The Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge near Hawaii has welcomed a special couple: George and Geraldine, two short-tailed albatrosses (Phoebastria albatrus). The birds have officially found each other for nesting season on the Midway Atoll for the 10th straight year in a row. George was first spotted on October 18, and the pair was reunited by October 22.
Every fall, the remote group of islands becomes a temporary home to the world’s largest albatross colony. Albatrosses are a group of large migratory seabird species, including the wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans), which has the largest wingspan of any current bird species. One Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis), on the other hand, claims the title of oldest known banded wild bird—the famous Wisdom, who is over 70 years old.
Short-tailed albatrosses (called makalena in Hawaiian) are almost completely white and feature a large pink bill. They can live up to 50 years, and as exemplified by George and Geraldine, are monogamous. They nest on islands and atolls, and the species is listed as endangered by both the United States government and the state of Hawaii. At the turn of the 20th century, feather hunting almost made the species go extinct.
“The vast majority of breeding for short-tailed albatross occurs on remote islands in the western Pacific, including Torishima Island, Japan, which is an active volcano south of Tokyo, and the Senkaku Islands near Taiwan,” according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). “Since 2000, biologists at the [Midway Atoll National Wildlife] refuge have used short-tailed albatross decoys and audio playback of the seabird’s calls to attract more of them.”
In fact, George and Geraldine are the only breeding pair of short-tailed albatross on the Midway Atoll, though other members of their species were spotted last season. They were banded as chicks on Torishima Island and first seen together on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. The cute pair brought their first chick into the world during the 2018-2019 breeding season.
“Millions of makalena once used their long wingspans to expertly glide on air currents across the northern Pacific Ocean, from Japan to Alaska and Hawaiʻi,” the FWS writes. “The slowly growing population is estimated at around 10,000 today.”
