breeding. Non-breeders will sometimes interact with breeders even with no familial relationship. It is practice in bonding for the non-breeders and an opportunity for the breeders to have the head lice scratched while their mate is away. Kaewa, The 2025 Royalcam chick Kaewa has crossed the Pacific Ocean | Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa and is now foraging in the Humboldt Current off the coast of Chile. Kaewa has travelled over 10,000 km so far. As the juveniles are no longer migrating but foraging the movements are not so obvious on the map at this scale. Several tags have stopped sending data at the end of November including Kaewa’s tag. It is possible that this may be a satellite issue. The above update is from the end of November, we will update this when we know more. In other GPS news the male who first rounded Cape Horn from the 2025 cohort has crossed the Atlantic Ocean and is heading across the Indian Ocean. This juvenile spent over 3 weeks feeding off the northern coast of Argentina and the last 21 days travelling well over 8000km. ( There is 8000km between the SP, start point and EP, end point in this map. Typically, toroa will circumnavigate the globe before returning to their breeding colony. Background on data collection All toroa at Pukekura have been banded with a uniquely numbered Stainless-Steel band since 1936 although the bands have changed over time. A colour combination for an alphanumeric band on the opposite leg means quicker identification. Yellow bands are females, and the males have black bands. Banding ensures that we will be able to recognise everyone in years to come and be able to collect lifespan and breeding success data. Geo Positioning System (GPS) tags are attached to back feathers and will moult off. They send the data via satellite so it can be viewed without retrieving the tag." Video captured & edited by Lady Hawk Please join the official facebook group Royal Cam Albatross Group New Zealand for up to date information on the albatross family and to share information on albatross conservation, photos and comments! https://www.facebook.com/groups/991026361293354/ Courtesy of Dept of Conservation Royal Cam, Royal Albatross Taiaroa Head, New Zealand https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/royal-albatross/ #royalalbatross #albatross #newzealand #royalcam