Scientists on a research vessel off the Central California coast spotted a waved albatross, marking just the second recorded sighting of the bird north of Central America. The yellow-billed bird with black button eyes, which can have an 8-foot wingspan and spends much of its life flying over the ocean, also came with a mystery: Researchers wonder how and why a species known to breed in the Galapagos Islands—roughly 3,000 miles away—ventured so far north, per the AP. To scientists, it's a "vagrant" bird, one traveling far outside its typical range. It was spotted 23 miles off the coast of Point Piedras Blancas, roughly midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The adult bird "doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get back south," says marine ornithologist Tammy Russell, who was on the vessel and noted that the same bird apparently was spotted in October off the Northern California coast. "I can't even believe what I saw," Russell wrote on Facebook. "I'm still in shock." Russell, a contract scientist with the Farallon Institute and a postdoctoral scholar at UC-San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said it's all but impossible to determine why the bird ended up so far from its home.
It could've been driven north by a storm. Some birds also have a rambling spirit and just go farther than others. "It likely didn't breed last season, because adults lay their [eggs] in spring and the chicks leave the nests by January," Russell notes in an email. "Perhaps it went wandering on its year off and will soon return to the Galapagos to be reunited with its mate for the next season?" Russell adds: "Who knows how long it will stay around or if it will ever return ... That's why these sightings are so special."
The International Union for Conservation of Nature calls the bird—the largest in the Galapagos—critically endangered. Per the American Bird Conservancy, its range is restricted to the tropics. It nests on lava fields amid scattered boulders and sparse vegetation. The bird can live up to age 45, feeding primarily on fish, squid, and crustaceans. Russell notes that if multiple birds were being seen in California, it could be a sign they were being driven northward by environmental factors. Previously, she's written about five species of booby that are now common off of California due to warming temperatures and marine heat waves.
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