Thalassarche chrysostoma
The Grey-headed Albatross is a medium-sized albatross characterized by its striking grey head, neck, upper mantle, and upper back, which sharply contrasts with its white rump and underparts. Its distinctive bill is black, featuring a prominent bright yellow stripe along the culmen and a variable yellow-orange tip, often accompanied by a narrow yellow stripe on the lower mandible, giving it the species name 'chrysostoma' meaning 'golden mouth'. With a wingspan typically ranging from 1.8 to 2.2...
This is an exclusively pelagic species, spending most of its life at sea over the cold, productive waters of the Southern Ocean. It comes ashore only to breed on remote, windswept subantarctic islands, nesting typically at sea level or on low coastal slopes.
The primary diet of the Grey-headed Albatross consists of cephalopods (especially squid), fish, and crustaceans such as krill. They forage by surface-seizing prey from the ocean's surface or by performing shallow dives.
Grey-headed Albatrosses are highly social at their breeding colonies, forming dense aggregations on exposed headlands or tussock-covered slopes, but are largely solitary when foraging at sea. Their courtship displays are intricate and lengthy, involving elaborate bowing, head-shaking, sky-pointin...
The Grey-headed Albatross exhibits a circumpolar distribution across the Southern Ocean, generally foraging between 30°S and 60°S during the non-breeding season. Its breeding range is restricted to a number of remote subantarctic islands. Key breeding colonies are found on South Georgia (holding ...
Endangered
- The Grey-headed Albatross is one of the most efficient long-distance flyers, utilizing dynamic soaring to cover thousands of kilometers with minimal energy expenditure. - A successful breeding attempt for a pair typically spans over a year, from egg-laying to chick fledging, leading to their bi...